The Belle of Bedford Avenue: The Sensational Brooks-Burns Murder in Turn-of-the-Century New York

Affluenza leading to bad behavior among the youth of an earlier century-ultimately ending in murder

At the turn of the 20th century, many affluent Brooklyn teens and young adults were bucking the constraints of their immigrant parents and behaving badly: drinking, having sex, staying out all night, stealing, scamming local businesses-and even more serious activities. The culmination for twenty-year-old Walter Brooks was being murdered in a seedy Manhattan hotel in 1902.

The ensuing court ca...