The Marginals, also called the "Paddy Irish" gang, was a New York street gang during the early 1900s which, under stevedore Thomas F. "Tanner" Smith, succeeded the longtime Hudson Dusters in their territory of New York's Lower West Side.
Based between Tenth and Ninth Avenues, the gang emerged around the turn of the century involved in extortion and labor slugging.
During police crackdowns on the city's street gangs during the early 1910s, eight members of the Tanner Smiths were apprehended along with members of the Gas House and Car Barn Gangs in September 1910. Five members would receive prison sentences with the other three fined $10.
On the night of June 18, 1914, Smith was arrested by police, who were investigating reports of four gunshots. Smith was witnessed pursuing a member of the Hudson Dusters with a revolver in his hand. Although the two arresting patrolman were confronted by members of the gang, they were able to take him into custody and he was charged with felonious assault.
After driving out the rival Hudson Dusters and the Pearl Buttons, the Marginals enjoyed a brief reign ruling over the Lower East Side until the death of Tanner, who was killed by George "Chicky" Lewis (although other newspaper accounts credit Rubber Shaw) at the Marginal Club on Eighth Avenue on July 26, 1919. His murder was one of several gangland slayings, as Rubber Shaw of the Hudson Dusters was gunned down in Hoboken on July 24 and Johnny Spanish was ambushed while entering a Second Avenue restaurant on July 29.
The Lenox Avenue Gang was an early 20th-century New York City street gang led by Harry Horowitz; it was considered one of the most violent gangs of the pre-Prohibition era. It was based in Harlem in Upper Manhattan, New York City, around 125th Street, in what was then a predominantly Jewish neighborhood.
Benjamin "Dopey Benny" Fein was an early Jewish American gangster who dominated New York labor racketeering in the 1910s. With a criminal record dating back to 1900, Fein's arrest record included thirty charges from petty theft and assault to grand larceny and murder. Fein was nicknamed "Dopey Benny" because of his eyes always being halfway-closed due to a medical condition.
The Hudson Dusters was a New York City street gang during the early twentieth century.
The Gopher Gang was an early 20th-century New York street gang who counted among its members Goo Goo Knox, James "Biff" Ellison, and Owney Madden, born in England of Irish ancestry. Based in the Irish neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, the Gopher Gang grew to control most of Manhattan with their territory covering Fourth to Forty-Second Street and Seventh to Eleventh Avenue.
"Big" Jack Zelig was an American gangster and one of the last leaders of the Eastman Gang.
The Morello crime family was one of the earliest crime families to be established in the United States and New York City. The Morellos were based in Manhattan's Italian Harlem and eventually gained dominance in the Italian underworld by defeating the rival Neapolitan Camorra of Brooklyn. They were the predecessors of what eventually became known as the Genovese crime family.
Owen Vincent "Owney" Madden was a British-born American gangster who was a leading underworld figure in New York during Prohibition. Nicknamed "The Killer", he garnered a brutal reputation within street gangs and organized crime. He ran the Cotton Club in Manhattan and was a leading boxing promoter. After increased attention from law enforcement in New York, Madden moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1935, where he remained until his death from natural causes in 1965.
The Boodle Gang was an American street gang active in New York City during the mid-to- late 19th century. The gang were notorious "butcher cart thieves" during the 1850s and their hijacking methods would later be used by criminals of the early twentieth century.
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.
The Eastman Gang was the last of New York's street gangs which dominated the city's underworld during the late 1890s until the early 1910s. Along with the Five Points Gang under Italian-American Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli, best known as 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 forty to fifty-year period of strong Jewish-American influence within organized crime in New York City.
The Neighbors' Sons was a New York street gang which, operating in the neighborhoods between Bleecker and Grove Streets, were rivals of the Gopher Gang and the Hudson Dusters during the early 1900s.
The 116th Street Crew, also known as the Uptown Crew, is a faction of the Genovese crime family. In the early 1960s, Anthony Salerno became the caporegime of the 116th Street Crew and one of the most powerful captains in the Genovese family. Salerno based the crew in the Palma Boys Social Club located at 416 East 115th Street in East Harlem, Manhattan. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the 116th Street Crew had absorbed and initiated many former members of the vicious East Harlem Purple Gang, an Italian-American murder for hire and drug trafficking gang operating in 1970s Italian Harlem and acting generally independently of the Mafia.
The East Harlem Purple Gang was a gang and organized crime group in New York City consisting of Italian-American hit-men and heroin dealers who were semi-independent from the Italian-American Mafia and, according to federal prosecutors, dominated heroin distribution in East Harlem, Italian Harlem, and the Bronx during the 1970s and early 1980s. Though mostly independent of the Mafia and not an official Mafia crew, the gang was originally affiliated with and worked with the Lucchese crime family and later with the Bonanno crime family and Genovese crime family. It developed its "closest ties" with the Genovese family, and its remnants or former members became part of the Genovese family's 116th Street Crew.
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.
The Dead Rabbits riot was a two-day civil disturbance in New York City evolving from what was originally a small-scale street fight between members of the Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys into a citywide gang war, which occurred July 4–5, 1857. Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force—brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police—the fighting spiraled into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot in 1849 and the biggest scene of gang violence until the New York Draft Riots of 1863. Order was restored by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford.
John J. O'Connell was an American law enforcement officer and police inspector with the New York City Police Department. A noted detective sergeant during his early police career, he later served as head of the NYPD Police Academy from 1930 to 1942 and Chief Inspector from 1942 until his retirement in 1945.
There have been a few conspicuous instances of crime in the American city of Akron, Ohio. A rioting mob in 1900 destroyed several public buildings in their attempts to gain access to the suspect in a child sex attack. In the early 20th century a Black Hand gang led by Rosario Borgio ran an extortion racket; attempts by the police to suppress these activities led to the killing of several policemen and the execution of Borgio. Race riots broke out in 1968 when police were confronted by the inhabitants of the Wooster Avenue area.
Thomas F. "Tanner" Smith was an American criminal and gang leader in New York City during the early 20th century. He was the founder and leader of the Marginals, or "Irish Paddy Gang", which was active in Greenwich Village and along the Hudson River waterfront from around the turn of the 20th century until his murder in 1919. He was closely associated with Owney Madden and the Gophers; he and Madden briefly ran the Winona Club together until the New York City Police Department closed the clubhouse around 1910.
The Potashes were a 19th-century Irish-American street gang active in Greenwich Village and the New York waterfront during the early to mid-1890s. One of the many to rise in New York City during the "Gay Nineties" period, the gang was led by Red Shay Meehan and based near the Babbit Soap Factory on Washington Street near present-day Rector Street.
This is a list of organized crime in the 1910s, arranged chronologically.