MURDER IN A LIFT

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 90, 4 July 1930, Page 8

MURDER IN A LIFT

'NEW YORK WIGi-if L.15-E KING’S DEATH. “HIRED" GUNMEN X FAY YORK. Harry Block, a tliirty-six.yoai-old man who was one oi. the most notorious characters of New York nightlife. was murdered by two gunmen at three o’clock this morning. They shot him dead in the lift of a fashionable apartment house as he was returning home with his wife while a woman confederate kept watch at the door of the building. The crime which bears resemblance to Chicago methods of underworld assassination, is baffling to the police, because they found £B7O in cash in Block’s pocket, which the assassins did not make any effort to take, nor .did they rob Mrs. Block oi the expensive jewels she was wearing. The police believe that the motive wan underworld revenge, hut they have no clue except a vague description of thy assassins, and the knowledge that they escaped in a ta'n-colonrcd sports model motorcar. NOTORIOUS CLUB Block was the part owner of the Harlem Cotton (Tub, a notorious night club of Now A ork s negro district, and of the Silver Slipper night club. He had a criminal record which began in 1912, covering twelve crimes, from petty larceny to as. sault and robbery. He had been convicted three times. The police discovered a notebook in his pocket containing the names of Ownie Madden, a. former convict and hacker of night clubs, and Johnny Wilson, a pugilist who figured in the investigation of the recent underworld murder of Th'aukio Marlow. They will be asked to say what they know of Block’s recent activities. The police dragnet has also been set to work throughout the. New York underworld to discover the identity of any one who may have been connected with the assassination which is the most sensational that Now York has known since thf murder of Arnold Bothstein, the “King of the Gamblers”. Block’s movements were evidently known to thy murderers, for two young men. accompanied by a- woman, wearing an evening wrap, on tcred the lobby of thy building in which he lived shortly before 3 a.m. and told thy lilt man that they were waiting for friends. HIRED FOR MURDER A short time afterwards Block and his wife drove up in a taxocab. if Block saw the men and woman sitting in the lobby be paid no attention to them, which causes the police to believe that bo did not recognise them. and that they were hired for the murder. Block and his wife entered the lilt, followed by the attendant, but before the latter could close the door both, men rushed towards it with revolvers. Ihe shouted oaths at Block, who cowered in the lift, raising In’s hands before bis face. Both men fired. Block dropped dead, and the assassins fired more bullets into his prostrate body. The murderers then ran through the lobby towards the street door, whore their woman companion was on guard. All three rushed into the street, and jumped into the motorcar. which was driven rapidly away. iSo much 'confusion followed the assassination that it was some time heloro the police were notified. They questioned Airs. Block, who apparently knew little of her husband’s activities. They sad bee nmanied six ycat’s, she said, and she thought be was a- salesman, whose business required him to be absent from home at nights.