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Then came one of the most intense manhunts in city history.
In the end, Hicks was caught, tried and convicted.
He would be the last man publicly executed in New York City.
New York is a palimpsest.
Everywhere you look, the old town bleeds through.
He was wild in the eyes not nervous, more like elated.
He got there as the ferry was leaving, missed it by two minutes.
Tried to run, but it was no use.
He dipped into that big bag and pulled out a heavy silver coin.
He asked if there was a place to get coffee.
A two-bedroom apartment on Cedar currently goes for around $4,500 a month.
Hicks paid five bucks for a bedroom and space for his child.
No bath, nor running water.
Just a wood stove, grim walls, and refracted light.
James said hed been suspicious.
A merchant house had recently been robbed; thieves had gotten away with stolen silver.
Is this part of that?
Hicks said he wasnt, but James read a different story in the pirates eyes.
Rynders sat in the back of Sweeneys, telling stories, making threats, doing business.
He was where you went for the Irish vote.
With his gangster crew the Dead Rabbits he worked in the way of a mafia boss.
It was said that Rynders secured the presidency for James Buchanan in 1856.
It was Buchanan who appointed Rynders federal marshal of New York.
It was really just a big rock between the upper and lower bay.
It was one of those haunted places where pirates lived and died.
Ann Street and Broadway: P.T.
Barnums American Museum
P.T.
Barnum had already been operating his American Museum for nearly 20 years when Hicks was condemned.
It was built in 1766.
Tap Franc, the most famous, was across from the museum.
The museum was popular with the sort of people New Yorkers dismissed as country cousins.
He asked Hicks to sit for a mask a few weeks before his execution.
They quickly came to terms.
The display went up soon after the hanging.
In appeared above a placard: Life-Size Wax Figure of A.W.
Hicks, attired in the very clothes worn by him when he butchered his victims with an ax.
Acknowledged by all to be a wonderful likeness of the infamous pirate!
