Frank "Chick" Tricker was an American gangster in New York who, as a member of the Eastman Gang, served as one of its last leaders alongside Jack Sirocco.
A longtime member of the Eastmans, Tricker made a name for himself as a Bowery and Park Row saloonkeeper who first came to prominence in a brawl with "Eat 'Em Up" Jack McManus, a former prizefighter and Bowery bouncer at McGurk's Suicide Hall. After insulting several dance hall girls at Paul Kelly's club New Brighton, McManus confronted Tricker at Third Avenue and Jones Street and shot him in the leg. While Tricker was recuperating in a local hospital, McManus was ambushed and killed by Sardinia Frank only a day later. [1]
Tricker survived the gang wars of the last decade and became a prominent member under Eastman leader "Big" Jack Zelig, who was awarded control of one of the three factions of the Eastman gang. By 1910, Tricker headed his faction based at the former Stag Cafe on West 28th Street near Broadway, renaming it the Maryland Cafe. The club had a long history of violence as, only the previous year, three men had been killed in a dispute over a woman.
During the so-called "Ida the Goose War", several members of his gang were killed in a confrontation with the Gopher Gang when Ida the Goose was abducted (or ran off with) a member of Tricker's gang. Leaving the gangs to settle the matter themselves, the Gophers eventually took her back to Hell's Kitchen after a brief gunfight in the Maryland Cafe leaving six members dead .
Following a failed armed robbery in 1911, Tricker and Sirocco left behind Zelig, who had been injured during the holdup, to be arrested. Instead of bailing him out, the two decided to assume control of the Eastmans. Zelig was eventually released in part to his political connections in Tammany Hall. A later attempt to murder Zelig failed when, after being informed by Ike the Plug, Zelig lured Eastman member and assassin Jules Morell into his club where he was killed .
By 1912, Tricker and Sirocco were using Little Rock's pool room, at 396 Broome Street, as their headquarters. [2]
Paul Kelly was an Italian-born American mobster, who founded the Five Points Gang in New York City. He had started some brothels with prize money earned in boxing. Five Points Gang was one of the last dominant street gangs in New York history. Kelly recruited young, poor men from the ethnically diverse immigrant neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan. The Five Points Gang included some who later became prominent criminals in their own right, including Johnny Torrio, Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Frankie Yale.
"Big" Jack Zelig was an American gangster and one of the last leaders of the Eastman Gang.
The Crazy Butch Gang was an American juvenile street gang active in the New York City underworld during the late nineteenth century. Largely active in Manhattan's Lower East Side, the group were widely known as the cities top pickpockets and sneak thieves during the "Gay Nineties" period. An early member of this gang would later become known as a prominent New York gangster Jack Zelig.
The Five Points Gang was a criminal street gang, initially of primarily Irish-American origins, based in the Five Points of Lower Manhattan, New York City, during the late 19th and early 20th century.
The Whyos or Whyos Gang, a collection of the various post-Civil War street gangs of New York City, was the city's dominant street gang during the mid-late 19th century. The gang controlled most of Manhattan from the late 1860s until the early 1890s, when the Monk Eastman Gang defeated the last of the Whyos. The name came from the gang's cry, which sounded like a bird or owl calling, "Why-oh!"
Edward "Monk" Eastman was an American gangster who founded and led the Eastman Gang in the late 19th and early 20th century; it became one of the most powerful street gangs in the city. His aliases included Joseph "Joe" Morris, Joe Marvin, William "Bill" Delaney, and Edward "Eddie" Delaney. Eastman is considered to be one of the last of the 19th-century New York City gangsters who preceded the rise of Arnold Rothstein and the Jewish mob. Later, more sophisticated, organized criminal enterprises also included the Italian American Cosa Nostra.
Max Zweifach also known as "Kid Twist" and occasionally referred to as Zwerbach was an American gangster active in the early 1900s.
