Unsolved Mysteries: The Death of a Scoundrel

One of Manhattan’s Most Famous Unsolved Killings, the Sordid Life, and Death of Serge Rubinstein Is Tinged With Greed and Cruelty

The world of 1950s New York will forever be etched in the minds of most Americans. It is a now bygone age of trench coats and trilbies, of unquestioning patriotism and the dawn of the television age. Coming at the mid-point of the decade, 1955 marked the Cold War’s height, with Soviet tensions dominating the news and all manner of B-movies filling cinema-goers’ minds. Buddy Holly was just a year away from his first single, and both rock and roll and the greaser subculture were about to redefine the era. America was at a crossroads.

Serge Rubinstein, meanwhile, seemed something of a throwback. He could almost have been a stock character from all manner of 1930s and 1940s pulp detective fiction, the perfect kind of adversary for the likes of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade. Few had a good word to say of Rubinstein — he was a crook, a scoundrel, and a swindler. The man had few friends yet had an immense talent for acquiring wealth through fair means and foul. He believed that the rules didn’t apply to him and that all was fair in love and the acquisition of money. This money opened doors for the young man and created an endless stream…