“I would rather risk myself in an Indian fight than venture among these creatures after night.”—Frontier hero Davy Crockett, describing the gangs of Manhattan’s Five Points
GANGS OF NEW YORK
In the 1800s, one of the worst slums in the United States was in lower Manhattan, centered at the intersection of what are now Park, Worth, and Baxter streets. Called the Five Points (because the neighborhood used to be at the intersection of five streets), its tenements were damp, unhealthy, and built on landfill so their foundations were sinking into unstable ground. The people who lived there, mostly destitute Irish immigrants who’d come to America seeking a better life, couldn’t afford to live anywhere else.
Typically, entire families in the Five Points were shoehorned into one small room, so many people spent a lot of time outside…and young men spent a lot of time in the streets. They had little education and few prospects for work, but the neighborhood had plenty of opportunities for drinking, gambling, brawling, and crime, making the Five Points one of America’s first breeding grounds for powerful street gangs. Eventually, these gangs gained political clout and a public following, and when they went to war, it sometimes took the military to restore peace.
THE FORTY THIEVES
Leader: Edward Coleman
Turf: The neighborhood in and around Centre Street
Claim to fame: The Irish gang called the Forty Thieves was America’s first known street gang, and it introduced organized crime to New York. The Forty Thieves met at a grocery store on Centre Street, but they never bought the rotting vegetables that the owner, Rosanna Peers, sold out front. Instead they gathered in the back room to drink rotgut liquor, and founding leader Edward Coleman used the store as his headquarters. From there, he kept track of the pickpockets, hold-up artists, and muggers that he’d sent out to terrorize the neighborhood.
Placed end-to-end, the 9,000 benches in Central Park would stretch 7 miles.
Gang members were required to turn over their cash or stolen goods to Coleman. Anyone who didn’t bring in money was thrown out of the gang immediately. And Coleman expected big earnings from anyone who worked for him—which led to his downfall.
In the 1830s, Coleman married a “hot corn girl,” one of the young women who sold roasted ears of corn on the streets. In 1838, when she didn’t bring in enough earnings, Coleman killed her. The murder shocked New York City, and Coleman—the city’s first street-gang leader—also became the first person executed in the newly completed Tombs Prison. The Forty Thieves continued for a while without Coleman, but its members gradually merged into newer, more powerful Irish gangs…like the Dead Rabbits.
THE DEAD RABBITS
Leader: John Morrissey
Turf: The entire Five Points
Claim to fame: The story of how the Dead Rabbits got their name is blurred with legends. One story says they began as part of the Roche (pronounced “roach”) Guard Gang but, after a disagreement, split off into a group of their own. Supposedly that was when someone threw a rabbit corpse on the floor, and the new gang found its name. Another legend claims that the members carried a dead rabbit impaled on a pole when they battled other gangs. But in reality, it’s probable that no bunnies were involved with the gang in any way. “Rabbit” likely came from the Irish term ráibéad, which meant a “rowdy” or a “battler,” and the term “dead” was 19th-century slang for “extremely.” And the Dead Rabbits were definitely extremely rowdy fighters—they used brickbats, paving stones, clubs, knives, and guns to attack their rivals. They also used them to win elections.
What made 19th-century gangs like the Dead Rabbits so dangerous and powerful was their alliance with crooked politicians. Dead Rabbits were “shoulder-hitters”—thugs who helped to rig elections by intimidating voters and tampering with votes, destroying any ballot boxes and polling booths that favored an opposing candidate. As payment, the politicians forced police to look the other way when Dead Rabbits broke the law.
“The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.” —John Updike
The Dead Rabbits backed pro-Irish, pro-Catholic candidates and Mayor Fernando Wood, elected in 1854, who claimed to be tough on crime but really was allied with the gang. That year, an anti-Irish, anti-Catholic gang called the Bowery Boys (see below) was trying to rig the election in support of its own Protestant candidate. At the time, the Dead Rabbits were led by John Morrissey, a tough, bare-knuckle boxer, who—along with his men—waylaid the Protestant supporters at the polls and saved Catholic ballots from being dumped in the East River. It worked. Wood was elected mayor, and to show his gratitude, he allowed Morrissey and the Dead Rabbits to open a gambling hall protected by his corrupt police force.
THE BOWERY BOYS
Leader: Bill “the Butcher” Poole
Turf: The Bowery, just north of the Five Points
Claim to fame: In the 1860s, the Bowery was a working-class neighborhood, and unlike lower Manhattan’s other nearly destitute gangs, most of the Bowery Boys had steady jobs as butchers or mechanics. Bowery Boys had money to spend at their neighborhood’s saloons, beer gardens, and dance halls. They could also dress well in hip stovepipe hats, frock coats, black flared pants, tall black boots, and even silk ascots.
Like their arch enemies the Dead Rabbits, the Bowery Boys were also shoulder-hitters. They might wear fancy clothes, but they’d steal and murder in the service of their political allies—in particular, the Know Nothing Party. This Protestant, anti-immigrant political party worked to repeal any laws that benefited the new Irish, German, and Jewish immigrants. The Know Nothings resented the immigrants—especially the Roman Catholic Irish, whose large numbers were seen as a threat to their jobs and way of life.
The most famous leader of the Bowery Boys, William Poole (a.k.a. “the Butcher”), a native of Sussex County, New Jersey, was also a leader of the Know Nothings. Poole was, according to the Brooklyn Eagle, “a knock-down, gouging, biting, brutal savage.” Once, in 1854, Poole confronted John Morrissey, his enemy from the Dead Rabbits, who was also a boxer. After exchanging insults, the leaders agreed to meet at a pier near Christopher Street for a bare-knuckle duel.
Morrissey arrived at the pier with a dozen of his friends…only to discover that Bill the Butcher had hundreds of supporters with him. According to the Daily Times newspaper, Poole threw Morrissey to the ground and then beat, gouged, and bit him until Morrissey was forced to yell “enough!” Morrissey and his pride were badly wounded. So in 1855, when Poole was shot to death, few people were surprised when Morrissey and his friends were accused of the murder. After three trials—all resulting in hung juries (rumors flew that political pals kept the Dead Rabbits out of jail)—the defendants went free. But the Bowery residents held a hero’s funeral for Poole, whose last words were, “Goodbye, boys. I die a true American!”
THE END OF AN ERA
In 1863, the Bowery Boys and the Dead Rabbits put aside their Catholic vs. Protestant feud and united—in their opposition to the Civil War. Many poor and working-class New Yorkers opposed Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation because they feared freed slaves might come north and take their jobs. In addition, Congress had passed a Conscription Law, which allowed drafted men to pay $300 to stay out of the army, ensuring that the rich didn’t have to fight. It was a sum well beyond most people in the Bowery and Five Points. In July 1863, the Dead Rabbits, the Bowery Boys, and several other smaller gangs joined in the Draft Riots. Buildings were looted and destroyed, and many of New York’s African Americans were murdered. It took federal troops five days to quell the riot, which ultimately failed—the government refused to change the law, and both Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits were drafted into the Union army. Although no one knows for sure if they all actually went to war, the gangs’ numbers (and power) were diminished. By the time the war was over, newer gangs had already formed, and the Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits gangs gradually disbanded.
The New York State Thruway introduced E-Z Pass in August 1993, the state’s first automated toll-collecting system.
There are 6,374.6 miles of streets in NYC.