1. Timothy Daniel Sullivan was a New York politician who controlled Manhattan's Bowery and Lower East Side districts as a prominent leader within Tammany Hall.
24 Facts About Timothy Sullivan
1. 2.
Timothy Sullivan amassed a large fortune as a businessman running vaudeville and legitimate theaters, as well as nickelodeons, race tracks, and athletic clubs.
3.
Sullivan in 1911 pushed through the legislature the Sullivan Act, an early gun control measure.
4.
Timothy Sullivan was a strong supporter of organized labor and women's suffrage.
5.
Welch says that "assigning the role of vice lord to Timothy Sullivan gave Tammany's enemies a weapon to be wielded in every municipal election between 1886 and 1912".
6.
Timothy Sullivan was born in the slum of Five Points to Daniel O Sullivan, who emigrated from County Kerry, Ireland, and his wife, Catherine Connelly, from Kenmare, County Kerry.
7.
Three years later, Catherine Timothy Sullivan married an alcoholic laborer of Irish descent named Lawrence Mulligan and had six children by him.
8.
At age eight, Timothy Sullivan began shining shoes and selling newspapers on Park Row in lower Manhattan.
9.
Timothy Sullivan attracted the attention of local politicians, notably Thomas "Fatty" Walsh, a prominent Tammany Hall ward leader and father of stage actress Blanche Walsh.
10.
Timothy Sullivan gradually began building one of the most powerful political machines, which controlled virtually all jobs and vice below 14th Street in Manhattan.
11.
In May 1910, Timothy Sullivan sailed to England on a boat with many social luminaries among his fellow passengers.
12.
Timothy Sullivan was an expert in using electoral fraud to retain his power.
13.
However, Timothy Sullivan was allowed to keep his kickbacks from the Lower East Side and Chinatown as a means of keeping him from becoming Murphy's political rival.
14.
In exchange, Timothy Sullivan had to furnish gang leaders Monk Eastman and Paul Kelly, amongst others, to commit election fraud on behalf of Tammany Hall.
15.
Timothy Sullivan's family did not report him missing for more than 10 days, and his body was brought to and held at the local Fordham morgue.
16.
Finally, after a fortnight, Timothy Sullivan was classified as a vagrant and scheduled for burial in Potter's Field despite his tailored clothing and "TDS" diamond monogrammed cufflinks.
17.
The New York Times later speculated that Timothy Sullivan might have been killed and placed on the tracks.
18.
Timothy Sullivan was interred in Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York.
19.
For several years after Big Tim's death, Patrick H Sullivan attempted to maintain his late brother's political and criminal clout.
20.
Timothy Sullivan had one child with his wife, Helen, a daughter who died in infancy.
21.
Timothy Sullivan did father at least six illegitimate children, many with actresses affiliated with his theatrical ventures, two of whom were Christie MacDonald and Elsie Janis.
22.
Timothy Sullivan was portrayed by Joseph Sullivan in the 1914 silent film The Life of Big Tim Sullivan; Or, From Newsboy to Senator, one of the earlier people to be the subject of a biographical film.
23.
Timothy Sullivan was a main character in Kevin Baker's novel Dreamland, about life in turn-of-the-century New York, set in part in the Coney Island amusement park of the same name.
24.
On film himself, Timothy Sullivan appeared in Actors' Fund Field Day, a 1910 silent short film denoting an actors' fundraising.