WHEN THE BOOTLEGGER SPECIAL
COMES TO TOWN
by L. F. Van Zelm
Published in the Larchmonter-Times, 1922
By Ned Benton
During 1922, the Larchmonter-Times published a series of cartoons by L. F. Van Zelm. The cartoons featured local merchants, advertising their stores, and lampooning local residents. Larchmonters today may recognize the names of relatives. The fifth cartoon in the series focused on prohibition - and the possibility that big-city bootleggers would come to Larchmont. Federal enforcement of prohibition had initially focused on New York City, but the law enforcement community, in 1922, was concerned that bootlegging would be displaced from Manhattan to Westchester County. This concern was explained locally in a Larchmonter-Times newspaper article, headlined: Prohibition agents think high-flyers will do their future hip-toting in this county. Roadside Inns to be closely watched from now on.
Van Zelm's cartoon speculates on the moment when the bootleggers would arrive in Larchmont. The cartoon features a wild-west shootout between the bootleggers and the entire Larchmont Police Department. During the shoot-out, Larchmont residents, reflecting the national ambivalence toward prohibition, brought out their pots and pans to gather up any spilt hooch!
The bootleggers arrive with guns blazing. Note that the radiator cap on their car is not standard-issue. A hole has been shot in a keg of liquor on the back of the car.
Larchmont Police Chief Bill Hynds spreads nails on the Bost Post Road, as Sergeant Gus Anthes fires on the bootleggers from behind a streetlight.
Four more of Larchmont's finest are deployed on roofs of stores, including officer Gene Marshall. One resident is apparently firing a water pistol from an upper window.
Several more police officers - Ken Ireland, Ollie Cochran, Frank Hodson, John Bartlett, and Otto Verchoor respond from a side street. Vershoor is preparing to fire a small cannon.
Bill Keresey, the first Keresey who eventually became Police Chief in Larchmont, is depicted attempting to lasso the bootleggers, but his rope hits a local resident, Art Greenwood. Officer Frank Haugelstine appears perilously in the line of fire. Officer Jim O'Loughlin is depicted firing backwards and hitting Jacob Zvirin who was the proprietor of Zvirin's Stationery Shop. For the record, this didn't actually happen.
Above is a picture of Jacob Zvirin's store on the Boston Post Road in 1911, courtesy of historian Judith Doolin Spikes, and her Larchmont Then and Now book of historical pictures of Larchmont. According to Judith, Zvirin maintained his stationery store from 1900 until well past 1925. He was a printer for the Jewish Daily Forward, a frequent candidate for local office, and the father of Phil Severin (d. 1986), a Larchmont realtor and local historian. By 1922, Zvirin's store had moved to the building next door.
Desperate thirsts require desperate measures, as one Larchmonter hangs out of a window in an attempt to get a fair share of some of the bootleggers product.
Other Larchmonters are not fully cooperative with the police, as one lady is shown dropping a flower pot on the head of one of our officers.
Larchmont residents, like many people during prohibition, had a mixed view of prohibition. Van Zelm shows Larchmonters taking greater interest in getting a share of the bootlegger's brew than in fighting organized crime. Local residents are scooping, vacuuming, pumping and just plain licking up the hooch that spilled on the street.
To see the entire cartoon at once, click below:
WHEN THE BOOTLEGGER SPECIAL COMES TO TOWN
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