An old friend, Howard R. Simpson of Roland Park, an inveterate newspaper reader who appreciates the craft of journalism and relishes its stories and practitioners, gave me a wonderful book for Christmas, Vanishing Point: The Disappearance of Judge Crater, and the New York He Left Behind.
Its author, Richard J. Tofel, former assistant publisher of the Wall Street Journal, breathes life into one of the most celebrated vanishing acts in the nation's history.
The disappearance of Joseph Force Crater, a judge on the New York Supreme Court who became known as "the most missingest man in America" after he vanished in 1930, is one of those stories that editors like to dredge up now and again, and that the public never tires of.
Seven decades later, it still has staying power and is certainly right up there with what happened to D.B. Cooper and Jimmy Hoffa, the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and who really killed Starr Faithfull, Black Dahlia or Chandra Levy.
Crater, who was 41, stood 6 feet tall and parted his hair razor-straight down the middle, had been appointed to the bench by then-Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt.
On Aug. 6, 1930, Crater dressed in pearl-gray spats, a high starched linen collar and a brown suit, and, after buying a ticket to Dancing Partner, a musical, he arrived at Billy Haas's restaurant on West 45th Street in midtown Manhattan.
Crater, who even though married preferred the company of showgirls and Manhattan's leading madam and brothel owner, Polly Adler, joined William Klein, a lawyer for the Shubert theatrical interests, and Sally Lou Ritz, a showgirl, for dinner.
After dinner at 9:15 p.m., Crater stepped into a cab and permanent enrollment on the city's missing-persons list.
This is the standard account, Tofel writes; however, during the subsequent investigation, no cab driver could be found who had picked up the judge.
"That is almost certainly because there was no such cab," he writes, and the cab theory was largely based on the grand jury testimony of Klein and Ritz.
"Yet, if we can be confident that Crater did not hail a cab, we cannot be at all sure of what he did do," he writes. "The fact is that Joseph Crater's trail runs cold at Billy Haas's restaurant. After his dinner there, no one has convincingly admitted to having seen him again."
After her husband's disappearance, his wife found cash-stuffed envelopes and a letter dated Aug. 6, 1930, on which he had written: "I am very weary. Love, Joe."
