Month: June 2019

This chapter was originally supposed to be the beginning of my book Damnation Island, but my publisher thought it was too grim. Full disclosure, it is grim. The two people executed were young, and the woman, like most women who ended up executed at the time, was African American.

Quick backstory: Shortly after buying Blackwell’s Island in order to build humane institutions for the poor, sick and criminal, the City of New York scheduled a double hanging.

Everyone wanted to avoid the gridlock conditions that choked the City that crisp spring day in 1824, when roughly a third of the entire population of Manhattan crammed into Peter Stuyvesant’s farm at Second Avenue and 13th Street. Even those who would have described themselves as good, or charitable, swarmed the field to see John Johnson hang. Johnson knew what he was in for. It could take him up to twenty minutes to die, and he was only too aware that he was likely going to feel every second of it. The doctor he’d begged for something to ease his suffering had been pitiless, refusing to provide any form of medicinal comfort. The last thing Johnson saw before his four foot drop into eternity, with clear eyes and nothing to mute the terror or the pain, was the “solid mass of living flesh—men, women and children, of all colors and descriptions” who’d come to watch.

Afterwards, Stuyvesant demanded compensation for the damages to his property. The following year, only five days before sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner with their families, the masses came together again. Once more a wave of humanity surged towards the sight of one man violently squirming as the weight of his own body was used against him, and not even the 7th Regiment of the New York Militia, who’d been called in to preserve order, could quiet the viewing frenzy.

To read the whole chapter you can download a pdf: Blackwell’s Island Hanging

A lighthouse was later built on the site of the hanging.

James Matlock, a Research Fellow at the Parapsychology Foundation, has written a new book called, Signs of Reincarnation. You can buy it at all the usual places online, but if you order it from the publisher’s website, Rowman & Littlefield, you get a 30% discount! Enter the code RLFANDF30 during checkout to receive the discount.

I wrote an article about reincarnation, and the research I found was carefully and painstakingly conducted, and regardless of what you believe, it still requires an explanation. It’s utterly fascinating. (I see Jim has a copy of one of my books on his shelf, thank you Jim!)

This first picture is of my maternal grandparents, who I never met. They both died before I was born, alas. They were the blue collar side of the family. Walter worked for Con Edison his entire life, and died on the street on the way to work. My mother told me his co-workers joked, “Walter didn’t come to work today, he must be dead!” And he was! They were married in 1927.

Scroll down, please …

This second shot is my paternal grandparents. I didn’t have the original, so the quality isn’t great, but I love the top hat! They were married in 1926. My father’s side of the family was more affluent. His father was a judge who was appointed by Mayor La Guardia. They were neighbors of the Trumps, and my father’s sister used to babysit Donald. I remember my father telling me that no one in the neighborhood liked Donald.

I spotted this sign on the platform for the Q Train Times Square stop. I love a nice, positive message in the morning. Thank you PrideTrain people!

The paperback edition of my book on the table at The Strand, two books way from one of the books I’m reading right now, The Library Book. Thank you for the honor, Strand Bookstore, and the support!