Review of the Month: Crash Out by David Goewey
David Goewey is the brother, son, and grandson of prison guards. He didn't go into "the family business," as he calls it. But he didn’t escape it either.
Goewey, an Ossining native, has written a fascinating social history about the bloodiest escape in the storied history of Sing Sing, where his relatives worked. Crash Out tells a larger story beyond the dramatic escape of three inmates early Easter Sunday, 1941.
The book is a vivid portrait of prison life and of Hell's Kitchen, which was then New York's toughest neighborhood and home to one of convicts who tied to crash out. A guard, an Ossining policeman and one of the escapees were killed. Another inmate died of a heart attack. The other two escapees were caught, after forcing a fisherman to row them across the Hudson River at gunpoint. They were beat up by the police, sent back to Sing Sing, and ended up in the electric chair.
Two memorable characters drive Goewey's narrative. Warden Lewis Lawes was a reformer who believed criminals could be rehabilitated. He was also a self-promoter, a celebrity with his own radio show and bestselling books. The escape would end his illustrious career.
On the other side of the bars was Whitey Riordan. A product of Hell's Kitchen in an era when cops, robbers and politicians all had their hands in the till, Whitey was sent up river for a robbery.
He didn't kill anyone during the ill-fated escape. Three times, he saved the lives of others -- including a prison guard who later testified on Whitney's behalf. It made no difference. That guard was ostracized for the rest of his career at Sing Sing. After he retired, he shot and killed himself -- perhaps the final victim of the crash out of 1941, a story worth retelling.