RochesterSubway.com : Drunken Hijinks and Homicide in Rochester’s Sibley Building

Drunken Hijinks and Homicide in Rochester’s Sibley Building

October 5th, 2012

J. Frank O’Connor, known by his clients and friends as “Scrappy” O’Connor, was a merchant tailor. After a long weekend of partying, he would be murdered during a drunken battle in his office (shown above) on the second floor of Rochester’s Sibley Building. O’Connor’s body was found about 6:00 p.m., Monday, August 28, 1922. These are actual crime scene photos by Albert R. Stone…

O’Connor was widely known around Rochester for arranging parties with women and liquor for his wealthy and prominent friends; many of the parties were held in his Sibley office. He also owned a tailor shop on the corner of Main and Stillson. Notice the empty liquor bottles in the photo above? Investigators said they found nearly 50 empty gin bottles in the office. Remember, this is during Prohibition.

At first his death was thought to be linked to two women heard arguing over him at about 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, August 27. However, on August 29, 1922, Owen DeForest DeWitt, a millionaire “clubman” and real estate dealer (shown below), was arrested for first degree murder after being found drunk in Syracuse at the Ondondaga Hotel. DeWitt, 45, lived at 14 Gramercy Park in Rochester’s Browncroft neighborhood.

It was later reported in the Rochester Herald that both men, in a drunken daze, battled in the office rooms. O’Connor evidently struck his head on the floor, and as his blood oozed from the wounds, made by his fall against the glass of the show case, DeWitt washed his hands and left the office. According to this article in the Syracuse NY Journal on Wednesday, August 30, 1922, DeWitt admitted meeting O’Connor that fateful day, but said he did not remember being involved any altercation.

Mrs. Grace M. Begy (shown below) of 70 Stillson Street was held as a material witness for selling gin to DeWitt after the killing. It was reported that DeWitt staggered from the Sibley Building at 5 o’clock and had drinks at Mrs. Begy’s ‘Prohibition saloon’ on Stillson Street – while O’Connor was bleeding to death back at the office. Witnesses said DeWitt literally fell into a taxi and then took a train for Syracuse.”

Oh, the stories a 1920’s prohibition saloon owner could tell.

Tags: Albert R. Stone, Browncroft, downtown Rochester, Grace M. Begy, homicide, J. Frank O'Connor, Main Street, murder, Owen DeWitt, prohibition, prohibition saloon, Rochester, Rochester NY, Sibley Building, Sibley's, Sibley's Department Store, speakeasy, Stillson Street

This entry was posted on Friday, October 5th, 2012 at 8:12 am and is filed under Rochester History, Rochester Images. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

9 Responses to “Drunken Hijinks and Homicide in Rochester’s Sibley Building”

Stella says:

October 5, 2012 at 8:43 am

So appreciate your bits of history and your dedication to preservation. Keep it up. Is this a one-person show? Is your identity a necessary secret?
Stella says:

October 5, 2012 at 8:48 am

Ah. With a little more diligence, I’ve found links to your identity. Should you ever lose yourself, I can help you reconstruct! Once again, wonderful work. I count on you!
Lisa says:

October 5, 2012 at 10:42 am

I just street viewed 70 Stillson Street with the small hope that the building that housed the alleged Prohibition Saloon was still there. Nope. Looks like it’s all parking lot past Achilles. So unless it was in the building on the corner of Main there – it’s gone. Boo.
RochesterSubway.com says:

October 5, 2012 at 11:20 am

@Stella, thanks for the vote confidence! Yes, while it is possible to find my name is on the bottom of this web site, or on Facebook, I prefer to keep the spotlight on these amazing Rochester stories.

@Lisa, I also searched for 70 Stillson and came up empty. Here’s why… Chestnut Street was extended north to the Inner Loop a few decades later. It wiped out much of the buildings in this neighborhood. But you can still find 70 Stillman on this old plat map.

The building on the corner of Main and Stillman was the building where J. Frank O’Connor’s tailor shop was located. From this photo it appears the lower facade has changed, but this is probably the same building that is there today. Duck Soupe restaurant is in there now.
Justaguy says:

October 5, 2012 at 12:10 pm

I have been in quite a few houses and buildings in the northwestern part of the City that still had the remnants of Speak-easys in them. Bars of the style to rival the one at Rocky’s Restaurant down in basements accessible via sliding walls and hidden doors leading to rooms that the building owners told us were former Speak-easys. The Maplewood area and the northern St. Paul/Conkey areas were where I saw the most. This was in the late 1990’s.
Also, crime scene photography was considered an ‘art’ form of sorts back then. Books have been published about it and I have looked at Film Noir as sort of being crime scene photos brought to ‘life’ or maybe it is my love of Noir that peaks my interest in those old photos..
Bob Williams says:

October 9, 2012 at 1:58 pm

What we now call Grove Street was a part of Stillson Street before it was dismembered. 70 would have been two houses behind what we now call The Halo Lofts (http://www.halolofts.com/).

It appears that the attached townhouses on ‘Grove’ and their gaping garage doors now dominate the site.
Bob Williams says:

October 9, 2012 at 2:09 pm

This 1926 plat shows the Taylor Building, which I believe is the current structure that houses Duck Soupe.

http://photo.libraryweb.org/rochimag/rpm/rpm00077.htm

The tailor shop could have been in the vanquished Centennial Building as well, on the acute angle corner of Main/Stillson.
RochesterSubway.com says:

October 9, 2012 at 2:20 pm

@Bob, because I can’t allow you to show me up in the “geometry vernacular” category, I believe the tailor shop was at the OBTUSE corner of Main/Stillson. See the links in my comment #4 above.

Incidentally I tried to go to Duck Soupe for lunch the other day and they were closed for repairs. I hate it when that happens.
Michael Brandt says:

October 21, 2012 at 11:07 am

Thanks for this tidbit of local history and the photos.

For those of you who enjoy delving into local history, and learning a lot more details, you need to visit the website… http://fultonhistory.com

This website has digitized many NY newspapers, going back over 100 years, and allows you to search the database and bring up the newspaper. Your choice of key words is very important. To learn more about this murder, use the following key words to bring up a couple of news paper articles ( 14 Gramercy DeWitt Rochester Democrat Chronicle ). Experiment with other key word combinations. Have Fun!

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Drunken Hijinks and Homicide in Rochester’s Sibley Building

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