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THE PLAIN DEALER . SUNDAY, JULY 11, 1999 5-H
OUR CENTURY1975
AT A GLANCE
Car bomb kills Shondor BirnsBy Fred McGunagle
It truly can be said of ShondorBirns that nothing in life so befittedhim as the way he left it.
On Holy Saturday evening in 1975,he left Christy’s Bar at W. 25th St.and Detroit Ave. and walked to his1975 Lincoln Continental. He got inand turned the key. With a blastheard for blocks, Shondor was blownthrough the roof. Parts of him camedown across the street at St. MalachiChurch, where parishioners weregathering for the 8 p.m. Easter VigilMass.
Shondor Birns had died as he lived— violently, and with Page One head-lines.
•The papers called him Alex “Shon-
dor” Birns, but that was backwards.He was born Szandor (Hungarian
for Alexander) Birnstein in either1905 or 1907 in what is now the Slo-vak Republic town of Lemesany,which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
He was only a month old when hisfamily came to Cleveland and wentinto the bootlegging business. AuthorRick Porrello records that in 1920Birns’ mother was killed when thestill in their home exploded. The red-headed youth spent his teens in theJewish Orphanage.
On graduation, he fell in with theMaxie Diamond gang. In the next 12years, his “rap sheet” showed 18 ar-rests. In 1925, Birns was sent to theMansfield Reformatory for two yearsfor auto theft. In 1933, he served 30days in the Workhouse for assault and60 days for bribery.
In 1934, Birns was shot during ascuffle with a nightclub bouncernamed Rudy Duncan. On the witnessstand, Birns denied knowing who shothim. Duncan was acquitted. A fewweeks later, Duncan was killed bygunfire from a car that pulled along-side his.
Birns soon became a power in whatwas variously called the “numbers”or “policy” or “clearinghouse”racket, in which operators enforcedtheir territory by bomb and gun. Ineffect, it was an illegal lottery; news-papers regularly denounced it untilthe state went into the business. Soonthe papers were labeling Birns PublicEnemy No. 1. He loved the publicity;it was good for business.
On the legit side, he operated night-clubs — the 1011 Club on ChesterAve. and then the Alhambra at E.105th St. and Euclid Ave. The latterbecame the place to be seen. A genialhost, Birns especially enjoyed enter-taining news people and police.
During World War II, Birns tried toenlist. His draft board, figuring thatbetter he should be shooting Ger-mans, went to bat for him, but thearmed forces refused him. Instead,since was still a Hungarian citizen, hewas interned as an enemy alien. Afterthe war, the United States tried to de-port him to what had become Czecho-slovakia. Czechoslovakia wouldn’ttake him.
In 1949, Birns beat up a policemanand served nine months in the Work-house. The Workhouse superinten-dent was later fired for allowingBirns to take virtual control of theplace. While he was there, the homeof policy operator Henry “Buster”Mathews was bombed. Mathewsblamed Birns, and a Workhouseguard said he helped Birns plan thebombing.
The newspapers had a field daywith the two-month trial of Birns andfour other hoods. Witnesses told ofmob operations and payoffs to police.Defense attorney William Corrigandemanded: “Why is Buster Mathewsallowed to conduct the biggest policyracket in the city unmolested?” Thejury deadlocked; Safety Director AlSutton later charged that Birns hadtried to bribe and scare off witnesses.
Birns served three years in federalprison for income tax evasion in the1950s, but repeatedly beat localcharges. In 1957, a numbers operatornamed Donald “the Kid” King —later a nationally known boxingpromoter — stopped paying protec-tion money. When King’s house wasbombed, he told police he would tes-
McGunagle is a Cleveland free-lance writer.
tify that Birns was responsible, andhe did — even after he suffered headwounds from shotgun pellets. How-ever, King’s testimony failed to con-vince the jury.
