Gangsters, gangs and robbers: the sawing of the island of Manhattan

It was a hoax to end all hoaxes, perpetrated by a man known only as Lozier.

Lozier was neither a mobster nor a gang member. And certainly, by all historical accounts, Lozier was not a scoundrel. Yet considering the chaos he caused in New York City in 1824, Lozier was certainly, by all definitions, a scoundrel.

In 1824, the population of the island of Manhattan was approximately 150,000 people. Center Market, an area at the crossroads of Baxter, Grand, and Center Street, was where townspeople congregated daily to buy and sell goods and to discuss anything, and everything, that had an impact on their lives. The most vocal person who came to Center Market every day was a charismatic man named Lozier. Lozier had traveled the world and was considered to have the highest intellectual capacity. When Lozier spoke, people listened. Lozier, a carpenter by trade, was friends with a man by the dubious name of Uncle John Devoe. That’s right, Uncle John.

In early 1824, for some inexplicable reason, Lozier was absent from his bank in Center Market for several days. When he returned, the usually talkative Lozier was suddenly and inexplicably speechless. He didn’t speak to anyone except Uncle John Devoe. The rest of the people, who congregated daily at Center Market, were curious to know why Lozier’s temperament had changed so drastically.

Eventually, Lozier broke down and told the assembly that for the past few weeks he had been cuddling with New York City Mayor Stephen Allen. The reason for these serious discussions was that the island of Manhattan, as a result of the many large buildings in the center, was so heavy at the end of the battery, that the southernmost point of the island was in danger of breaking apart and falling to the Water.

Some doubted Lozier’s conclusions. So he led them to the middle of Center Street and asked them to search for themselves. It was obvious that the street was steeply sloping downhill, as Lozier pointed out, “from all the weight of the buildings further south.”

The crowd was horrified. “What can we do?” they implored Lozier.

Lozier said not to worry. He and the mayor had concluded that the only way to save the southern tip of Manhattan Island was to isolate the island at its northern tip, in the Kingsbridge region, and turn it around. It would then anchor the sunken end to the continental north. So, in effect, the North would be the South and the South would be the North, warning of the terrible loss of life and property.

The only problem was that Mayor Allen thought Long Island was in the way of the proposed operation. Mayor Allen said there was no way the island of Manhattan could be completely changed without crashing into Long Island. Mayor Allen said it was necessary to detach Long Island from its moorings, tow it out of the way, and after the island of Manhattan was rotated and properly reattached to the mainland, Long Island could return to its rightful place.

Lozier eventually convinced the mayor that there was enough space in the port to rotate the island from Manhattan, without vacating Long Island. Lozier said all they had to do was saw Manhattan Island at Kingsbridge, tow it past Governors Island and Ellis Island, turn it around, and then tow it back to its new position and anchor it. After much consultation, the mayor reluctantly agreed to do it Lozier’s way.

Being the political animal that he was, Mayor Allen thought it best to keep the government (that is, him) completely out of the picture. The mayor thought this should be a private endeavor, and appointed Lozier to handle the entire project, including hiring labor and supervising the work.

Not everyone in Manhattan bought into the convoluted idea that the southern tip of the island of Manhattan was in danger. However, due to Lozier’s excellent reputation as a thinking man’s thinker, those who did believe quickly silenced or convinced Lozier’s skeptics.

To make matters more conclusive, Lozier came to his own defense. He cited the recent construction of the famous Erie Canal as proof that his project could really be realized. Lozier said that when the construction of the Erie Canal was proposed, even the best engineers thought that running a river through the middle of a mountain was an impossible task. This dubious analogy convinced even the most ardent skeptics that not only could it be done, but that Lozier was in fact the man overseeing the operation.

For Lozier, his first task was to hire the hundreds of people needed for such a monumental project. Lozier appeared in Center Market, with a large ledger, in which he tediously began the task of targeting candidates, for all the types of employment necessary to cut and then go around the island of Manhattan. While attention was diverted elsewhere, Lozier entrusted his friend, Uncle John Devoe, to complete this task. Devoe personally wrote in the ledger the names, ages and place of residence of all who applied, most of whom were newly arrived Irish peasants.

