December 14, 2022 • 24 mins
Mo’s deep appreciation for our less-remembered presidents led him to purchase a giant bust of Grover Cleveland, which has dominated his living room for over 20 years. But when the New York Times questioned the bust’s identity, it set in motion a quest, culminating in an appearance by Mo and his bust on PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. Producer Adam Monahan documented the saga on this season 2 episode of his podcast Detours (GBH and PRX), a podcast that reveals what happens to all that stuff on America’s favorite antiques show, which originally aired in January 2022.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi everyone, it's mo. I hope you're enjoying Season three
of Mobituaries. Now, if you know anything about me, you
know that I'm pretty proud of my presidential memorabilia collection,
my Benjamin Harrison campaign, Neckerchief, my ticket to the Andrew
Johnson impeachment trial. I don't do first tier presidential memorabilia.
(00:21):
I'm all about the guys you can't remember were president,
which is why I was pretty shaken when years ago
it was brought to my attention that my giant Grover
Cleveland bust might not actually be Grover Cleveland. Then in
the summer of I was invited on PBS's Antiques road show.
This was my chance to find out who this guy
(00:44):
I've been living with for over twenty years really was,
and it all came to a head, a very big
plaster head. This is a detective story with clues, suspects,
and a whole bunch of historical connections, including Grover Cleveland's grandson,
all of it documented on an episode of Detours, a
(01:05):
podcast that reveals what happens to all that stuff on
America's favorite antiques show. Here is that episode of Detours
from g H and pr X when we set out
to film in the summer of two thousand twenty. For
the first time in the history of gb h's Antiques
(01:28):
Road Show. We couldn't go out on the road. It
was a pandemic, after all. But we still had to
make a TV show, so we tried something a little different,
what we call Celebrity Edition. We went and visited the
homes and or near the homes of celebrities to find
out more about what they are. Here's my boss, Marcia Beemko.
(01:51):
The promise that we made to get them to come
to shoot with road Show is that we're here to
answer the questions about whatever you're cure us about. One
of our stops, New York City, for a visit with
humorist Mo Rocca. I was thrilled and I knew exactly
where I wanted this to go and perfect for road Show.
(02:14):
Mo had an object that he had questions about. I
looked right at my bust of who I then thought
was President Grover Cleveland, and I thought, you and me, baby,
we are going to find out your worth and well
who you are. I'm Adam Monahan, a producer with g
(02:39):
v H is Antiques Road Show, and this is detoured today.
Mo's mystery bust. Yeah, let's be clear. This is basically
(03:00):
a big mound of plaster that I that I managed
to balance on top of a column. Moe's object is
a large bust of a stern faced gentleman painted in
a coat of bronze. A chip on his face reveals
plaster beneath the paint, but that doesn't detract from the
air of importance he gives off. He sports a three
(03:22):
piece suit, a tie, and his defining feature a large,
bushy mustache. Moe remembers the day he came across the
bust well here he describes it while filming our celebrity series.
So cut to the summer of two thousand and I
went to visit my friends Christ and Madeleine on the
North Fork of New York's Long Island on a rainy afternoon.
(03:44):
Chris took me into Greenport, nice town, and we saw
a place called Capel real Estate and antiques, not a
typical combination, but we went inside and that's where I
saw him. We passed by this ju the full old
building on a corner with gigantic windows. Most friend Chris,
(04:05):
and I'm pretty sure the bust was in the window. Um,
so we pulled over and went inside, and they sold
very little in the way of antique, like I think
there may have been a giant model ship and a
couple of pots and this bust. And Moe was intrigued
by the bust, and I think he started talking to
(04:25):
the proprietor about it, and I don't think I was
paying attention, and it really did not occur to me
that he was going to buy this thing. There was
a tag and it's a Grover Cleveland a hundred and
fifty dollars, and I thought, I just have to have him.
To really get why MO had to have a bust
(04:46):
of Grover Cleveland, you first have to understand most unique
interest in presidential history. I'm particularly interested in the presidents
that you can't remember were president, the guys between Lincoln
and Teddy Roosevelt. They've got a lot of faith shill hair.
A couple of them were knocked off, one by an anarchist.
The other one among those guys is Grover Cleveland, who
had the distinct honor of serving as the twenty second
(05:09):
and twenty four president of the United States. And Grover
and Mo go way back. My attachment to Grover Cleveland
goes back to when I got on a bus to
visit Caldwell, New Jersey and the birthplace of Grover Cleveland.
The docent there Sharon Barrell. She raised her family inside
of the Grover Cleveland birthplace. I was so taken with
(05:33):
the whole experience. I began going and visiting all these homes,
and from there most love of lesser known presidents only blossomed.