In 1959, somebody shot at Birns.Word on the street was it was Clar-ence “Sonny” Coleman, a numbersoperator. Soon afterward Colemanwas shot from a passing car; he saidBirns was the driver. In court, Cole-man suddenly said he had beenwrong: it wasn’t Birns. He was ar-rested as a material witness and thenext day testified it had been Birnsafter all. The jury didn’t know whichversion to believe. Once more, Birnswalked.
The most sensational case involv-ing Birns was the murder of financierMervin Gold. In 1961, Gold was ac-cused of defrauding banks and theSmall Business Administration by us-ing stolen Canadian bonds as collat-eral for loans. He fled to Israel, butreturned in 1962 to face trial and in-dicated he would cooperate.
In July 1963, Gold’s wife reportedhim missing. On July 5, his car wasfound in the woods of Solon with hisbody in the trunk. He had been stran-gled and shot. His wife gave police anenvelope he had left in case he everdisappeared. It contained an affidavitthat he had gotten the stolen bondsfrom Birns. His wife said he hadplanned to meet Birns on the night hedisappeared.
Birns was nowhere to be found,though his leased auto was spottednear a motel in Toledo. Five dayslater, he showed up in Cleveland andtold police he had heard he waswanted. He insisted that on the nightGold was killed he had been at home— and could produce a woman “offine character” who would swear she
had been with him all night.Her identity was a shock. She was a
24-year-old Garfield Heights school-teacher named Allene Leonard. Frus-trated police could not bring charges.Shortly afterward, Birns marriedLeonard, having recently divorcedhis first wife.
•His cronies at the Theatrical Res-
taurant on Short Vincent Ave. re-membered “Shon” as a nice guy, gen-erous to those in need. Reportersmourned him because, as the Pressput it, “he was good copy and everready to stand them a drink.” Eventhe police who knew him as a cold-blooded killer found him hard to dis-like.
His murder went down as unsolved,like so many of which he himself wassuspected. In “To Kill the Irishman:The War that Crippled the Mafia,”Rick Porrello fingers Danny Greene,a young hood who had once workedfor Shondor as an enforcer and hadambitions of taking over the rackets.
Barely two years later, Greene met
a similar fate as he left his dentist’soffice. Nobody could match the half-century survival record of ShondorBirns, the charming killer.
PLAIN DEALER FILE PHOTO
Bewildered Browns Coach Forrest Greggand owner Art Modell.
Another year,another fiscal crisis
Thousands of Clevelanders jammed PublicSquare to welcome 1975. Emcee Doug Adairintroduced Mayor Ralph Perk, who would sing“that great and beautiful song, ‘I Believe.’ ”
It was a fitting choice. When “Auld LangSyne” died away, Perk would face a financialcrisis for the fourth time in his four NewYear’s Days as mayor. His plan to lay off 269police and firefighters had been ruled illegalbecause it had not been approved by CityCouncil. Perk was under court orders to getrid of 300 “temporary” employees — many ofthem patronage appointees — who had servedbeyond the 90-day limit set by civil serviceregulations.
Through horse-trading with Council Presi-dent George Forbes, Perk won approval of thesafety layoffs, and by appealing the civil serv-ice ruling he won enough time for a crash test-ing program to legalize the employees.
Cuyahoga County voters approved a 1 per-cent “piggyback” sales tax for the RegionalTransit Authority, enabling RTA to pay Cleve-land for the Cleveland Transit System.
Perk transferred the money-losing city zooto the Metroparks. Federal funds from the newCommunity Development Block Grants andthe Comprehensive Employment and TrainingAct allowed him to rehire laid-off employeesor find other ways to do their jobs.
It would turn out later than Finance Direc-tor Warren Riebe was also “borrowing” bondfunds for city operations. For now the banks,which had lent the city money routinely,“rolled over” the loans at the end of each year.
•Perk finished 5,000 votes behind school
board President Arnold Pinkney in the seven-man Sept. 30 mayoral primary. But there weretwo ways to look at the results.
One was that Democrats (four of them) hadoutpolled Republicans (Perk) 70,000 to 45,000.The other was that, counting three minor-party candidates, whites had outpolled blacks67,000 to 50,000.
