"broderick a confession"

[Grant Barrett]

On Jan 22, 2010, at 10:54, Towse wrote:

> brodericked


There's a plausible origin story from the New York Daily News in 1999:

http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/1999/03/12/1999-03-12_johnny_broderick_true_detect.html

JOHN JOSEPH BRODERICK came from E. 25th St., a turn-of-the-century Gashouse lad who quit school as a broth of a boy to go to work driving brick trucks and coal wagons. As a young teamster, he became labor leader Samuel Gompers' private bodyguard. For a while, he was a fireman. In January 1923, he joined the Police Department, and by April he made detective third grade, a jump that in those days a harness bull would otherwise have to slave for about five years to accomplish. By March 1926, he was a detective first grade and running his own roving unit out of the main-office squad. It was, in fact, felt by no few of Detective Broderick's contemporaries that he plainly had an angel somewhere in the city.

He was famous from the beginning for never bothering with a revolver or a nightstick. He used his fists, huge lethal pistons that could beat a man senseless in half a heartbeat. To "get brodericked" was recognized Broadwayese; it meant to be felled by a single mighty punch. Dives would empty at the merest whisper that Johnny was coming around. Jack Dempsey always said he wouldn't fight Johnny for a million bucks.

Grant Barrett
grantbarrett at gmail.com

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