So I bought a one way ticket on US airways
in to Indianapolis to visit the home of Benjamin Harrison,
our twenty third president. He's sort of the kind of
(05:54):
the meat in the Grover Cleveland sandwich. So a few
years later, when MO sees the bus tag Grover Cleveland
at the Long Island real estate slash antique shop, it
was like bumping into an old friend and well worth
the asking price of a hundred fifty dollars to bring
him home. I bought a pedestal because I couldn't have
(06:14):
him on the floor. I mean, he had been president
for two nonconsecutive terms. He doesn't belong on the floor. Um,
And he became a part of my life since that
fateful encounter, over twenty years ago. Moe has amassed a
collection of presidential memorabilia in his Greenwich Village apartment. What
(06:35):
was sold to me as a cocktail clock commemorating the
end of Prohibition in featuring FDR captaining the Ship if
you Will, a campaign neckerchief from the campaign of Benjamin
Harrison and his running mate Levi Morton, the Republican team
that ran in an admission ticket to the Senate impeachment
(06:58):
trial of our seventeenth President Andrew Johnson in April eight.
And the anchor to the collection, the Grover Cleveland that
inspired it all, who overlooks the city from his perch
where he's basted in domestic bliss for almost fifteen years,
without his authenticity ever coming into question. Cut to in
(07:20):
The New York Times came to do a piece about
my apartment on a short little feature, and I introduced
them to Grover Cleveland. They took a picture of me
next to Grover Cleveland. But then I got a call
from the writer of the article and she said, um, hey,
we're just doing a little back checking, just want to
(07:41):
make sure that's Grover Cleveland. And I sort of reacted defensively,
and I said, well, of course, it is who else
would it be? Sor? Okay, fine, fine, But then she
called back the next day and she said, you know,
there's some concern that this isn't Grover Cleveland. My editor
has some questions about it. And I said, now listen,
I'm telling you the tag on it said Grover Cleveland
back in two thousand when I bought him. So she
(08:02):
said okay, And then she called back the next day
again and she said, this has gone way up the
chain and there is concern at the highest levels that
this is not Grover Cleveland. And she said, why don't
we just call this a bust that Rockets says is
Grover Cleveland. I thought, all right, I can live with that,
I guess, but the seed of doubt had been planted.
(08:26):
Was he living with Grover Cleveland or with a stranger?
And then I went to the Marshfield, Missouri Cherry Blossom
Festival um where I met George Cleveland, the grandson of
Grover Cleveland. I thought, this is my chance, once and
for all to prove to myself in the New York
Times that this is Grover Cleveland. I showed him a
picture of the bust on my phone. He looked at it.
(08:48):
He turned to me and he said, that's not my grandfather.
When we come back, Road Show teams up with Mode
to figure out once and for all whose lightness Mo
has been living with for the past twenty years. One
(09:10):
of the most satisfying parts of my job is helping
guests get answers to their burning questions about the objects
they bring in. So, of course, when Mo agreed to
be on the show, I was eager to make good
on our promise to find out who the Grover Cleveland
bust was, if not Grover Cleveland. To do that, I
asked Mo to meet me at Lillian Nassau Gallery in
(09:31):
New York to visit with the praiser, Eric Silver. Moe
pulled up for the appraisal bust into on a little
red wagon secured by suspenders no less. So Moow, what
did you bring me today? Well, I brought you Grover
Cleveland or a bust of someone who I thought was
Grover Cleveland. Very much so. The piece has quite a
(09:51):
bit of quality and has a presence. So it was
done by a professional artist. It's not the work of
an amateur. I don't know if it's American, it could
be French. Italian, and so we just don't know. I mean,
I don't know if he looks like any particular nationality,
but there's no no way of knowing, and that's going
to make the search that much more difficulty. So you
(10:13):
don't know who it is. I don't know. I wish
I did, you know, and I was trying, you know,
I tried to look up the artist, you know, see
what he you know who he was, and I just, uh, come,
I didn't come up with anything. So there's just no
way of knowing. Moo took the news graciously, especially when
Eric's adjusted a way forward. If you expose it more,
somebody might recognize it. I mean that's that's the remote possibility.
(10:36):
So what you're saying is there could be a sequel episode,
right exactly, right. I mean, you can include in the
bottom of your emails, you can have a little photo
of him, and you know, as people if they know
who this person is. So it's just where we have
a lower third graphic. This is if you know who
this is, right to exactly Eric at anw dot com,
(10:56):
right exactly, and we'll solve it because millions of people
watching Antinks road shows, So you have a you have
a great chance. Maybe someone could pinpoint that exceptionally bushie mustache,
or maybe they'd noticed the little clues the sculptor left behind.
