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The Old-Time Gangs of New York

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The Old-Time Gangs of New York THE OLD-TIME GANGS OF NEW YORK BY HERBERT ASBURY HE old-time gangs of New York City the older thieves, to whom they surren­ had their genesis in the tenements, dered their loot. Tsaloons and dance-houses of the old The Chichesters, Roach Guards, Plug Five Points and Paradise Square district; Uglies, Shirt Tails and Dead Rabbits were but their actual organization into working organized in other bogus grocery-stores, units, and the consequent transformation and in time these emporiums came to be of the area into an Alsatia of vice and regarded as the worst dens of the Five crime, followed the opening of the cheap Points, and the centers of its infamy and green-grocery speak-easies which sprang crime. The Shirt Tails were so called be­ up around the Square and along the streets cause they wore their shirts on the outside which, debouching into it, formed the of their trousers, like Chinamen, and the Points. The first of these speak-easies was expressive appellation of the Plug Uglies opened, about 1810, by Rosanna Peers, in came from the enormous plug hats of the Center street, just south of Anthony, now members, which they stuffed with wool Worth street. Piles of decaying vegetables and leather and drew down over their ears were displayed on racks outside the door, to serve as helmets when they went into but Rosanna provided a back room in battle. The Plug Uglies were for the most which she sold the fiery liquor of the part gigantic Irishmen, and included in period, her chief source of revenue, at their membership some of the toughest lower prices than it could be obtained at characters of the Five Points. Even the the recognized saloons. This room soon most ferocious of the Paradise Square eye- became the resort of thugs, pickpockets, gougers and mayhem artists cringed when murderers and thieves. a giant Plug Ugly walked abroad looking The gang known as the Forty Thieves, for trouble, with a huge bludgeon in one which appears to have been the first in hand, a brickbat in the other, a pistol New York with a definite, acknowledged peeping from his pocket, and his tall hat leadership, is said to have been formed in jammed down over his ears and all but Rosanna's establishment, and her back obscuring his fierce eyes. He was an adept room was used as its meeting place, and at rough and tumble fighting, and wore as headquarters by Edward Coleman and heavy boots studded with great hobnails, its other eminent leaders. There they re­ with which he stamped his prostrate and ceived reports from their henchmen, and helpless victims. from its dimly lit corners dispatched the The Dead Rabbits were originally part gangsters on their warlike missions. There of the Roach Guards, organized to honor was also a gang known as the Forty Little the name of a Five Points liquor-seller. Thieves, composed of small boys and girls But internal dissension developed, and at who admired the great deeds of their elders one of the gang's stormy meetings some and strove to emulate them. These chil­ one threw a dead rabbit into the room. dren were principally beggars, sneaks and One of the squabbling factions accepted it pickpockets, and were carefully trained by as an omen and withdrew, forming an in- 478 PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED THE OLD-TIME GANGS OF NEW YORK 479 dependent gang and calling themselves the Brady and Slops Connolly, most of whom, Dead Rabbits. Sometimes they were also beside being thugs of the first water, were known as the Blackbirds. Under the lead­ pickpockets, burglars and sneaks. Driscoll ership of such noted gangsters as Kit and Lyons were the two greatest leaders Burns, Tommy Hadden and Shang Allen of the Whyos, and appropriately enough they achieved great renown for their were hanged in the courtyard of the Tombs provv'ess as thieves and thugs. The battle within eight months of each other. Dris­ insignia of the Roach Guards was a blue coll was embroiled in a fight in 1887 with stripe on their pantaloons, while the Dead John McCarthy over the afl!"ections of a Rabbits adopted a red stripe, and at the girl known as Beezy Garrity, and in the head of their sluggers carried a dead rabbit gun fight which followed one of his bul­ impaled on a pike. The Rabbits and the lets hit the girl and killed her. He was Guards swore undying enmity and con­ hanged on January 13, 1888. stantly fought each other at the Points, Lyons succeeded Driscoll to the leader­ but in the rows with the Fourth Ward and ship of the Whyos, and was probably the Bowery gangs they made common cause most ferocious gangster of his period, a against the enemy, as