“805 was a burner. Where the hell is Jakie Lerner?” That’s how aging racketeer Sam Solomon responded to University of Pittsburgh history graduate student Rob Ruck in 1981 when the latter asked him about a big numbers gambling hit from 1930. Ruck interviewed Solomon for a dissertation (and later book) on Black sport in Pittsburgh, Sandlot Seasons.

In the dissertation and book Ruck didn’t flesh out Lerner’s identity. Also left unsaid was why Lerner might be important in any discussion of Pittsburgh’s organized crime history. Not a fan of unanswered questions, I went looking for Lerner and I found him buried in a suburban Jewish cemetery. Along with his grave, I also found a criminal career spanning more than 60 years and several states. Lerner, it seems, was one of Pittsburgh’s most notable racketeers. He also was misogynist and, as one relative told me, an asshole for whom “describing him as a scoundrel would be a compliment.”

Jakie Lerner’s gravesite, Shaler Township, Pennsylvania.

My first article about Lerner appears in the Winter 2021 issue of Pittsburgh Quarterly magazine; this post gives a little background into the search and to the origins of the #MobsBurgh posts in this blog.

I first read Sandlot Seasons in the summer of 2019. Ruck’s work was highly recommended as some of the most authoritative research on numbers gambling history in Pittsburgh. In his search to understand how the city’s iconic Black baseball teams were established and their cultural contexts, Ruck made a deep dive into the numbers bankers who capitalized the sports teams: Gus Greenlee and William “Woogie” Harris. The Pitt historian’s interviews with these early gambling entrepreneurs’ surviving associates and relatives led him to Sam Solomon and what Ruck described as a “ditty of the day.”

Sam Solomon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 15, 1963.

Nearly 40 years later, Ruck didn’t remember much about Solomon or the interview. There were lots of gaps that I had to fill in to understand why an aging gambler had such a vivid memory of Jakie Lerner.

Jakie Lerner (center), c. 1943-44.

My search for Lerner led me down a research rabbit hole that led to an actual rabbit (and its 1930 greyhound racetrack) and a loosely organized syndicate of Jewish racketeers who played key roles in Pittsburgh’s history. Along the way I met Jakie Lerner’s surviving relatives, friends, and rackets associates. I also found some amazing stories about Lerner’s syndicate partners.

Guyasuta Kennel Club ad, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 4, 1930.

Before the pandemic hit, I had begun archival research in collections spanning the breadth of the entire United States. I began mapping organized crime and other sites in Pittsburgh that were associated with Lerner and his contemporaries. I even found a 1920s numbers banker’s safe in the basement of a Pittsburgh home.

Numbers banker safe, photographed February 2020.

And then in March, everything shut down. I couldn’t even complete a university press book proposal because I didn’t know when I would be able to travel to complete the research. And, most archives remain closed to researchers.

Though most of my research is on hold, I have been able to use the pause to identify additional sources by writing articles and blog posts. I also used the numbers banker’s safe and home as a group exercise in my graduate historic preservation seminar. I reported on that exercise in a blog post for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and I wrote an article for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about a popular mob nightclub, The Ankara.

The Ankara nightclub bar, c. 1950s.

Get a copy of the Pittsburgh Quarterly article, grab a seat at the bar, and stick around #MobsBurgh for the show. There’s lots more to come in 2021 so follow @MobsBurgh on Twitter for the latest pictures and stories from the Steel City’s vice vaults or catch up on the photos and threads from 2020.

Jakie Lerner and his mother, Goldie Lerner, at a party thrown for the racketeer in 1943 before he left for the army.

© 2020 D.S. Rotenstein

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