We see his first initials, and we see a date,
and then we see his first three letters of his
(11:17):
last name, the name of the artists, would no doubt
be a step in the right direction. On the side
of the bust are the letters P and S, followed
by A B, B, and right underneath the letters is
a date, and then it disappears. The thing is about
(11:40):
that a little insert on Eric is that Eric happens
to be one of the best generalists we have. Again,
my boss, Marsha Beemko, when he told you, Adam that
he couldn't figure it out, our hearts sank because it
was like, oh no, if he If Eric can't do it,
we might be in a tough spot here. Yeah. When
(12:05):
the episode aired in May of two thousand twenty one,
we put out a call for leads, and our viewers
were quick to share their theories. Perhaps it was Cecil
John Rhodes, founder of de Beers, the Diamond Company and
the Rhodes Scholarship, William Faulkner and Mark Twain, and even
John Ringling of Ringling Brothers Circus, all mustachioed, but none
(12:28):
checked out as our guy. So we were watching and
I like a challenge. Two people weren't giving up yet,
and they weren't the random history buffs we thought might
write in for these viewers. Most not Grover Cleveland. Bust
was more personal. I worked on his podcast. I was
connected to him through a mutual friend. Megan Marcus, was
(12:51):
a producer from mose podcast Mobituaries. He once referred to
her as all of Agatha Christie's detectives in one when
you guys couldn't cure it out. I love to get
to the bottom of things, and a knack for sleuthing
runs in the family. So Megan's sister Zoe got on
the case as well. I mean the first thing that
(13:14):
we started working off of was the crowd sourcing that
existed right after. And there was a name that came
up on Twitter and Zoe went to town on this. Yeah,
I think I went off to town. I went to
town in the wrong direction. Here's Zoe. But I saw
someone had said, oh you know who is It's Benjamin
Barker O'Dell, who was a governor of New York. That's
Benjamin Barker O'Dell Jr. Governor of New York from nineteen
(13:38):
o one to nineteen o four, not to be confused
with his father, Benjamin Barker O'Dell Senior, who also held
public office. It's plausible both had portrait bus made, but
O'Dell senior died five years before most bus was made,
so he's out. His son, on the other hand, lived
until ninety six, and he did have a mustache. And
(14:01):
I think they had a photo and I was like,
you know what, it does look like that, which, by
the way, a lot of men with a mustache and
BET are like they're all going to kind of look
like that. So that was like that, that's got to
be him, to be fair, Benjamin Barker O'Dell Junior's mustache
looks to be about the same density as our bus.
But Megan wasn't fully convinced. I looked at the photo.
He looked too skinny, like this was a heftier. I
(14:23):
thought it was artistic license that maybe you know, they
were just you know, well, it's hard because like all
the mustache thing is deceptive, so I was doubting it,
but I had nothing else to go off of and
then somebody tweets out with the sculptor's name. That name
came from viewer Mark McCarron. It might have been a
(14:45):
message that flashed up on the screen that said help
Morocca identify the sculpture, and I think it directed me
to a Twitter site. I don't remember exactly, but you know,
I got out my device and I started frantically trying
to act. Mark McCarron is the executive director of the
Historical Society in Torrington, Connecticut, and he's likely the only
(15:08):
person watching that night, possibly the only person period for
whom P S A B B rang a bell. When
mo was visiting the appraiser, I think the appraiser said, well,
there's obviously a professional sculpture, but you know, I can't
make out the signature and it's not somebody I'm familiar with.
(15:28):
And at that point the cameras zoomed in on the
sculpture and I immediately recognized it as Paulo as Sabate
because he worked in Torrington for many, many decades, and
we have a pretty good collection of his work and
his he signed everything. Mark revealed just enough new information
(15:48):
from Megan to make some progress, because remember the thinking
at that point is that it's Benjamin Barker O'Dell. So
I'm trying to connect Odell with Abote, not finding any
connection at all. So then I just do this is
my usual trick. I go on newspapers dot com and
I just put in the sculptor's name and bust, and
(16:09):
I'd give a time here. We knew it was, so
I'm like, let me do a little bit before and
a little bit after. So the first hit that comes
up on newspapers dot Com is from March the Brooklyn
Daily Eagle, and there is a photo of this exact bust,
and it says, a bust portrait of Police Commissioner Richard e.
(16:31):
Enright has just been completed in bronze by Paolo Esabate.
The bust is of heroic size and will be presented
to the Commissioner sometime during the summer. Its final resting
place has not been decided upon. Mr Abat is well
known in congregational circles in Brooklyn, where he is in
charge of the Italian Church of the Redeemer, Clinton and
(16:51):
Carroll Streets. I mean, there's your proof, of course, Megan
and Zoe were communicating every development to MO. It really
was while to see that sculpture, which is in my
apartment and has been with me for so long, in
an archival photo um, because I come to believe that
(17:11):
he just sort of via spontaneous generation, kind of was
born in that shop on the North Fork of Long
Island where I bought him. I mean, I'd given up
even imagining him in other settings, but to see him
in this setting with the sculptor um was really exciting.