did the Plug Uglies, worthy rival of the later and equally emi­ Shirt Tails and Chichesters. All of the Five nent Monk Eastman. Lyons was also one Points gangsters commonly fought in their of the first of the great gang leaders to avail undershirts. himself of feminine counsel. He frequently Little is known by historians of the ac­ consulted his girls, Lizzie the Dove, Gentle tivities of the Chichesters; it is likely that Maggie and Bunty Kate, all of whom this was a small gang and comparatively proudly walked the streets for him and weak, and that it fought under the banner faithfully gave him their earnings. But of one of the larger and more powerful Lyons was not satisfied with the manner bands in the great gang wars which con­ in which they maintained him. He added tinued in downtown New York for so a fourth girl, Kitty McGown, to his en­ many years and rolled up such an appalling tourage, despite the vigorous objections of list of dead and maimed. Its chief claim to her lover, Joseph Quinn, who swore he immortality is its persistence; it outlived would have vengeance. Both Lyons and all of the other Five Points gangs, and Quinn celebrated the Fourth of July, 1887, from it developed the murderous Whyos, by drinking heavily, and when they met perhaps the most vicious collection of at the Five Points the next morning their thugs and cut-throats that New York has dispositions were even more murderous ever seen. This gang, which took its name than usual. They began blazing away at from the peculiar call of its members, arose each other across Paradise Square, and soon after the Civil War, and was not fin­ Quinn fell dead with a bullet in his heart. ally stamped out of existence until the late Lyons went in hiding for a few months, nineties. The last haunt of the Whyos was but was finally arrested, and on August ii, in a Bowery saloon called the Morgue, the 1888, was hanged in the Tombs. After his owner of which boasted that his product death Gentle Maggie and Lizzie the Dove was equally efficient as a beverage and as quarreled over who loved him most, and an embalming fluid. Lizzie stabbed Maggie. The Whyos attained their period of Another shining light of the old Whyos, greatest renown during the eighties and before the time of Driscoll and Lyons, was early nineties, when the gang produced Dandy Johnny Dolan, who was not only such celebrated criminals as Danny Dris- a street brawler of distinction, but a loft coU, Danny Lyons, Owen Bruen, Hoggy burglar and sneak thief as well; nothing Walsh, Googy Corcoran, Baboon Con­ was too great or too trivial for him to nolly, Red Rocks F.irrcl!, Big Josh, Kid steal. His fellow gangsters regarded him PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 48ο THE AMERICAN MERCURY as something of a master mind because he neck, ripping away the lead from the gut­ improved the current technique of gouging ters. Mr. Noe pounced upon him and out eyes; he is said to have invented an dragged him downstairs, but when they apparatus, worn on the thumb and used reached the ground floor Dandy Johnny by the Whyos with great success in their picked up an iron bar and struck the manu­ fights with other gangs, which performed facturer on the head, inflicting wounds this important office with neatness and dis­ from which Ivlr. Noe died in a week. With patch. He is also credited with having im­ his victim unconscious. Dandy Johnny pro­ bedded sections of sharp ax-blade in the ceeded to rob him, taking a small sum of soles of his fighting boots, so that when money and a gold watch and chain, and he overthrew an adversary and stamped also carrying away Mr. Noe's cane, an ele­ him the consequences were both gory and gant stick with a metal handle carved in final. the likeness of a monkey. Then, for some But ordinarily Dandy Johnny did not obscure reason, Johnny tied his handker­ wear his fighting boots. He encased his feet chief about his victim's face, perhaps in in the finest examples of the shoe-maker's an effort to gag him. The story goes that art, for he was the Beau Brummel of the the thug appeared in the haunt of the gangland of his time, and was extraordi­ Whyos at the Five Points with one of the narily fastidious in his choice of raiment, manufacturer's eyes in his pocket, but that and in the care of his person. Under no cir­ is probably apocryphal. cumstances, not even to take part in a The alert Detective Dorcey was put to brawl that promised to be rich in loot, work upon the case, and within a few days would he appear in public until his hair learned that the watch and chain had been had been properly oiled and plastered pawned at a pawnshop in Chatham street, down against his skull, and his forelock the present Park Row.
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