The Eastman Gang was a predominately Jewish-American street gang that dominated parts of the underworld in New York City during the late 1890s until the early 1910s. Along with the increasingly Italian-American and Italian immigrant Five Points Gang under Italian-American Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli, best known by his pseudonym Paul Kelly, the Eastman gang succeeded the long dominant Whyos as the first non-Irish street gang to gain prominence in the underworld during the 1890s. Its rise marked the beginning of a period of strong Jewish-American influence within organized crime in New York City.
Philip "Red Phil" Davidson was an American criminal and underworld figure in New York City during the early 20th century. A known associate of Jack Sirocco, a lieutenant in Paul Kelly's Five Points Gang, he was responsible for the 1912 murder of Eastman Gang leader "Big" Jack Zelig, though at the time of his arrest police were unable to find a police record.
James T. Ellison, better known as Biff Ellison, was a New York City gangster affiliated with the Five Points Gang and later a leader of the Gopher Gang. He was noted for his propensity for physical violence as well as a dapper appearance that led The New York Times to describe him as "looking like a prosperous banker or broker" and contemporary chroniclers as "smooth-faced, high-featured, well-dressed, a Gangland cavalier" and "a fop in matters of dress".
Dan Mulcahy, known by the pseudonyms of Louis Harris and Dan the Dude, was a New York criminal and the longtime owner of the Stag Cafe at 28 West 28th Street, in the vice district of Satan's Circus. The cafe was a popular hangout for many of the criminals in New York's underworld. Dan was most noted as a fixer and confidant of New York's numerous con men, many of whom came from out of town and used his establishment as their unofficial base. "In olden times [around 1910-1915] in Dan the Dude's place," it was said, "you could see a hundred con men there at once, and not one of them would be a native New Yorker."
Julie Morrell or Jules Morello was an American freelance gunman associated with the New York Eastman Gang around the start of the 20th century. He was hired by Jack Sirocco and Chick Tricker to murder Eastman leader Jack Zelig, who had been engaged in a gang war over control of the Eastmans. However, upon being informed by local saloonkeeper Ike the Plug to whom Morell had bragged "I'll fill that big Yid so full of holes he'll sink !", Zelig lured the unsuspecting assassin to a Second Avenue dance hall, the Stuyvesant Casino, where the Boys of the Avenue were holding an annual grand ball on December 1, 1911.
Ida Burger, known in the underworld of New York as Ida The Goose, was a popular American dance hall girl and a prostitute during the turn of the century. She was the subject of a major gang war between members of the Gopher Gang and saloonkeeper Chick Tricker's faction of the Eastman Gang.
Jack McManus, also known as Eat 'Em Up, was a noted New York City gangster around the turn of the 20th century.
Giovanni de Silvio or Jimmy Kelly was an American saloon keeper, political organizer and underworld figure in New York City during the start of the 20th century. He was the owner the Fourteenth Street saloon The Folly as well as the popular Mandarin Cafe in Chinatown, located in the notorious "Bloody Angle" along Doyers Street, and was a hangout for politicians, gang leaders and other noted criminals of the era. His cafe was also the scene of several violent incidents, especially during the Tong War, which included, in 1910, the fourth attempted suicide of Chinatown character John "Dippy" Rice and the 1912 murder of Hen Ken Yum, the latter a high-level member of the On Leong Tong and a lieutenant of Mock Duck.
John Lewis (died April 1, 1910), better known by his alias Indian or Spanish Louie (Lewis), was an American criminal and member of the Humpty Jackson Gang, serving as the gang leader's longtime lieutenant from around the turn of the 20th century until his murder in either 1900 or 1910. His death was the first recorded use of a drive by shooting as a means of gangland execution in New York City.
"Big" Jack Poggi or Pioggi was an American saloon keeper and underworld figure in New York City at the start of the 20th century. His bar was the scene of a legendary gang fight in 1912.
Jack Sirocco (1882–1954) was a New York City gangster involved in labor racketeering and strikebreaking. Originally a lieutenant in Paul Kelly's Five Points Gang, where he was the immediate boss of Johnny Torrio, Sirocco defected to the rival Eastman Gang, which he led in its last days.
This is a list of organized crime in the 1900s, arranged chronologically.
This is a list of organized crime in the 1910s, arranged chronologically.