While Devoe was compiling a list of workers, Lozier was busy huddling with butchers to gather herds of cattle, pigs, and chickens, which were needed to feed the hundreds of workers on the proposed project. Lozier was especially concerned about getting enough chickens, because he had promised that all the workers would eat chicken twice a week. A poor butcher was so eager to please Lozier that he took 50 fat pigs, which were ready for slaughter, and drove them north near Kingsbridge, where he fed them for a month; the food money came out of his own pocket, not Lozier’s.

By taking away his food supply system for the workers, Lozier now turned his attention to building a barracks for the workers to sleep at night, after they had finished working for the day. Lozier brought together carpenters and contractors in their twenties to provide the lumber and expertise needed to build the barracks. Several of these contractors and carpenters rushed to grab the gun and hauled a few dozen loads of lumber to the north end of the island and deposited them near Kingsbridge, to be there when needed. This was done at the expense of the carpenter and the contractor, of course. Not from Lozier.

Lozier said he also needed at least 20 saws, each 100 feet long, and each needed 50 men to handle them. Additionally, Lozier said he needed 24 huge paddles, each 250 feet long, and 24 cast iron paddles, on which the giant paddles would be mounted. Lozier said it would take at least 100 men to tow the island from Manhattan, after it had been cut off from the mainland. Lozier provided dozens of blacksmiths, carpenters, and mechanics with the blueprints to provide the oars and oar locks.

However, Lozier did not end this nonsense. He said it would take hundreds of men to cut through the island of Manhattan. Lozier promised that he would pay triple wages to those who saw underwater.

To see which men were best suited for this dangerous task, Lozier lined up hundreds of men and, one at a time, used a stopwatch to measure how long each man could hold their breath. As each man huffed and puffed, then held his breath until his face nearly exploded, Uncle John Devoe entered the times to hold his breath in his ledger. Some men were so eager to please that they begged Lozier to let them try several more times, so they could improve their scores. Lozier happily accepted his madness.

As the weeks passed, the natives of Manhattan fretted about starting the job. Lozier kept putting them off, telling them he didn’t have enough workers and the necessary equipment had not been completed. Ultimately, Lozier had no choice but to set a date when hundreds of people would gather to begin his mission to saw off Manhattan Island, tow it up the East River, turn it around, and put it back. Lozier ordered everyone who was to participate in the project to report to work at the corner of Bowery and Spring Street. Lozier even hired a corps of drums and cornets to accompany the large contingent of people on their march to upstate Kingsbridge.

At the appointed time, a group estimated at between 500 and 1000 people gathered at the corner of Bowery and Spring Street. Among the crowd were workers, accompanied by their wives and children, contractors, carpenters and butchers, with their cattle, pigs and chickens, all packed and ready to go.

But alas, no Lozier. And not Uncle John Devoe.

As the waiting for the two men continued, the crowd at the corner of Bowery and Spring Street was growing patient: cattle howled, pigs grunted, chickens cackled, and little children began to squeal in dismay.

After the crowd had waited several hours, a group of men were sent to the Center Market to search for Lozier and Uncle John Devoe. When the search party returned from Center Market empty-handed, the smartest people began to realize that they had all been scammed, defrauded, and humiliated. Some were angry enough to arm themselves with sticks and clubs as they searched the streets of lower Manhattan, looking for Lozier and Uncle John Devoe. However, the two men were nowhere to be found.

Months passed, and I was still without Lozier and Uncle John Devoe. As their deception was exposed, the two men were rumored to have escaped to a friend’s home in Brooklyn and were in hiding. Some of the people, who had invested their own time and money in vain, wanted the two fugitives caught, arrested and punished. However, most of those who had been duped were opposed to doing so, unwilling to admit that they had been stupid enough to accept the bizarre scheme that Lozier had led them to believe.

This is where the end of the story drifts towards truth and possible fantasy.

In those days, it was not the job of newspapers to write about hoaxes. They wrote hard news, and the sawing of the island of Manhattan did not fall into that category. Therefore, there is no record in the newspapers that this event actually took place. Over the years, word of mouth was the only way the history of sawing the island of Manhattan was perpetuated.

One version is that, after several months on the run, Lozier and Uncle John Devoe finally returned to Center Market, where they were ostracized by their victims and forced to leave New York City. Luckily for them, no major bodily injury.

Another version is that all this deception never happened in the first place.

However, the latest version was basically accepted as the townspeople were so embarrassed by the load of trash Lozier had given them, and they accepted it without question, they felt it was better to say that the Lozier scam had never happened in the first place. place.

I believe in the old version. You are the judge.

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