It only took 25 years, but there’s been a break in the famed Isabelle Stuart Gardner Museum art heist.
Video that purportedly shows the guard on duty on March 18, 1990, the day of the theft, has finally been released. It shows him letting a man into the museum through the same door the thieves used to walk out with 13 works of art, including Vermeers and a Degas or two. The incident is part of Boston lore, like the Tea Party or the Red Sox sucking for so long. Books have been written about it, and there may be a movie in the works. People have long questioned who was behind the theft and where the absconded works may have ended up. Some may question why the video is only being released now. But when I first learned of the incident, my only big question was: They still did that stuff in 1990? When I first heard the story of the Isabelle Stuart Gardner Museum heist, I assumed it had occurred in some bygone era, when crooks and thieves wore fedoras and suits when they committed their crimes. When each “crew” had a guy who actually practiced the art of safecracking, listening for “tumblers” falling with each turn of the dial. And another guy who was an expert in security alarms, having researched each new model and manual that was printed. And another guy whose only – ONLY – job was to drive the getaway car (usually a former racecar driver who was bounced from the sport for cheating). And a “boss” whom everyone in the gang actually called him “Boss” and who knew which artworks were worth stealing and which weren’t. But when I found it the crime happened in 1990 - practically yesterday - I was floored. Even though it was 25 years ago, 1990 was still the era of instant gratification. Daytraders trying to become millionaires before lunchtime. Napster bringing people onboard with the idea of downloading their favorite songs without waiting, or even paying for it. So the idea of someone carefully planning, plotting, orchestrating the theft of specific valuable piece of art is some old school stuff. I mean, while other crooks were content to just stick a gun in someone’s face on the street or rip ATM out of walls with trucks and figure out how to get inside them later, these guys were out there buying police uniforms to exacting physical specifications, drawing diagrams, plotting escape routes. Perfectionism. It’s movie stuff, starring Cary Grant and Danny Kaye as the debonair art thief and his ever-nervous associate attempting to abscond with DuBonfet’s “Cat With Pillow” (Note: not an actual piece of art) from wealthy countess Olivia DeHavilland. Not some guys who earlier in the day could have been watching Forrest Gump on the big screen. But this sort of - quaint? – criminality is not unusual here in Boston. Bank robbery is big here. Like at-least-once-a-week big. For a city of its size, Boston (and surrounding area) is right up there with the big boys like Chicago and Los Angeles. According to MassMostWanted.com., so far this year there have been three bank robberies in July, four in June, three in May and two in April. In the Chicago, according to BanditTrackerChicago.com, there were two in July, two in June, one in May and two in April. Close, but given their disparity in population, area, etc., quite impressive, Boston. These old school robberies are but one of the aspects of Boston that seems to show the residents’ love of the old school. Like guys who still wear their baseball caps backwards as if the 1990s never ended. Or kids who are still trying to perfect their skill at popping a wheelie, something me and my friends did in the 1970s. Sure, they’re probably doing those same things somewhere else in America, but having live in two other time zones and not seen it anywhere else since the dawn of the new millennium, I have to tip my backwards White Sox cap to Bostonians for keeping it old school in the face of the march of time. I keep wondering what other blasts-from-the-pasts Boston has in store for us here. Do they still breakdance in the subway on large pieces of cardboard? I assume there must still also be cat burglars in Boston, as well as second-story men, counterfeiters, bunko artists, flimflam men and B-girls. We’re flying back to Chicago for a vacation in a few dans. I hope they don’t hijack our plane to Cuba out of Logan Airport.
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August 2015
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