Residents of the Syracuse suburb of Elmwood were wary of their new neighbor in May 1896. After all, the reputation of the infamous William McGlory preceded him.
McGlory and his wife, Annie, had just purchased the grounds of what is today Elmwood Park, in the city’s southwest corner.
He wanted to build a new resort there and, considering the types of places he ran in New York City, this terrified the local citizenry, who saw McGlory as a no-good booze peddler prone to criminal behavior.
New Yorkers, on the other hand, were glad to be rid of him.
“In McGlory, if he goes to Syracuse to run the business himself, New York will have lost perhaps its very worst citizen,” The New York Journal wrote in 1896.
The land he purchased had been home to William Pardee’s “First Class Temperance Pleasure Resort,” which offered fun, family friendly entertainment.
Swan boats ran in the two man-made lakes, there was a handsome merry-go-round, people had picnics, and enjoyed ice cream, popcorn, and peanuts.
“It being strictly a temperance resort, parents need not fear to allow their children to go unattended,” the Syracuse Evening Herald wrote in 1893, when the resort opened. “Mr. Pardee is on the ground every day and evening and he will not allow nothing rough or improper.”
The wholesome park sounded nothing like anything McGlory would be interested in running.
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Born in New York’s Five Points slum in 1851, McGlory served his first of many jail terms when he was 16 after committing first-degree robbery.
When he got out of Sing Sing, he became a saloon keeper and underworld leader.
He was New York’s “high priest of vice,” and his Armory Hall saloon on Hester Street was deemed by journalist Herbert Asbury as “the most vicious resort” the city had ever seen.
Brawls and violence between street gangs were common. Customers were frequently drugged and robbed, often by flirtatious female regulars, before being thrown outside unconscious and then having their clothes were stolen.
Bouncers openly carried pistols, knives, and brass knuckles.
“In the old days, when New York was the wickedest hole on the continent, they called Billy McGlory the ‘wickedest man in New York’ and no one has driven from pillar to post to claim the title from him,” the New York Journal said.
In 1892, he was sentenced to a year of hard labor after beating up a business partner. Upon his release, reform efforts forced him from New York.
“He could run no more dives here, get no more licenses, cater no more to the depravity of men and women,” the Journal said.
So, he sought refuge in a sleepy corner of Syracuse.
In May 1896, news arrived that McGlory had moved to the city and had purchased Pardee’s property.
“The temperance people of Syracuse are in dire distress,” a Buffalo newspaper joked on May 20, 1896. “One Billy McGlory has bought Elmwood Park and insists upon selling naughty strong drink. In spite of what all the good people can do.”
Those “good people” tried their best to stop him.
The Rev. James King of the Elmwood Presbyterian Church called his community to action at a May 10, 1896 sermon, entitled “Fighting for Homes,” where he called out “Notorious Billy” and warned his congregation of gangs of “toughs and hoodlums” carousing on their streets.
“We must uphold the good reputation of the neighborhood. Protect your homes, your children, and your church and fight in a body to down this great evil which threatens us,” he said.
At a meeting a few days later, 100 Elmwood citizens met and formed a “Law and Order League” to voice their displeasure. They lashed out at William Pardee for selling the grounds and worried that New York’s Five Points would be coming to Syracuse.
Their options were limited. McGlory had deep pockets.
At the very least they hoped to deny him a liquor license, keeping Elmwood Park free from drinking.
They failed.
With his wife, Annie, in charge of the operation, elaborate plans for McGlory’s resort began to take shape that summer.
They included heavy wooden gates costing $200 a piece, which would welcome guests, who would be encouraged to roam the grounds. A hotel would be open year-round.
The centerpiece would be a new concert hall.
“The stage is one that would grace a city opera house and boxes line the side,” the Syracuse Courier reported, comparing it later to the venues of London and New York.
“Crowds flocked there to see how things are coming along,” the Syracuse Standard reported in June 1896.
But there was little to see.
With little local support the entire summer entertainment season of 1896 was wasted and McGlory became agitated at his new hometown.
“Feeling unappreciated,” one year after arriving in Syracuse, he put Elmwood up for sale.
“Yes, sir, it’s for sale and so’s anything else I’ve got,” he told a Syracuse Standard reporter on May 5, 1897. “I don’t propose to spend $30,000 or $40,000 (between $1 million and $1.4 million in today’s money) until I know where I’m at. The people out there in Elmwood tried and convicted me before they had the least idea of what I was going to do.”
He added:
“The talk about my being a murderer, a thug, and an all-around crook is bosh – just bosh. All my places in New York were run just as open as day. I came here with the intention of running a clean, open place. But they got frightened out of their boots at the name. If this thing was started in a western town, they couldn’t do enough to help it along. Instead of that, these people do all they can to keep their place from growing.”
He must have reconsidered because McGlory’s “Elmwood Elysium” did open in the summer of 1897.
There would be no grand concert hall, instead an orchestra played by “Billy’s little theater.” Eventually, there were variety nights, featuring “good music,” “plenty of beer,” and vaudeville performers.
Though there were no stories of violence, crime or corruption, the resort was soon in newspapers for all the wrong reasons.
On Aug. 12, 1897, the Standard reported that three Black women, Carrie Shields, Fanny Van Alstine, and Mattie Coffey, were barred from entering McGlory’s because of their race.
A New York State law, passed in 1895, stated that businesses had to provide “full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges to all persons regardless of race, creed or color.”
They each sued Annie McGlory for $500. They were soon joined by two other Black women.
It is difficult to know if these lawsuits brought an end to the Billy McGlory’s stay in Syracuse. Their case was still being litigated into 1901. By that time, his “Elmwood Elysium” was no more.
Called a “dismal failure” by the Syracuse Journal in 1898, McGlory abandoned the venture and looked into becoming, of all things, a Presbyterian minister.
This did not stick either and, on May 25, 1899, he returned to Syracuse hoping to open Elmwood in time for the summer season.
“He will devote all of his spare time hereafter in endeavoring to accumulate a fortune by running Elmwood Park,” the Evening Telegram said.
His plans lasted about a month.
On June 21, 1899, McGlory closed Elmwood for good. His reputation and the popularity of resorts around Onondaga Lake were its undoing.
On Jan. 7, 1901, the Evening Herald reported that he and his wife were “done with Syracuse.”
“Elmwood Park was sold on mortgage foreclosure proceedings at the Court House this morning.”
He left town quietly, refusing to talk to reporters. One wrote that the former underworld crime figure’s “face is hollowed in, and he walks with the feebleness of age.”
He died in 1927 the same year Elmwood Park got a second chance.
After McGlory left, it was briefly reopened as Dreamland Park. After that failed, it was left to grow wild.
After a 1909 fire burned down many of its old buildings, some called for it to be made into a city park.
“I have repeatedly urged that the city ought to get Elmwood Park,” civic leader Frank Loughlin said in 1910. “It is one of the prettiest spots near on in Syracuse, and the city ought to have it.”
Finally, in 1927, Elmwood was developed into a park, with stone bridges, walls, and stairs to enhance the natural features.
During the Great Depression, the park was further beautified by work relief crews, including the planting of 10,000 nursery plants donated by Syracuse University’s College of Forestry in 1933.
Today, nature lovers and families still enjoy its 65 acres, most unaware that it was once home to New York’s “wickedest man.”
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This feature is a part of CNY Nostalgia, a section on syracuse.com. Send your ideas and curiosities to Johnathan Croyle at jcroyle@syracuse.com or call 315-427-3958.
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