He was a Prohibition-era bootlegger, strong-arm man, suspected contract killer, gambling boss and longtime associate of some of the biggest names in organized crime. Yet outside of Pittsburgh and South Florida, Hyman “Pittsburgh Hymie” Martin is hardly a household name.
Martin spent decades moving through the upper reaches of the underworld, building relationships with both Italian and Jewish mob figures while carving out his own criminal empire. He survived a murder conviction that was overturned, became a major force in the numbers rackets, and eventually attracted so much attention in Miami that local law enforcement gave his organization its own name: the “Hyman Martin Group.”
In this latest Button Guys profile, The Other Guy takes us inside the long and colorful career of “Pittsburgh Hymie” Martin — a gangster whose underworld story stretched from the streets of Pittsburgh to the gambling rackets of South Florida and across more than half a century.
Hyman E. (Pittsburgh Hymie) Martin — aka Big Hymie, Hymie the Gunman, Fat Hymie, Hymen Martin, Harry Markowits, Hyman Marchakunsky (TN) — was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on April 6, 1903, shortly after his parents, Shimon (Samuel) Marchakunsky and Mary Dvora (Dora) Bialogurski, had immigrated from Russia. He was one of four siblings. He had an older sister named Bessie and two kid brothers named Nathan and Jack. For many years, the Martin family resided at 235 Dinwiddie Street, Pittsburgh.
The section of town the Martin family lived in was a rough-and-tumble area, and while Jack would stay on the straight-and-narrow during his lifetime, the same could not be said for his two brothers, who chose to walk a different path in life.
As his street nickname implied, Hymie and his siblings were raised in the Pittsburgh area and attended the city’s public school system. Hymie reportedly got as far as his second year in high school before dropping out to pursue a long and reportedly very successful career as a Prohibition-era gangster and gunman.
Like his older brother, Nathan, more commonly called Natie, Hymie would also fall prey to street life as a youngster.
The Martin boys started out as street criminals committing petty thefts and armed-robberies, and later, doing strong-arm work as enforcers at the behest of the neighborhoods older and more established hoodlums.
Close Ties to the Italians
The Martin brothers formed many friendships and early associations with a wide cross section of Pittsburgh’s underworld, including many men who would later rise up to become among the most important and powerful gangsters and racketeers in the country, some of whom would national gain reputations major Mafia bosses.
These early connections would serve the brothers well in the coming decades, especially Hymie, who would work hand-in-glove with many of the nation’s top underworld leaders in the coming years, including men with names like Sebastian (Big John) LaRocca, the longtime boss of the Pittsburgh Mafia, and Meyer (The Little Man) Lansky, a Jewish crime boss in his own right and, arguably, the American underworld’s top financial wizard.
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