DC comics, NJ Parking lots, and the Mob

[RedRaven]

Wow, ran across this when researching Bill Gaines.

 

"Gaines sold his company in the early 1960s to the Kinney Parking Company, which would also acquire National Periodicals (aka DC Comics) and Warner Bros. by the end of that decade. Gaines was named a Kinney board member, and was largely permitted to run Mad as he saw fit without corporate interference"

 

which led me to...

 

Kinney Parking Company was a New Jersey parking lot company owned by Manny Kimmel, Sigmund Dornbusch and mob figure Abner Zwillman. Prior to its public listing in 1960, it merged with a funeral home company Riverside and that eventually transformed itself into Warner Communications, a precursor to today's Time Warner media empire[1].

 

The company expanded into car-rentals, office cleaning firms and construction companies. Steve Ross joined after marrying Carol Rosenthal, the Riverside owner Edward Rosenthal's daughter and pursued an aggressive expansion of the company's properties.

 

Kinney merged with the National Cleaning Company in 1966 to form Kinney National Company, headed by Ross.

 

 

 

and finally...

 

 

The "Al Capone of New Jersey"

After Dutch Schultz's death in 1935 Zwillman took over Schultz's criminal operations as the press began calling Zwillman the "Al Capone of New Jersey". However Zwillman often sought to legitimize his image, offering a reward for the return of the Lindbergh baby in 1932, and contributed to charities, including $250,000 to a Newark slum clearing project.

 

Shortly after taking over Schultz's operations Zwillman would became involved in local politics, eventually controlling the majority of local politicians in Newark for over twenty years. During the 1940s Zwillman, along with long time associate Willie Moretti, dominated gambling operations in New Jersey, in particular the Marine Room inside Zwillman's Riviera nightclub The Palisades.

 

[edit] Later years

During the 1959 McClellan Senate Committee hearings on organized crime, Zwillman was issued a subpoena to testify before the Committee. However, shortly before he was to appear before the Committee, Zwillman was found hanged in his West Orange, New Jersey residence on February 27, 1959.[2] Although Zwillman's death was ruled a suicide, police found bruises on Zwillman's wrists, supporting the theory that Zwillman had been tied before being hanged.

 

While the death was ruled a suicide because of his intractable Income tax problems, it is often speculated that Vito Genovese had ordered Zwillman's death. Others have alleged that Meyer Lansky, suspecting that the elderly gangster had agreed to become a government informant, gave permission for the Italian Mafia to take action against Zwillman.The theory that he was hanged was also supported by deported mobster Lucky Luciano who allegedly told journalist Martin Gosch in Italy that the suicide theory was nonsense and that Zwillman's hangmen had trussed him up like a pig before hanging him. Martin Gosch's biography (which he co-authored with Richard Hammer) of Charlie Luciano is somewhat controversial and considered fictional by many mob experts.However the authors have claimed that the contents are entirely based on interviews with Lucky Luciano.

 

[UnRested Spectre]

(thumbs u Hiyo!

 

This makes DC Comics even more awesome!

 

P.S.

Wait... Zwillman died before the Kinney Parking Company purchase National Periodicals (a.k.a, DC Comics) and Warner Bros., that later became (after expansing into other avenues) Kinney National Company headed by Ross!

 

Question is... Ross, Alex Ross?

[Ringfinger]

Love that story.