County Democratic Chairman Anthony Ga-rofoli said his party, which had stayed neutralin the primary, would give “enthusiastic andunqualified” support to Pinkney. The thirdand fourth candidates, State Rep. PatrickSweeney and former state lottery officialJames Dickerson, endorsed Pinkney. Pinkney,who is black, declared, “We’ve proved once forall that racism is dead, that polarization isdead.”
In the campaign, however, white Demo-crats, especially council members, were nota-ble by their absence. The Nov. 4 count wasPerk, 98,000, Pinkney, 83,000.
•The National Weather Service was predict-
ing a 20 percent chance of rain on Sunday,Aug. 24. Suddenly, it was as though Lake Eriehad been picked up and dropped on Cleveland.Up to 4 inches of rain fell between 2:30 and8:30 p.m. Thirty families were evacuated fromsoutheastern Cleveland and WarrensvilleHeights.
Two boys, 12 and 14, were killed by lightingas they ran under a tree at Kingsbury Park. A10-year-old girl wading along W. 130th St.drowned when she plunged into a catch basinwhose cover had washed away.
A 41-year-old man drowned swimmingacross University Circle in an attempt to findhis daughter’s car, one of a number under thewater. Some East Side intersections were stillunder water Monday morning. Case WesternReserve University was flooded.
•All four Cleveland sports franchises had los-
ing seasons, though the Indians and the Cava-liers came close to .500. Nick Mileti’s Crusad-ers slipped to 35-40-3, but his Cavaliersimproved to 40-42. The addition of center JimChones and guard Dick Snyder gave the Cavsreason to look forward to the 1975-76 season.
Frank Robinson was baseball’s first blackmanager and the Indians’ first playing man-ager since Lou Boudreau. He got Mileti’s Indi-ans off to a memorable start before 56,000 onOpening Day when he hit a home run in hisfirst at bat. Boog Powell, Robinson’s old team-mate with the Baltimore Orioles, hit 27 homeruns for the Indians, but the team finishedfourth, at 79-80.
The Browns opened with a 24-17 loss to Cin-cinnati, a 42-10 loss to Minnesota and a 42-6loss to Pittsburgh. After the third loss, ownerArt Modell held a closed-door meeting withrookie coach Forrest Gregg and hinted at dras-tic changes. The next week, the Browns lost toHouston 40-10. A bewildered Gregg hired andfired kick returners almost weekly. After los-ing its first nine games, the team won three ofits last five; Gregg was retained.
PLAIN DEALER FILE PHOTOS
When Shondor Birns’ Lincoln Continental exploded, the blast was heard for blocks.
Birns appears in court in 1937 oncharges of carrying concealedweapons.
Birns puts up bond at the Central Police Station in 1950, a familiarprocedure by then.
Birns in 1950, after a “not guilty”verdict.
LOOKING AT A YEAR
Feb. 11: Britain’s ConservativeParty elects its first female leader.She is Margaret Thatcher, formerminister of education.
Feb. 21: John Mitchell, John Ehr-lichman and H.R. Haldeman are sen-tenced to prison for their roles in theWatergate cover-up.
April 30: Saigon surrenders to Viet-
namese Communists. A few dayslater, it is renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
April 13: Jack Nicklaus wins arecord-setting fifth Masters golf tour-nament.
Sept. 18: Hostage-turned-fugitivePatty Hearst is arrested in San Fran-cisco.
Oct. 1: Muhammad Ali defeats JoeFrazier in a Philippines boxing matchthat becomes known as the Thrilla inManila.
Nov. 12: In failing health, WilliamO. Douglas retires from the U.S. Su-preme Court.
Dec. 17: Lynette “Squeaky“
Fromme and Sara Jane Moore aresentenced to life in prison for tryingto assassinate President Gerald Ford.
Born: Tiger Woods, Drew Barry-more.
Died: Chiang Kai-shek, FranciscoFranco, Susan Hayward, FredricMarch, Aristotle Onassis, CaseyStengel.