It was it was kind of thrilling that made the
(17:32):
hairs in the back of my neck stand up. So
we got our full circle moment, the satisfying answer we
were all craving and a name to the face, Not
Grover Cleveland, but Richard E. N Right, a man I
had never heard of, but I did find someone who had.
(17:52):
So my name is Larry Sullivan, and I'm Professor Emeritus
and also Team Chief Flight Brian and Professor Criminal Justice
from the John J. College of Criminal Justice's The Lloyd
Seeley Library at John J College of Criminal Justice is
home to an archive of Richard E. Enwright materials and
(18:15):
it's only a few miles from most place. Now. Who
who was Richard E. En Right. All Right was the
first police commissioner that came to the racks. Five year
old and Right joined the NYPD in eight eventually becoming
the first officer to rise through the ranks from lieutenant
to police commissioner in nineteen eighteen and serving through nine
(18:38):
when he retired. If you look at the list of
the years of New York Police commission she was one
of the longest last. So with the with our bus
with Moroccos bust having the year one inscribed on it,
can you just paint the picture of what was going
on in New York City in the twenties. In New
York was three. Then he speakeasies all over the place
(19:02):
to crooked politicians, and he had to deal with us.
And that's probably one of these, uh, you know, his legacies.
I guess he was honest, which, as Larry pointed out,
was not a typical quality of Prohibition era police officers.
I mean, most of them would take payoffs. Two years
into en Right's career as commissioner, the National Prohibition Act
(19:25):
took effect. En Right, who was known for not tolerating graft,
cracked down on organized crime that became rampant during this
period and later when the police came under criticism for
ineffectively enforcing the National Prohibition Act, and Right made the
controversial decision to bring charges against members of the force.
(19:47):
But that wasn't all and Right is remembered for and
there may be two or three points that stand out.
One is ninety two he hosted the International Conference from
Police Choot. This was the first time such a conference
had been held in the US, uh that the next year.
(20:07):
Digipol Interpol is the organization that coordinates between local police
departments in countries all over the world, and its founding
can be traced back to n. Right. And also he
was a very advocate of printing. Fingerprint identification for criminal
investigation had only just been introduced in Europe by the
(20:31):
time and Right joined the police force in the eighteen nineties,
but it didn't take long for the novel system to
spread internationally, and by oh three, New York State prisons
were using the technique for criminal record purposes, and Right
envisioned fingerprints resolving identity questions of all kinds, not just
(20:51):
within the context of crime. In nineteen n Right wrote
an article for Scientific American titled Everybody should be Fingerprinted?
Where he advocated for a universal system of fingerprinting. Early
into retirement, and Right dabbled in fiction writing, publishing his
(21:11):
first book, Vultures of the Dark, a detective story based
on his own experiences in the NYPD. And although his
career as a crime novelist didn't take off commercially, he
did receive high praise from a fellow law enforcement official
turned writer, William J. Flynn, who described and write as
(21:32):
a holy new writer whose prolific brain can evolve and
depict fresh, sparkling detective situations. While we were learning of
en rights foray into crime fiction, Megan and Moe were
doing some research of their own. Well, Megan Marcus ended
(21:52):
up sending me an article about his sentent becoming a
cop on Long Island. I think the first um since
Richard N. Right in that family to do so um.
So I thought that was pretty cool, and I thought, well,
we could keep this thing going if I introduced this
young cop to the to the bust um. And of
(22:13):
course I was pleased to find out that he was
a particularly celebrated esteemed chief of police during Prohibition, at
a time when, of course, as anyone who's seen the
untouchable as the movie or the TV show can tell you,
it was a time of a lot of crime. So
I'm happy to have him in my home. I'm glad
(22:36):
we are able to solve the mystery from at the
end of the day. Like I can't even believe this
is the most unsatisfying appraisal that we might have done. Listen,
sometimes stuff like this happens. He was such a good
sport about us failing to answer the question that day.
We don't have all the answers we have of them,
but sometimes we don't. I love that this one was
(22:58):
such a group effort to get to the answer. No
yin It's store, we never in all. Watson Si de
(23:36):
Tours is a production of g b H in Boston
and pr X. This episode was written and produced by
Isabel Hibbert. Our editor is Galen Bebe. Our senior producer
and sound designer is Ian Coss. Jocelyn Gonzalez is the
director of pr X Productions. Devin Maverick Robbins is the
managing producer of podcast for g d H and Marsha
(23:56):
Benko is executive producer of Detours. I'm Your Host and
co executive producer Adam Monahan. Our theme music is Once
in a Century Storm by Will Daily from the album
National Throat. Thank you all for listening. Have a good one,
(24:32):
g B A. I hope you enjoyed listening to this
episode from season two of Detours from G B H
and pr Rex. We'll be back soon with new episodes
of Mobituaries, available on Amazon Music or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Hi everyone, it's mo. I hope you're enjoying Season three
of Mobituaries. Now, if you know anything about me, you
know that I'm pretty proud of my presidential memorabilia collection,
my Benjamin Harrison campaign, Neckerchief, my ticket to the Andrew
Johnson impeachment trial. I don't do first tier presidential memorabilia.
