Tag: Dance Hall
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Andy Warhol, John Paonessa, the Rosenbergs and Sing Sing’s notorious death house.
So, what links the icon of pop art, the atom spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and an almost-forgotten murderer named John Paonessa? Simple, the electric chair. Warhol used this image to create a series of coloured screenprints. Part of his recurring fascination with life’s dark side, Old Sparky was as famous as Warhol long before…
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1954, a mass break-out from Sing Sing’s Death House (almost) and Sing Sing’s last ‘triple-hitter.’
Rosario, believing he had done enough to catch the right eyes, awaited his clemency and heard nothing. There was no more ominous silence than when a Governor was considering clemency, it usually meant there wouldn’t be any.
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On This Day in 1925 – John Hurlburt performs his last execution. ‘Yellow Charleston’ has his last dance.
A few years ago I covered the story of John Hurlburt, New York’s second ‘State Electrician.’ Trained by predecessor Edwin Davis, Hurlburt executed 140 prisoners during his tenure. Hurlburt’s official debut was executing George Coyer and Giuseppe DeGoia at Auburn Prison on August 31 1914. Unofficially he had already executed prisoners under Davis’s supervision. As…
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On This Day in 1927 – Paul Hilton, Antonio Paretti and the finale of the Mafia-Camorra War.
Double executions were no rarity at Sing Sing, especially in the Roaring Twenties. Prohibition and the Jazz Age saw an unprecedented number (125 men and a few women) walk their last mile in the Empire State. That trend would peak in the 1930’s (153) before decreasing in the 1940’s (114) and decline further in the…
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