Good morning. It's Friday. Today we'll look at how a trove of letters and art belonging to a famous jewel thief ended up at New York's antiquarian book fair.
When Murph the Surf rolled up from Florida in 1964 to pull off the biggest jewel heist in New York City history, he did it in a flashy white Cadillac. When Mike Cotter made the same trip earlier this week, he slogged his way up in a beleaguered minivan loaded with books. Murph (real name: Jack Roland Murphy) slipped through an open fourth-floor window to enter the American Museum of Natural History's Hall of Gems. He tucked the stunning Star of India sapphire and other prize stones into a shoulder bag and then split to make the scene at some jazz clubs, the epitome of cool. Cotter, on the other hand, is a rare-book nerd. And so he is in New York this week for the annual rare-book-nerd convention (real name: the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair). Now in its 64th year, the book fair runs through Sunday at the Park Avenue Armory on the Upper East Side. Cotter's big-ticket item this year is a trove of Murphy's letters and art. He said he had been at a Florida flea market recently and had heard about a collection of letters and prison artwork retrieved from Murphy's home after he died in 2020 at 83. Cotter looked up this Murph the Surf, who was arrested within days of the museum heist and made headlines as a flashy surfer dude turned jewel thief. "I thought, 'This guy sounds like the best con man ever,'" said Cotter, who promptly acquired the modest archive and is now looking to sell it at the fair for $30,000. "It's definitely the coolest collection I've ever had," Cotter said while setting up at the fair on Wednesday. He pulled out some paintings Murphy had collected in prison and two portraits of Murphy himself. There are letters sent to Murphy from his then-girlfriend while he served time on Rikers Island in the mid-1960s for the museum heist, and letters from his mother while he was in prison in Florida after being convicted of murder years later. There is a copy of "Jewels for the Journey," a motivational book by Murphy, who became an evangelical Christian in prison and then parlayed that into parole after serving 17 years and furthered his fame as a speaker. "Man, he could sell it, all right," said Mr. Cotter, himself no slouch as a salesman. In fact, he had just sold a copy of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1964 book "Why We Can't Wait," signed by King, for $7,500. The book fair will have a variety of New York City items on offer. The Daniel / Oliver gallery in Brooklyn has a booth at the fair and is selling a collection of about 3,000 vintage matchbooks from Chinese restaurants across the country, including hundreds from New York City.
Another booth, Capitol Hill Books, displayed an archive of 37 photographs of early work on New York City's subway. And at the James Cummins Bookseller booth, there is a set of World Trade Center blueprints that belonged to Herbert Belton, an architect who worked on the original Trade Center project. WEATHER Expect a partly sunny day with a high near 50 degrees. Tonight, it will be partly cloudy with a low around 41 degrees. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until April 10 (Eid al-Fitr).
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Dear Diary: I was waiting for a train at Columbus Circle and wearing my black-and-white paisley printed sneakers when a man sat down next to me.
He pulled out his phone and showed me a photo. It was the wallpaper in his bathroom. It had the same paisley print as my shoes. — Gwendolyn Evans Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. Joseph Goldstein will be here on Monday. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Bernard Mokam and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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N.Y. Today: The surfer dude behind a famous jewel heist
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