My New book, Broadway Butterfly: Vivian Gordon The Lady Gangster of Jazz Age New York, will be out in June 2024 and is the unique and in-depth account of one of the most sensational murders that contributed to the resignation of Mayor Jimmy Walker and signaled the end of the good times of the Jazz Age in the Big Apple. It is a story that I came upon while researching the Prohibition Era. Gordon, a frustrated actress who made little headway in a Broadway career, started a sex extortion racket in which pretty women squeezed rich men for money, jewels and other fine things. Gordon connived with gangsters like Legs Diamond and earned mountains of cash. But in the end Gordon was strangled and dumped in Van Cortlandt park in the Bronx in February 1931. It’s a case that has never been solved.
New Book For 2024: Broadway Butterfly
Anthony M. DeStefano 