On the evening of October 15, 1927, Jacob 'Little Augie' Orgen, a notable Jewish-American figure in New York's underworld, met a violent end on the streets of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Orgen, a 34-year-old man known for his involvement in bootlegging and labor racketeering, was walking with his associate and bodyguard, Jack 'Legs' Diamond, near the corner of Delancey and Norfolk streets. At approximately 8:30 PM, a car approached them, and one or more gunmen emerged, opening fire.
Orgen was struck in the right temple and died instantly. Diamond was also shot multiple times but survived the attack.
The brazen shooting, which occurred in a well-populated area, sent bystanders scrambling for cover. In the immediate aftermath, police and detectives arrived at the scene. While Orgen's body was identified, his associate, Diamond, was rushed to Bellevue Hospital in critical condition. The getaway car was later found abandoned. Despite the public nature of the assassination and the presence of numerous witnesses, a climate of fear and the criminal code of silence hampered the investigation.
The murder of Jacob Orgen was widely believed to be the result of a power struggle within the criminal empire he had built. While no one was ever officially convicted for the crime, it is widely believed that his assassins were Louis 'Lepke' Buchalter and Jacob 'Gurrah' Shapiro, two of his former associates who were reportedly eager to take control of his lucrative rackets. Orgen's death marked a significant shift in the landscape of organized crime in New York, paving the way for the rise of figures like Buchalter, who would go on to become a notorious leader in the city's criminal underworld. Over 1,500 people, a mix of family, associates, and curious onlookers, attended his funeral the following day.
