{"id":3661,"date":"2021-04-15T20:06:21","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T00:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/?page_id=3661"},"modified":"2021-04-15T20:06:21","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T00:06:21","slug":"jake-lamotta-and-some-of-his-early-years","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/?page_id=3661","title":{"rendered":"Jake LaMotta and (some of) his Early Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

When professional boxer Jake LaMotta \u2013 aka \u201cRaging Bull\u201d or \u201cThe Bronx Bull\u201d \u2013 died in 2017, his net worth was approximately $10 million.\u00a0 That\u2019s quite a stratospheric rise from his humble beginnings growing up poor in the Lower East Side and then later the Bronx in the 1920s and 1930s.<\/p>\n

Although the youth gangs that New York City recoiled from in the 1950s were not an issue when Jake was a teenager, he still had several scrapes with the law and was sent to a reformatory, which is where he first learned to box.\u00a0 After he got out of reformatory, he became an amateur fighter and then turned professional in 1941 at the age of 19 years old.<\/p>\n

These early years of Jake are interesting to me, especially the details of his run-ins with the law.\u00a0 That\u2019s what this page is about.<\/p>\n

Jake was born on July 10, 1922 in Manhattan and was the oldest of five children.\u00a0 However, he grew up in the Bronx where he attended public school.\u00a0 Up to Grade 7, his conduct was satisfactory, but upon attending P.S. 55 in Grade 7, his conduct took a down swing.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t pay attention in class and created disturbances.\u00a0 He annoyed the other students and disrespected the teachers.\u00a0 He then transferred to the New York Industrial High School at 138th<\/sup> Street and 5th<\/sup> Avenue where he was registered in the 3rd<\/sup> term.\u00a0 It was during these years that he got into trouble.<\/p>\n

\"Jack<\/a>

Jack LaMotta Reformatory Mugshot<\/p><\/div>\n

The first incident happened on January 2, 1937, when at 9 p.m., Jake, along with an older teenager, shimmied up a high wire fence surrounding the playground of P.S. 55 in the Bronx.\u00a0 After gaining access to the building, they went up a flight of stairs leading to the auditorium roof and broke into the clerk\u2019s office.\u00a0 Next they used a skeleton key to gain entrance into another office where they stole a Corona typewriter that was worth $80.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t get very far with the typewriter to begin their lives of becoming the next Jack London (as if).\u00a0 As soon as they left the school they were nabbed by a Patrolman from the 48th<\/sup> Precinct who caught Jake with the typewriter in his hands.\u00a0 He was put on probation.<\/p>\n

Two and a half months later, on March 16, 1937, Jake broke into 1463 Brook Avenue with two others and tried to steal some lead pipe.\u00a0 My guess is they were planning on selling the lead pipe at a junkyard to gin up some spending money.\u00a0 Everything was quiet for seven months, until October 29, 1937, when Jake was arrested by a state railway policeman for disorderly conduct on the 3rd<\/sup> Ave L train where Jake used \u201cvile and abusive language in the presence of other passengers.\u201d\u00a0 In both these incidents, Jake was kept on probation.<\/p>\n

Jake got through Christmas and New Year\u2019s Day before getting arrested on January 14, 1938 for assaulting a boy at a railroad station who had to be treated by an \u201cambulance surgeon.\u201d\u00a0 The beating must have been serious because Jake was taken to Bellevue Hospital for a psychiatric examination.\u00a0 When he returned, he was continued on probation.<\/p>\n

Being kept on probation without being hit by any violations couldn\u2019t last forever\u2026<\/p>\n

The pebble dropped on August 6, 1938 when a skeleton key made another guest appearance.\u00a0 In response to a radio call, a detective was sent to 757 Elton Ave in the Bronx at 2 a.m. on August 6.\u00a0 After searching the house and the hallway he found Jake and an accomplice who was an escapee from the Catholic Protectory, crouched in a corner of the yard.\u00a0 When he questioned the boys as to what they were doing, they replied that they were just looking around (at 2 a.m.!).\u00a0 Doing some looking around himself, the detective found a chisel and some skeleton keys near the two boys.\u00a0 They denied owning the chisel, but the accomplice admitted that he found the skeleton keys.\u00a0 Jake was acquitted of the charge of Possession of Burglar\u2019s Tools, but was convicted of Unlawful Entry in Bronx Special Sessions.\u00a0 On August 19, 1938, he was sentenced to the reformatory and admitted there on August 27.<\/p>\n

While he was in the reformatory, Jake received letters from his family; here is one from his cousin Jerry:<\/p>\n

\"Cousin<\/a>

Cousin Jerry Writes Jack LaMotta<\/p><\/div>\n

Jake served just over a year at the reformatory and was released on parole on November 24, 1939. \u00a0He was on parole until August 1941 at which point he was a free man and began pursuing his soon-to-be famous boxing career.\u00a0 Little would he know that the boxing he learned in the reformatory was to pay off handsomely.\u00a0 How was he to know he would eventually be worth $10 million?\u00a0 And have his life story splashed on the silver screen in the all-time classic movie Raging Bull?\u00a0 And have none other than Robert DeNiro play him in the film?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When professional boxer Jake LaMotta \u2013 aka \u201cRaging Bull\u201d or \u201cThe Bronx Bull\u201d \u2013 died in 2017, his net worth was approximately $10 million.\u00a0 That\u2019s quite a stratospheric rise from his humble beginnings growing up poor in the Lower East … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2259,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/Pdrj3O-X3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3661"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3661"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3668,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3661\/revisions\/3668"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}