At least until the first week of August, it appeared to have been a pretty good year for Joseph Force Crater.
He was 41 years old, a good Tammany Hall Democrat, widely regarded as a comer. Gov. Franklin Roosevelt had recently named him to the state Supreme Court bench. Some felt he was on the fast track to big things, perhaps even the Supreme Court of the United States.
Then he stepped into a New York City taxicab and vanished from the face of the Earth.
Maybe he ended up in the tropics with a sackful of cash and a couple of chorines. Maybe he ended up in small pieces at the bottom of a gravel pit. For the record, no one has ever known. Almost certainly no one ever will. Joseph Force Crater disappeared efficiently, completely and forever. In all New York history, no one has ever gone more impressively missing.
