'The Gilded Age' is missing a big part of NYC history

City’s ‘Age’ of cops & robbers

HBO’s “The Gilded Age” has grabbed gilded ratings. In it robber baron character George Russell gets shot. Surviving, he orders a private investigation to see who tried knocking him off.

Attention. This is based on the actual attempted knockoff of actual financier Russell Sage, a character in the show and a Russell adversary. Ask not how I know this. I know this.

In real life, who’d have investigated this crime was tough, rough ruthless big-time NY crime fighter Thomas Byrnes. He started NYPD’s Detective Bureau, coined phrases like “the third degree” and “rogues gallery” then rose to be NYPD Police Commissioner. Byrnes then got dumped by Teddy Roosevelt. Ask not how I know this, I know this.

This town has had many interesting commissioners and pols and ex