The Old Curmudgeon on the Airwaves

It’s been awhile since I’ve put anything on the blog. My minions—sorry, my “assistants”—were trying to upload video of the interview I did on local Channel 12/WKRC television a few weeks ago, but I think the file was just too big. So we’ve given up on that idea. But, if you are interested, you can listen to a radio interview with me and publisher Ari Buchwald of Edgecliff Press that was broadcast on October 4 on WVXU/91.7 radio—this link will take you to the archives of the show “Around Cincinnati.” My interviews and public appearances seem to have stirred up a bit of interest in the book, and I’m selling them out of the trunk of my car, too. I read that is how Dan Brown got started, so what the heck, I thought I'd give it a try. Speaking of Dan Brown, I’m reading his newest offering right now and I may have more to say about that later. I wrote a “Curmudgeon” column that sparked a lot of comment on the uproar over the movie version of his book, The DaVinci Code, so we’ll see what comes of that.

The Great Gatsby in Price Hill?

The presentation on George Remus last night at the Price Hill Historical Society had its usual technical difficulties, but we had a big crowd and I think everyone enjoyed it. If you didn’t make it, or are interested in finding out more about Remus, there are at least two books about Remus’s life, one called One Man’s Justice, by a Xavier University professor named Roger Fortrin, and another fictionalized version called The Jazz Bird by Craig Holden. And, many people say that George Remus was the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Supposedly, the bartender at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville had a photo of Remus with Fitzgerald and the mayor and police chief of the city. The Delhi Historical Society has a lot of photos associated with Remus, and at the Price Hill Historical Society, we have newspaper articles and a few photos of Remus and his estate, including a Sunday supplement article with pictures of the gates and the interior of his mansion. And Ken Burns has an upcoming documentary on Prohibition that will include Remus’s story; his production company has contacted the Delhi and Price Hill Historical Society for information. The documentary is due to be broadcast in 2011. Remus sure is a popular guy, more than 50 years after he died.

The Insanity Plea

I promised a few more details about the life of George Remus here, before the presentation at the Price Hill Historical Society on October 7. Well, Remus was never arrested or charged with bootlegging, but he was convicted of tax evasion and spent a year in a federal penitentiary near Atlanta. Stories are that he had maid service and fresh flowers every day in this cell there. When he came back, he found that he had been betrayed by his wife, Imogen. She had taken up with the federal agent who had investigated him for tax fraud, and together they had sold the distillery and all the movable objects in the house. No one seems to know what happened to the money, but she filed for divorce, and on the day that the divorce became final—coincidentally, 82 years ago tomorrow, on October 6, 1927—Remus chased down her cab when it left the courthouse and shot her dead in Eden Park. He threw away the gun he used, and it was found the next spring near the gazebo during a children's Easter egg hunt. Remus served as his own defense attorney, and the prosecuting attorney for the city was Charles Taft, son of President William Howard Taft. Remus was the first lawyer to ever use a plea of insanity to successfully avoid being convicted on a murder charge. He was sent to a mental institution in Lima, but was out within a year, using evidence from his own trial to prove his sanity. When Remus was released from the asylum, he came back to the Cincinnati area and married again, living in relative obscurity in Northern Kentucky until he died in the 1950s. He is buried in a cemetery in Falmouth, Kentucky. But his fame lives on locally as well as nationally—was Remus the inspiration for “The Great Gatsby”? Tune in next time (I sound like an old radio serial, which reminds me, that would make a good subject for a blog) to find out more.

A Visit to Findlay Market

I promised more about Price Hill's bootlegger, George Remus, and there is more to come, but first I wanted to mention that I'm going to Findlay Market in downtown Cincinnati tomorrow. I go there pretty often to buy cheese and vegetables, fish and bread, and lots of other good stuff. But tomorrow I'll be there to sign copies of my book, The Collected Old Curmudgeon. Jerry Dowling, a well-known Cincinnati cartoonist, will also be there to sign his book, Drawing Pete. (The "Pete" in the title refers to another infamous Cincinnatian with Price Hill connections, Pete Rose.) We'd be delighted if you stop by to see us, we'll be there from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm on Saturday. But back to the market itself--it's more than 150 years old, and began when General James Findlay, one of Cincinnati's earliest settlers (and, not coincidentally, a character in the book I am writing now, Hastings Way) left money when he died to establish a farmer's market in the Liberties, an area just outside the city limits at that time. Now it's known as Over the Rhine, because of the German immigrants who lived there in the later part of the 19th century. The old canal that ran where Central Parkway is today was "the Rhine" to them. But Findlay Market is still going strong after all these years. It's especially a bustling place on Saturdays when there are lots of itinerant peddlers of vegetables and other wares around the permanent shops and stands down along Elder Street between Elm and Race. I'm looking forward to being one of the "attractions" instead of just a shopper tomorrow.

Price Hill's Bootlegger

Next Wednesday, October 7, I’m going to be showing a presentation that the Delhi Historical Society has created about George Remus at the Price Hill Historical Society. Remus was an infamous resident of our neighborhood who lived in Price Hill during his brief but successful bootlegging career in the 1920s. People who remember his mansion talk about the covered swimming pool, the elaborate furnishings, and the horse barns. Remus’s base of operations for bootlegging was also on the west side, located in a big, undeveloped area on Lick Run (now Queen City Avenue) called “Death Valley.” Remus was born in Germany and came to Chicago as a child. He went to work as a pharmacist’s assistant when he was about 14. By the time he was 19, he owned the pharmacy, and then he went to law school and was a practicing lawyer by age 24. He was very successful, specializing in criminal law. When he saw how much money some of his clients were making in bootlegging when Prohibition was enacted, he decided to study the Volstead Act to find the loopholes that would allow him to make big money, too. He relocated to Cincinnati because it was more centrally located, and he was already quite wealthy when he moved here, so he bought the mansion in Price Hill and entertained lavishly as he began his bootlegging operations. He had a fleet of trucks to deliver the product and he owned a distillery that had closed at Prohibition where he made alcohol “for medicinal purposes.” At the height of his success, Remus is said to have employed 3,000 people and spent $20,000,000 in bribes to local police and officials—but his bootlegging profits have been estimated at anywhere from $45 to $75 million. (I’ll tell you more the next time I post a blog entry.)