Gypsies always make great reading. They are such a closed sect of people that float through the world that I guess to the sociologists they make for a great study. To the rest of us, they make for great reading because they always seem to be pulling off the "long con" on vulnerable people who are emotional wrecks.
Joseph Mitchell, in his classic1942 long form story 'King of the Gypsies' explains that gypsies, because of their dark features, were first assumed to come from Egypt. Thus, the gypsy word took hold. Their origins are not in Egypt, but rather a part of Romania, Roma.
Take Michael Wilson's consecutive week stories on a long con Times Square gypsy that fleeced a man out of over $700,000 to his follow up piece interviewing the veteran detective who pursued the case and arrested the 26-year-old gypsy Priscilla Kelly Delmaro.
Mr. Wilson is the NYT Crime Scene reporter who every week highlights a somewhat bizarre case of criminality. Nothing as gruesome as HEADLESS BODY FOUND IN TOPLESS BAR. Sometimes the column can be about purloined fruitcake. I kid you not.
His last Saturday rendition of crime got front page, below the fold treatment. It was about a Times Square fortune teller who over a 20 month period fleeced an unnamed 32-year-old man with legal access to what anyone would agree was a small fortune. And the past tense verb was to describe that fortune is accurate.
Gypsy parlors have been part of New York City, particularly Manhattan, for eons. They always seem to be lit by a purple or pink neon sign of some sort that claims there is a psychic inside. The storefronts have window displays that give off an occult nature. Take the picture that accompanies Mr. Wilson's story in this Saturday's paper. The window of the West 43rd Street parlor that Ms. Delmaro worked out had a phrenology bust in the window. My daughter, who is a speech language pathologist, has such a bust on her desk. Sections of the brain are inscribed on the bust along with the many corresponding qualities those sections deliver: imitation, intuitive, reasoning, secretiveness. All of course in keeping with what gypsies are interested in.
Renting a storefront in Manhattan--even in a low end of town--costs money. Ms. Delmaro's at 253 West 43rd Street, in the Times Square area could not have come cheap. One might ask themselves why do landlords rent to a business that is in the business of fleecing people? Well, why did Bernie Madoff get office space? At the outset, you don't really know the legality of the business being conducted. And certainly, anyone able to pay the steep rent has to be considered. The money is too good to pass up.
A gypsy parlor is a spare looking space. It never looks inhabited, and one certainly wonders how the rent is paid. NYC landlords have quick access to courts to take action against non-payers. And yet the parlors can occupy the space for years before they move on.
When you read Mr. Wilson's first filing of the story you can understand how more than sufficient rent money is obtained. You wonder if Kenneth Feinberg can be used to get some money back. It would seem doubtful, given the evaporating world of gypsy assets. In the follow up story, Mr. Wilson interviews the veteran detective who worked the case.
Detective Michael McFadden is a 25 year veteran of the city's Organized Theft Squad. Growing up in 1960s in the family flower shop there was a retired NYC detective, Barney Greene, who plopped down in a chair by the desk and spent some quality time killing time. He was nattily dressed in a three piece suit, wearing a hat that was always on his head, with his detective's special holstered on his hip. My father grew up with this brother. In those days, such a squad as McFadden's would be called the Bunko Squad, a term I suppose that's been phased out.
The word Bunko has its origin in Spanish, meaning a card-swindler. Swindler is the right word. There used to another colorful named detective squad called 'Safe, Loft and Truck.' They worked on safe crackings, truck hijackings and business break-ins. When the flower shop was burglarized one night, I reported it the next morning to a detective squad that I imagined to the 'Safe. Loft and Truck Squad'. A back window by the toilet had been crawled through and some blank checks taken from the back of the check book. The money was hidden and never gotten to. The "poke" they called it.
In 1942 relied on a retired detective Captain Daniel J. Campion, who spent a good part of his career tracking the New York City gypsies and their schemes. True to the pre-computer era he kept names, aliases and other information on index cards. Mr. Mitchell describes meeting Captain Campion who is on his way to a meeting to train the then current crop of detectives all that be can about gypsies.
One of Captain Campion's eager learners is Detective Allen Gore, whose nephew responded to an earlier posting I made about gypsies and who suggested I get in touch with his 85-year-old uncle who is now residing in Arizona.
Direct contact wasn't made, but his nephew did provide his uncle with a link. Apparently, Mr. Gore responded to one of Mr. Wilson's earlier gypsy pieces. Mr. Wilson has mentioned that he has met Allen Gore.
I have little doubt that Detective McFadden has met Mr. Gore as well. Now, how could I possibly know that?
A gypsy told me.
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