(00:21):
I'm all about the guys you can't remember were president,
which is why I was pretty shaken when years ago
it was brought to my attention that my giant Grover
Cleveland bust might not actually be Grover Cleveland. Then in
the summer of I was invited on PBS's Antiques road show.
This was my chance to find out who this guy
(00:44):
I've been living with for over twenty years really was,
and it all came to a head, a very big
plaster head. This is a detective story with clues, suspects,
and a whole bunch of historical connections, including Grover Cleveland's grandson,
all of it documented on an episode of Detours, a
(01:05):
podcast that reveals what happens to all that stuff on
America's favorite antiques show. Here is that episode of Detours
from g H and pr X when we set out
to film in the summer of two thousand twenty. For
the first time in the history of gb h's Antiques
(01:28):
Road Show. We couldn't go out on the road. It
was a pandemic, after all. But we still had to
make a TV show, so we tried something a little different,
what we call Celebrity Edition. We went and visited the
homes and or near the homes of celebrities to find
out more about what they are. Here's my boss, Marcia Beemko.
(01:51):
The promise that we made to get them to come
to shoot with road Show is that we're here to
answer the questions about whatever you're cure us about. One
of our stops, New York City, for a visit with
humorist Mo Rocca. I was thrilled and I knew exactly
where I wanted this to go and perfect for road Show.
(02:14):
Mo had an object that he had questions about. I
looked right at my bust of who I then thought
was President Grover Cleveland, and I thought, you and me, baby,
we are going to find out your worth and well
who you are. I'm Adam Monahan, a producer with g
(02:39):
v H is Antiques Road Show, and this is detoured today.
Mo's mystery bust. Yeah, let's be clear. This is basically
(03:00):
a big mound of plaster that I that I managed
to balance on top of a column. Moe's object is
a large bust of a stern faced gentleman painted in
a coat of bronze. A chip on his face reveals
plaster beneath the paint, but that doesn't detract from the
air of importance he gives off. He sports a three
(03:22):
piece suit, a tie, and his defining feature a large,
bushy mustache. Moe remembers the day he came across the
bust well here he describes it while filming our celebrity series.
So cut to the summer of two thousand and I
went to visit my friends Christ and Madeleine on the
North Fork of New York's Long Island on a rainy afternoon.
(03:44):
Chris took me into Greenport, nice town, and we saw
a place called Capel real Estate and antiques, not a
typical combination, but we went inside and that's where I
saw him. We passed by this ju the full old
building on a corner with gigantic windows. Most friend Chris,
(04:05):
and I'm pretty sure the bust was in the window. Um,
so we pulled over and went inside, and they sold
very little in the way of antique, like I think
there may have been a giant model ship and a
couple of pots and this bust. And Moe was intrigued
by the bust, and I think he started talking to
(04:25):
the proprietor about it, and I don't think I was
paying attention, and it really did not occur to me
that he was going to buy this thing. There was
a tag and it's a Grover Cleveland a hundred and
fifty dollars, and I thought, I just have to have him.
To really get why MO had to have a bust
(04:46):
of Grover Cleveland, you first have to understand most unique
interest in presidential history. I'm particularly interested in the presidents
that you can't remember were president, the guys between Lincoln
and Teddy Roosevelt. They've got a lot of faith shill hair.
A couple of them were knocked off, one by an anarchist.
The other one among those guys is Grover Cleveland, who
had the distinct honor of serving as the twenty second
(05:09):
and twenty four president of the United States. And Grover
and Mo go way back. My attachment to Grover Cleveland
goes back to when I got on a bus to
visit Caldwell, New Jersey and the birthplace of Grover Cleveland.
The docent there Sharon Barrell. She raised her family inside
of the Grover Cleveland birthplace. I was so taken with
(05:33):
the whole experience. I began going and visiting all these homes,
and from there most love of lesser known presidents only blossomed.
