Stories
Early Characters
Lew Baker – The Man Who Shot Bill The Butcher
Lewis Baker was a patrolman in the New York Police Department who was employed as a "slugger" for Tammany Hall. He was involved in voter intimidation and election fraud during the 1840s and 1850s but he is mostly known as the man who shot & killed William "Bill...
Wild Bill Lovett – Brooklyn’s White Hand Gang Boss
William "Wild Bill" Lovett was a gangster and leader of the White Hand Gang from the Red Hook area or what was known at the time "Irish Town" due to the amount of Irish people that lived in that part of Brooklyn in New York in the 1910's and 20's. Born in Lixnaw,...
Corlears Hook – The Lower East Side
Corlears Hook was once a middle-class neighborhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan which in the 1820's began its descent into a den of crime, vice and sin. It was once a Native American Settlement and then an industrious shipyard, the neighborhood was about to...
The Five Points
The Five Points was a 19th-century neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York. The neighborhood was bound by Center Street to the west, the Bowery to the east, Canal Street to the north, and Park Row to the south. The Five Points stood on what is now Park, Worth &...
“Jelly Roll” Hogan & The Hogan Gang – St. Louis
Edward "Jelly Roll" Hogan was the leader of the Hogan Gang and arch enemy of the Egan's Rats Gang in St. Louis, Hogan and his gang strong armed their way into the illegal alcohol business and had many running battles with members of Egans Rats along the way. And like...
Jacob Riis – Photographed The Gangs of New York
Jacob Riis was born in Denmark in 1849 and emigrated to the US in the 1870's, he was a pioneer in photography, a social reformer and journalist. He pioneered his use of photography and journalism to bring social changes in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where...
Dandy Johnny Dolan – More Than a Comic Book Character
Dandy Johnny Dolan was the subject of a Simon & Kirby comic book in the 1940's, based on the life and crimes of the real John Dolan, who was born in 1849 in Lower Manhattan, he became the leader of one of the most notorious gangs in the mid to late 1800's, The...
The Dead Rabbits & The 1857 Riot
The Dead Rabbits were a street gang in Lower Manhattan in the 1850s, whose members were mostly Irish. The were also named the "Mulberry Boys" and the "Mulberry Street Boys" by the NYPD because they did also operate along Mulberry Street in the Five Points. They were...
Dennis “Dinny” Meehan – The Leader of the White Hand Gang
Dennis "Dinny" Meehan became leader of the White Hand Gang around 1910 and led the gang up until his death in 1920 when he was murdered, as is the occupational hazard when you choose that way of life. He was born in Brooklyn in 1889 and ran with the Warren Street Red...