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Car Bomb Kills Shondor Birns

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THE PLAIN DEALER . SUNDAY, JULY 11, 1999 5-H OURCENTURY 1975 ATA GLANCE Car bomb kills Shondor Birns By Fred McGunagle It truly can be said of Shondor Birns that nothing in life so befitted him 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 his 1975 Lincoln Continental. He got in and turned the key. With a blast heard for blocks, Shondor was blown through the roof. Parts of him came down across the street at St. Malachi PLAIN DEALER FILE PHOTO Church, where parishioners were gathering for the 8 p.m. Easter Vigil Bewildered Browns Coach Forrest Gregg Mass. and owner Art Modell. Shondor Birns had died as he lived — violently, and with Page One head- lines. Another year, • another fiscal crisis The papers called him Alex “Shon- dor” Birns, but that was backwards. Thousands of Clevelanders jammed Public He was born Szandor (Hungarian Square to welcome 1975. Emcee Doug Adair for Alexander) Birnstein in either introduced Mayor Ralph Perk, who would sing 1905 or 1907 in what is now the Slo- “that great and beautiful song, ‘I Believe.’ ” vak Republic town of Lemesany, It was a fitting choice. When “Auld Lang which was then part of the Austro- Syne” died away, Perk would face a financial Hungarian Empire. crisis for the fourth time in his four New He was only a month old when his Year’s Days as mayor. His plan to lay off 269 family came to Cleveland and went police and firefighters had been ruled illegal into the bootlegging business. Author because it had not been approved by City Rick Porrello records that in 1920 Council. Perk was under court orders to get Birns’ mother was killed when the rid of 300 “temporary” employees — many of still in their home exploded. The red- them patronage appointees — who had served headed youth spent his teens in the beyond the 90-day limit set by civil service Jewish Orphanage. regulations. On graduation, he fell in with the PLAIN DEALER FILE PHOTOS Through horse-trading with Council Presi- Maxie Diamond gang. In the next 12 dent George Forbes, Perk won approval of the years, his “rap sheet” showed 18 ar- When Shondor Birns’ Lincoln Continental exploded, the blast was heard for blocks. safety layoffs, and by appealing the civil serv- rests. In 1925, Birns was sent to the ice ruling he won enough time for a crash test- Mansfield Reformatory for two years ing program to legalize the employees. for auto theft. In 1933, he served 30 Cuyahoga County voters approved a 1 per- days in the Workhouse for assault and cent “piggyback” sales tax for the Regional 60 days for bribery. Transit Authority, enabling RTA to pay Cleve- In 1934, Birns was shot during a land for the Cleveland Transit System. scuffle with a nightclub bouncer Perk transferred the money-losing city zoo named Rudy Duncan. On the witness to the Metroparks. Federal funds from the new stand, Birns denied knowing who shot Community Development Block Grants and him. Duncan was acquitted.A few the Comprehensive Employment and Training weeks later, Duncan was killed by Act allowed him to rehire laid-off employees gunfire from a car that pulled along- or find other ways to do their jobs. side his. It would turn out later than Finance Direc- Birns soon became a power in what tor Warren Riebe was also “borrowing” bond was variously called the “numbers” funds for city operations. For now the banks, or “policy” or “clearinghouse” which had lent the city money routinely, racket, in which operators enforced “rolled over” the loans at the end of each year. their territory by bomb and gun. In effect, it was an illegal lottery; news- • papers regularly denounced it until Perk finished 5,000 votes behind school the state went into the business. Soon board President Arnold Pinkney in the seven- the papers were labeling Birns Public man Sept. 30 mayoral primary. But there were Enemy No. 1.He loved the publicity; two ways to look at the results. it was good for business. Birns appears in court in 1937 on One was that Democrats (four of them) had On the legit side, he operated night- outpolled Republicans (Perk) 70,000 to 45,000. clubs — the 1011 Club on Chester charges of carrying concealed The other was that, counting three minor- Ave. and then the Alhambra at E. weapons. party candidates, whites had outpolled blacks 105th St. and Euclid Ave. The latter 67,000 to 50,000. became the place to be seen. A genial County Democratic Chairman Anthony Ga- host, Birns especially enjoyed enter- tify that Birns was responsible, and rofoli said his party, which had stayed neutral taining news people and police. he did — even after he suffered head in the primary, would give “enthusiastic and During World War II, Birns tried to wounds from shotgun pellets. How- unqualified” support to Pinkney. The third enlist. His draft board, figuring that ever, King’s testimony failed to con- and fourth candidates, State Rep. Patrick better he should be shooting Ger- vince the jury. Sweeney and former state lottery official mans, went to bat for him, but the In 1959, somebody shot at Birns. James Dickerson, endorsed Pinkney. Pinkney, armed forces refused him. Instead, Word on the street was it was Clar- who is black, declared, “We’ve proved once for since was still a Hungarian citizen, he ence “Sonny” Coleman, a numbers all that racism is dead, that polarization is was interned as an enemy alien. After operator. Soon afterward Coleman dead.” the war, the United States tried to de- was shot from a passing car; he said In the campaign, however, white Demo- port him to what had become Czecho- Birns was the driver. In court, Cole- crats, especially council members, were nota- slovakia. Czechoslovakia wouldn’t man suddenly said he had been ble by their absence. The Nov. 4 count was take him. wrong: it wasn’t Birns. He was ar- Perk, 98,000, Pinkney, 83,000. In 1949, Birns beat up a policeman rested as a material witness and the and served nine months in the Work- next day testified it had been Birns • house. The Workhouse superinten- after all. The jury didn’t know which Birns puts up bond at the Central Police Station in 1950, a familiar dent was later fired for allowing The National Weather Service was predict- version to believe. Once more, Birns procedure by then. Birns to take virtual control of the ing a 20 percent chance of rain on Sunday, walked. place. While he was there, the home Aug. 24. Suddenly, it was as though Lake Erie The most sensational case involv- of policy operator Henry “Buster” had been with him all night. had been picked up and dropped on Cleveland. ing Birns was the murder of financier Mathews was bombed. Mathews Mervin Gold. In 1961, Gold was ac- Her identity was a shock. She was a Up to 4 inches of rain fell between 2:30 and blamed Birns, and a Workhouse 24-year-old Garfield Heights school- 8:30 p.m. Thirty families were evacuated from cused of defrauding banks and the guard said he helped Birns plan the Small Business Administration by us- teacher named Allene Leonard. Frus- southeastern Cleveland and Warrensville trated police could not bring charges. bombing. ing stolen Canadian bonds as collat- Heights. Shortly afterward, Birns married The newspapers had a field day eral for loans. He fled to Israel, but Two boys, 12 and 14, were killed by lighting with the two-month trial of Birns and Leonard, having recently divorced as they ran under a tree at Kingsbury Park. A returned in 1962 to face trial and in- his first wife. four other hoods. Witnesses told of dicated he would cooperate. 10-year-old girl wading along W. 130th St. mob operations and payoffs to police. drowned when she plunged into a catch basin In July 1963, Gold’s wife reported • Defense attorney William Corrigan him missing. On July 5, his car was whose cover had washed away. His cronies at the Theatrical Res- demanded: “Why is Buster Mathews found in the woods of Solon with his A 41-year-old man drowned swimming allowed to conduct the biggest policy taurant on Short Vincent Ave. re- across University Circle in an attempt to find body in the trunk. He had been stran- membered “Shon” as a nice guy, gen- racket in the city unmolested?” The gled and shot. His wife gave police an his daughter’s car, one of a number under the jury deadlocked; Safety Director Al erous to those in need. Reporters water. Some East Side intersections were still envelope he had left in case he ever mourned him because, as the Press Sutton later charged that Birns had disappeared. It contained an affidavit under water Monday morning. Case Western tried to bribe and scare off witnesses. put it, “he was good copy and ever that he had gotten the stolen bonds Reserve University was flooded. Birns served three years in federal ready to stand them a drink.” Even from Birns. His wife said he had prison for income tax evasion in the the police who knew him as a cold- planned to meet Birns on the night he • 1950s, but repeatedly beat local blooded killer found him hard to dis- disappeared. All four Cleveland sports franchises had los- charges. In 1957, a numbers operator like. Birns was nowhere to be found, ing seasons, though the Indians and the Cava- named Donald “the Kid” King — His murder went down as unsolved, liers came close to .500.
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