Moe Sedway (July 7, 1894 – January 3, 1952) was an American businessman and mobster. He was an associate of
Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and a faithful lieutenant of organized crime czar
Meyer Lansky. He and
Gus Greenbaum made the
Flamingo Hotel & Casino in
Las Vegas
Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
very successful after Siegel's murder.
Biography
Moe Sedway was born to a
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
family as Morris Sidwirtz in 1894 in
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
.
At an early age, he began his criminal career in
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
in street gangs with Bugsy Siegel. He had a police record dating as far back as the early 1920s in New York. Later in his criminal career, he began making trips to Las Vegas on
Meyer Lansky's behalf in the early 1930s to franchise the syndicate's
Trans-America race wire service. By 1945, along with Gus Greenbaum, he was running the
El Cortez Hotel with great success.
Sedway was also instrumental in the financing and construction of the Flamingo Hotel when
William R. Wilkerson ran into financial difficulties. Sedway saw the Flamingo as unique opportunity for their group to expand operations in Las Vegas. Minutes after Bugsy Siegel's murder, Sedway and Greenbaum took possession of the Flamingo. No one questioned or disputed their authority. Under Sedway and Greenbaum's partnership, the Flamingo became a non-exclusive facility affordable to almost anyone. They made the enterprise extremely successful. In the first year alone, Sedway and Greenbaum turned a $4 million profit. He accurately predicted that the post-war demand for "entertainment" would be enormous. According to his calculations, hordes of gamblers from every state in the union would soon be flooding to Las Vegas.
Sedway served as a Clark County alderman, and was head of the United Jewish Appeal in Las Vegas. He was also on the board of directors of the Clark County Library.
Sedway was married to Beatrice "Bea" Sedway. He died from natural causes in 1952. He is buried in
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery is a full-service cemetery, funeral home, crematorium, crematory, and cultural events center which regularly hosts community events such as live music and summer movie screenings. It is one of the oldest cemeteries ...
.
Sedway was a confidential federal informant.
In popular culture
His name was merged with Gus Greenbaum's to inspire the name for the character "
Moe Greene" in the American crime drama film ''
The Godfather''.
References
Further reading
*Denton, Sally Russel and Morris, Roger. ''The Money and the Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America, 1947–2000''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.
*Lacey, Robert. ''Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life''. London: Century, 1991.
*Messick, Hank. ''Lansky''. London: Robert Hale & Company, 1973.
*Reid, Ed and Demaris, Ovid. ''The Green Felt Jungle''. Montreal: Pocket Books, 1964.
External links
AmericanMafia.com – Muscling Inby John William Tuohy
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sedway, Moe
1894 births
1952 deaths
Polish emigrants to the United States
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
People from Manhattan
Businesspeople from Las Vegas
20th-century American businesspeople
Jewish American gangsters
20th-century American Jews