Gangsters Of Nyc S Lower East Side

Journalists Craig Thompson and Allen Raymond in 1940 wrote that “...the lower East Side of Manhattan in the first twenty years of the twentieth century was the greatest breeding ground for gunmen and racketeers, since risen to eminence, that this country has ever seen...” Conditions in the pre-Prohibition twentieth century Lower East Side certainly fueled an explosion in gangs and racketeering. Such underworld giants as Meyer Lansky, Louis “Lepke” Buchalter and Salvatore “Charlie Luciano” Lucania were products of that overcrowded and hard environment. But that was just a small part of the area’s underworld history. In this issue, Informer presents a collection of articles representing the seedy and bloody gangland history of the Lower East Side. Material spans many decades of Manhattan’s history. Related article subjects: ∙ End of the Whyos gang. ∙ Historic Photo: Bandits' Roost. ∙ John H. McGurk and Bowery's "Suicide Hall." ∙ The death and life of hoodlum/hero Monk Eastman. ∙ NYC's first Mafia boss? ∙ Italian gang chief with an Irish name: Paul Kelly. ∙ Sai Wing Mock and the New York "Tong Wars." ∙ Frank Lanza's New York firms may have been Mafia fronts. ∙ In search of "Johnny Spanish." ∙ Racketeering future was molded in young Meyer Lansky's neighborhood. ∙ "Death Avenue": Second Avenue, 1910-1924. ∙ 1964 narcotics report included mobster bios. In addition, the issue includes these articles: ∙ New facts about 1928 Mafia conventioneers. ∙ "Bill the Butcher" wasn't from the Five Points. ∙ New and recent true crime book releases. ∙ Looking back from 2023: 150, 100, 75, 50, 5 years ago. Contributors to this issue: Thomas Hunt, Justin Cascio, Patrick Downey, Michael O'Haire, Steve Turner, Matt Ghiglieri.

Historic guide to the infamous criminals and counterculture of the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City.

New York's Lower East Side is the birthplace of everything from organized crime to anarchist movements. In the nineteenth century, an influx of struggling immigrants seeking opportunity met the harsh realities of industrialization. Poverty and squalor fueled a vicious battle for power and political clout. Local historian Eric Ferrara reveals the wicked history of America's most infamous neighborhood, where the abounding graffiti is a testament to the soul and spirit of the slum.

Herbert Asbury presents here a vivid and startling account of New York gangdom from its beginning in Revolutionary times to comparatively recent days. Here are the stories of the great gangs which terrorized the city and at times menaced its very existence—from the Bowery Boys and the Dead Rabbits to the Gophers and the Eastmans. Kid Dropper, Dopey Benny, Gyp the Blood and Owney Madden are a few of the gangster luminaries described, not to mention such female evildoers as Gallus Mag and Sadie the Goat. Nor have the underworld’s lesser lights been overlooked; for these pages are crowded with a host of gang warriors, pickpockets, tong leaders, murderers, politicians, gamblers, prostitutes, dive-keepers and a few would-be reformers. Mr. Asbury has created such a rich, factual background for this chronicle of crime and gangsterism that the book gains considerable stature as a revealing picture of New York City’s history through a century of frenzied growth and expansion. Whether you read it as such or merely for amusement, it is a swift, exciting experience.

a history of Street Gangs on the Lower East Side of New York City.

Few New Yorkers are aware that the tenements and storefronts of the East Village, famous for Beat poetry, avant-garde art, and alternative rock music, were a stronghold of mafia racketeering, treachery, and intrigue for almost seventy years. From the 1920s to 1990, mob icons lived in or frequented the East Village, known as part of the Lower East Side until the mid-1960s. In The East Village Mafia, author Thomas F. Comiskey shares the history of this little-known Manhattan mafia enclave that wielded influence on the direction and destiny of organized crime in New York City, telling how: Mafia royalty Lucky Luciano, Joe "the Boss" Masseria, and Joseph Bonanno lived in or frequented the East Village; East Village-bred Mafiosi plotted the assassinations of five Cosa Nostra bosses; Lucky Luciano ordained the East Village to be one of the mafia’s major heroin distribution centers after World War II; A mobster from Avenue A conspired to sell the Vatican millions worth of bogus stocks and bonds, some forged in the East Village; A sit down in Mafia don Joseph Bonanno's favorite Social Club on East Twelfth Street determined control over a New Jersey hotel; and A federal agent from Avenue A and Fifteenth Street became the nemesis of mafia narcotics dealers.

An intimate biography as well as an epic history, Monk Eastman vividly recounts the life and times of old New York’s most infamous gangster-cum-soldier as he made his way from the sooty streets and dingy saloons of the Lower East Side to the battlefields of the Western Front. Born in 1873 to a respectable New York family, Monk was running wild in Manhattan’s rough Lower East Side by the age of eighteen. He found work as a bouncer—when the saloon owner first turned him down because he had two bouncers already, Monk beat them both up and was promptly hired in their place. He soon developed a loyal following of immigrant toughs, and by 1900, he was the most feared gang leader in lower Manhattan, protected by corrupt politicians and crooked cops, and commanding an army of two thousand pickpockets, thieves, prostitutes, and thugs. But changing neighborhood demographics and shifting political fortunes colluded against Monk: after a pitched battle with Pinkerton detectives, he was sent to Sing Sing on a ten-year sentence, and his territory quickly slipped from his grasp. In 1917, no longer safe from the law—or from rival gangs—Monk joined the New York National Guard. As a gangster, he’d been the equivalent of a general; as an enlisted man, Monk was just another private. After several months of combat training, Monk’s division of Brooklyn recruits was thrown headlong into the bitter trench warfare in Europe. His experience in gangland combat served him well: he was repeatedly cited by his superiors for his bravery and he received a hero’s welcome back in New York and an offical pardon from the governor. But Monk’s gangland past was not so easily erased and caught up with him in the end. In Neil Hanson’s able hands, Monk’s unique and compelling story becomes an emblem of a time of upheaval—for New York and for the nation. From the Hardcover edition.