So I bought a one way ticket on US airways
in to Indianapolis to visit the home of Benjamin Harrison,
our twenty third president. He's sort of the kind of
(05:54):
the meat in the Grover Cleveland sandwich. So a few
years later, when MO sees the bus tag Grover Cleveland
at the Long Island real estate slash antique shop, it
was like bumping into an old friend and well worth
the asking price of a hundred fifty dollars to bring
him home. I bought a pedestal because I couldn't have
(06:14):
him on the floor. I mean, he had been president
for two nonconsecutive terms. He doesn't belong on the floor. Um,
And he became a part of my life since that
fateful encounter, over twenty years ago. Moe has amassed a
collection of presidential memorabilia in his Greenwich Village apartment. What
(06:35):
was sold to me as a cocktail clock commemorating the
end of Prohibition in featuring FDR captaining the Ship if
you Will, a campaign neckerchief from the campaign of Benjamin
Harrison and his running mate Levi Morton, the Republican team
that ran in an admission ticket to the Senate impeachment
(06:58):
trial of our seventeenth President Andrew Johnson in April eight.
And the anchor to the collection, the Grover Cleveland that
inspired it all, who overlooks the city from his perch
where he's basted in domestic bliss for almost fifteen years,
without his authenticity ever coming into question. Cut to in
(07:20):
The New York Times came to do a piece about
my apartment on a short little feature, and I introduced
them to Grover Cleveland. They took a picture of me
next to Grover Cleveland. But then I got a call
from the writer of the article and she said, um, hey,
we're just doing a little back checking, just want to
(07:41):
make sure that's Grover Cleveland. And I sort of reacted defensively,
and I said, well, of course, it is who else
would it be? Sor? Okay, fine, fine, But then she
called back the next day and she said, you know,
there's some concern that this isn't Grover Cleveland. My editor
has some questions about it. And I said, now listen,
I'm telling you the tag on it said Grover Cleveland
back in two thousand when I bought him. So she
(08:02):
said okay, And then she called back the next day
again and she said, this has gone way up the
chain and there is concern at the highest levels that
this is not Grover Cleveland. And she said, why don't
we just call this a bust that Rockets says is
Grover Cleveland. I thought, all right, I can live with that,
I guess, but the seed of doubt had been planted.
(08:26):
Was he living with Grover Cleveland or with a stranger?
And then I went to the Marshfield, Missouri Cherry Blossom
Festival um where I met George Cleveland, the grandson of
Grover Cleveland. I thought, this is my chance, once and
for all to prove to myself in the New York
Times that this is Grover Cleveland. I showed him a
picture of the bust on my phone. He looked at it.
(08:48):
He turned to me and he said, that's not my grandfather.
When we come back, Road Show teams up with Mode
to figure out once and for all whose lightness Mo
has been living with for the past twenty years. One
(09:10):
of the most satisfying parts of my job is helping
guests get answers to their burning questions about the objects
they bring in. So, of course, when Mo agreed to
be on the show, I was eager to make good
on our promise to find out who the Grover Cleveland
bust was, if not Grover Cleveland. To do that, I
asked Mo to meet me at Lillian Nassau Gallery in
(09:31):
New York to visit with the praiser, Eric Silver. Moe
pulled up for the appraisal bust into on a little
red wagon secured by suspenders no less. So Moow, what
did you bring me today? Well, I brought you Grover
Cleveland or a bust of someone who I thought was
Grover Cleveland. Very much so. The piece has quite a
(09:51):
bit of quality and has a presence. So it was
done by a professional artist. It's not the work of
an amateur. I don't know if it's American, it could
be French. Italian, and so we just don't know. I mean,
I don't know if he looks like any particular nationality,
but there's no no way of knowing, and that's going
to make the search that much more difficulty. So you
(10:13):
don't know who it is. I don't know. I wish
I did, you know, and I was trying, you know,
I tried to look up the artist, you know, see
what he you know who he was, and I just, uh, come,
I didn't come up with anything. So there's just no
way of knowing. Moo took the news graciously, especially when
Eric's adjusted a way forward. If you expose it more,
somebody might recognize it. I mean that's that's the remote possibility.
(10:36):
So what you're saying is there could be a sequel episode,
right exactly, right. I mean, you can include in the
bottom of your emails, you can have a little photo
of him, and you know, as people if they know
who this person is. So it's just where we have
a lower third graphic. This is if you know who
this is, right to exactly Eric at anw dot com,
(10:56):
right exactly, and we'll solve it because millions of people
watching Antinks road shows, So you have a you have
a great chance. Maybe someone could pinpoint that exceptionally bushie mustache,
or maybe they'd noticed the little clues the sculptor left behind.
We see his first initials, and we see a date,
and then we see his first three letters of his
(11:17):
last name, the name of the artists, would no doubt
be a step in the right direction. On the side
of the bust are the letters P and S, followed
by A B, B, and right underneath the letters is
a date, and then it disappears. The thing is about
(11:40):
that a little insert on Eric is that Eric happens
to be one of the best generalists we have. Again,
my boss, Marsha Beemko, when he told you, Adam that
he couldn't figure it out, our hearts sank because it
was like, oh no, if he If Eric can't do it,
we might be in a tough spot here. Yeah. When
(12:05):
the episode aired in May of two thousand twenty one,
we put out a call for leads, and our viewers
were quick to share their theories. Perhaps it was Cecil
John Rhodes, founder of de Beers, the Diamond Company and
the Rhodes Scholarship, William Faulkner and Mark Twain, and even
John Ringling of Ringling Brothers Circus, all mustachioed, but none
(12:28):
checked out as our guy. So we were watching and
I like a challenge. Two people weren't giving up yet,
and they weren't the random history buffs we thought might
write in for these viewers. Most not Grover Cleveland. Bust
was more personal. I worked on his podcast. I was
connected to him through a mutual friend. Megan Marcus, was
(12:51):
a producer from mose podcast Mobituaries. He once referred to
her as all of Agatha Christie's detectives in one when
you guys couldn't cure it out. I love to get
to the bottom of things, and a knack for sleuthing
runs in the family. So Megan's sister Zoe got on
the case as well. I mean the first thing that
(13:14):
we started working off of was the crowd sourcing that
existed right after. And there was a name that came
up on Twitter and Zoe went to town on this. Yeah,
I think I went off to town. I went to
town in the wrong direction. Here's Zoe. But I saw
someone had said, oh you know who is It's Benjamin
Barker O'Dell, who was a governor of New York. That's
Benjamin Barker O'Dell Jr. Governor of New York from nineteen
(13:38):
o one to nineteen o four, not to be confused
with his father, Benjamin Barker O'Dell Senior, who also held
public office. It's plausible both had portrait bus made, but
O'Dell senior died five years before most bus was made,
so he's out. His son, on the other hand, lived
until ninety six, and he did have a mustache. And
(14:01):
I think they had a photo and I was like,
you know what, it does look like that, which, by
the way, a lot of men with a mustache and
BET are like they're all going to kind of look
like that. So that was like that, that's got to
be him, to be fair, Benjamin Barker O'Dell Junior's mustache
looks to be about the same density as our bus.
But Megan wasn't fully convinced. I looked at the photo.
He looked too skinny, like this was a heftier. I
(14:23):
thought it was artistic license that maybe you know, they
were just you know, well, it's hard because like all
the mustache thing is deceptive, so I was doubting it,
but I had nothing else to go off of and
then somebody tweets out with the sculptor's name. That name
came from viewer Mark McCarron. It might have been a
(14:45):
message that flashed up on the screen that said help
Morocca identify the sculpture, and I think it directed me
to a Twitter site. I don't remember exactly, but you know,
I got out my device and I started frantically trying
to act. Mark McCarron is the executive director of the
Historical Society in Torrington, Connecticut, and he's likely the only
(15:08):
person watching that night, possibly the only person period for
whom P S A B B rang a bell. When
mo was visiting the appraiser, I think the appraiser said, well,
there's obviously a professional sculpture, but you know, I can't
make out the signature and it's not somebody I'm familiar with.
(15:28):
And at that point the cameras zoomed in on the
sculpture and I immediately recognized it as Paulo as Sabate
because he worked in Torrington for many, many decades, and
we have a pretty good collection of his work and
his he signed everything. Mark revealed just enough new information
(15:48):
from Megan to make some progress, because remember the thinking
at that point is that it's Benjamin Barker O'Dell. So
I'm trying to connect Odell with Abote, not finding any
connection at all. So then I just do this is
my usual trick. I go on newspapers dot com and
I just put in the sculptor's name and bust, and
(16:09):
I'd give a time here. We knew it was, so
I'm like, let me do a little bit before and
a little bit after. So the first hit that comes
up on newspapers dot Com is from March the Brooklyn
Daily Eagle, and there is a photo of this exact bust,
and it says, a bust portrait of Police Commissioner Richard e.
(16:31):
Enright has just been completed in bronze by Paolo Esabate.
The bust is of heroic size and will be presented
to the Commissioner sometime during the summer. Its final resting
place has not been decided upon. Mr Abat is well
known in congregational circles in Brooklyn, where he is in
charge of the Italian Church of the Redeemer, Clinton and
(16:51):
Carroll Streets. I mean, there's your proof, of course, Megan
and Zoe were communicating every development to MO. It really
was while to see that sculpture, which is in my
apartment and has been with me for so long, in
an archival photo um, because I come to believe that
(17:11):
he just sort of via spontaneous generation, kind of was
born in that shop on the North Fork of Long
Island where I bought him. I mean, I'd given up
even imagining him in other settings, but to see him
in this setting with the sculptor um was really exciting.
It was it was kind of thrilling that made the
(17:32):
hairs in the back of my neck stand up. So
we got our full circle moment, the satisfying answer we
were all craving and a name to the face, Not
Grover Cleveland, but Richard E. N Right, a man I
had never heard of, but I did find someone who had.
(17:52):
So my name is Larry Sullivan, and I'm Professor Emeritus
and also Team Chief Flight Brian and Professor Criminal Justice
from the John J. College of Criminal Justice's The Lloyd
Seeley Library at John J College of Criminal Justice is
home to an archive of Richard E. Enwright materials and
(18:15):
it's only a few miles from most place. Now. Who
who was Richard E. En Right. All Right was the
first police commissioner that came to the racks. Five year
old and Right joined the NYPD in eight eventually becoming
the first officer to rise through the ranks from lieutenant
to police commissioner in nineteen eighteen and serving through nine
(18:38):
when he retired. If you look at the list of
the years of New York Police commission she was one
of the longest last. So with the with our bus
with Moroccos bust having the year one inscribed on it,
can you just paint the picture of what was going
on in New York City in the twenties. In New
York was three. Then he speakeasies all over the place
(19:02):
to crooked politicians, and he had to deal with us.
And that's probably one of these, uh, you know, his legacies.
I guess he was honest, which, as Larry pointed out,
was not a typical quality of Prohibition era police officers.
I mean, most of them would take payoffs. Two years
into en Right's career as commissioner, the National Prohibition Act
(19:25):
took effect. En Right, who was known for not tolerating graft,
cracked down on organized crime that became rampant during this
period and later when the police came under criticism for
ineffectively enforcing the National Prohibition Act, and Right made the
controversial decision to bring charges against members of the force.
(19:47):
But that wasn't all and Right is remembered for and
there may be two or three points that stand out.
One is ninety two he hosted the International Conference from
Police Choot. This was the first time such a conference
had been held in the US, uh that the next year.
(20:07):
Digipol Interpol is the organization that coordinates between local police
departments in countries all over the world, and its founding
can be traced back to n. Right. And also he
was a very advocate of printing. Fingerprint identification for criminal
investigation had only just been introduced in Europe by the
(20:31):
time and Right joined the police force in the eighteen nineties,
but it didn't take long for the novel system to
spread internationally, and by oh three, New York State prisons
were using the technique for criminal record purposes, and Right
envisioned fingerprints resolving identity questions of all kinds, not just
(20:51):
within the context of crime. In nineteen n Right wrote
an article for Scientific American titled Everybody should be Fingerprinted?
Where he advocated for a universal system of fingerprinting. Early
into retirement, and Right dabbled in fiction writing, publishing his
(21:11):
first book, Vultures of the Dark, a detective story based
on his own experiences in the NYPD. And although his
career as a crime novelist didn't take off commercially, he
did receive high praise from a fellow law enforcement official
turned writer, William J. Flynn, who described and write as
(21:32):
a holy new writer whose prolific brain can evolve and
depict fresh, sparkling detective situations. While we were learning of
en rights foray into crime fiction, Megan and Moe were
doing some research of their own. Well, Megan Marcus ended
(21:52):
up sending me an article about his sentent becoming a
cop on Long Island. I think the first um since
Richard N. Right in that family to do so um.
So I thought that was pretty cool, and I thought, well,
we could keep this thing going if I introduced this
young cop to the to the bust um. And of
(22:13):
course I was pleased to find out that he was
a particularly celebrated esteemed chief of police during Prohibition, at
a time when, of course, as anyone who's seen the
untouchable as the movie or the TV show can tell you,
it was a time of a lot of crime. So
I'm happy to have him in my home. I'm glad
(22:36):
we are able to solve the mystery from at the
end of the day. Like I can't even believe this
is the most unsatisfying appraisal that we might have done. Listen,
sometimes stuff like this happens. He was such a good
sport about us failing to answer the question that day.
We don't have all the answers we have of them,
but sometimes we don't. I love that this one was
(22:58):
such a group effort to get to the answer. No
yin It's store, we never in all. Watson Si de
(23:36):
Tours is a production of g b H in Boston
and pr X. This episode was written and produced by
Isabel Hibbert. Our editor is Galen Bebe. Our senior producer
and sound designer is Ian Coss. Jocelyn Gonzalez is the
director of pr X Productions. Devin Maverick Robbins is the
managing producer of podcast for g d H and Marsha
(23:56):
Benko is executive producer of Detours. I'm Your Host and
co executive producer Adam Monahan. Our theme music is Once
in a Century Storm by Will Daily from the album
National Throat. Thank you all for listening. Have a good one,
(24:32):
g B A. I hope you enjoyed listening to this
episode from season two of Detours from G B H
and pr Rex. We'll be back soon with new episodes
of Mobituaries, available on Amazon Music or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Host
Mo Rocca
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