The Gangs of New York

by Herbert Asbury

  “We’ll shoot the gizzard out of any cop that tries to get in here!” cried Owney the Killer.

  Sergeant O’Connell and his men withdrew around a corner, and two of the patrolmen were told off to gain entrance through the rear of the house, while the remainder of the attacking force marched across the street in full view of the gangsters who watched from windows. Sergeant O’Connell then approached the door and engaged Madden and Smith in argument, while the thugs crowded round to hear their lords bait the police. They thus left a rear window unguarded, and the two patrolmen crawled into the house and reached the room where the gangsters had congregated. The first intimation Madden and his henchmen had of their presence was when they rushed into the room and fell upon the gangsters with their clubs. Bewildered by the sudden onslaught, the thugs fell back, whereupon Sergeant O’Connell and the reserves swarmed across the street, battered down the door and rushed into the building. Fifteen minutes later the gangsters, handcuffed and bleeding, were driven none too gently into the street and hauled in a patrol wagon to the police station. But in court next morning Owney the Killer, being a minor, was lectured by a benevolent judge and placed under bond of five hundred dollars to keep the peace for six months. Tanner Smith also received only nominal punishment, and immediately hastened to City Hall, where he obtained an audience with Mayor William J. Gaynor and displayed the bruises which he had received during the battle. He complained that the police had made a wanton attack upon himself and his friends while they were playing cards. The Mayor publicly reprimanded the police, and the result of the agitation was the famous Order No. 7, which prohibited a patrolman from using his club unless he was prepared to prove that it was in defense of his life, and left nothing to the discretion of an Inspector or a Captain if a citizen, honest or otherwise, complained that he had been clubbed. Nothing could have more effectively tied the hands of the few policemen who were attempting to rid the city of gangsters; and until the order was rescinded some two years later by Mayor John Purroy Mitchel, it was an important factor in maintaining the power of the gangs. A great chortle of glee went up from the underworld when Mayor Gaynor’s action became known, and for a little while Tanner Smith strutted in the limelight, as congratulations on his foresight poured in upon him. But within another year he was arrested and sent to prison to serve a year for carrying a revolver, and when he was released the gangs were on the run. So, late in 1914, Tanner Smith proclaimed his reformation and went into business as a boss stevedore and contractor. He was very successful and apparently lived uprightly, but early in 1919 he reverted to his old habits and established the Marginal Club above a saloon at No. 129 Eighth avenue. There he was shot through the heart a few months later by a man who approached him as he sat at a table with his back to the door. He left an estate of about one hundred thousand dollars.

  MADDEN’S principal lieutenants were Eddie Egan, Bill Tammany, and Chick Hyland, none of whom made much of a splash in the underworld. Tammany was arrested and sent to Sing Sing for fifteen years before he could fairly show his mettle; Chick Hyland was imprisoned for four years, and Egan dropped out of sight after his chief had been convicted. Madden’s sources of revenue were much the same as those of other gang chieftains, although he does not appear to have been a rival of Big Jack Zehg in the protection and raiding of gambling houses. He thrived principally upon sneak thievery, stickups, loft burglaries, intimidation of merchants and saloon-keepers, and collections from shady politicians. He made enemies by the score, for he was ambitious and domineering, and frequently let it be known that he aspired to be the acknowledged king of all the gangs. Many attempts were made to kill him, but none even approached success until the night of November 6, 1912, when he went to a dance given by the Dave Hyson Association in the Arbor Dance Hall, once the old Eldorado dive, in Fifty-second street near Seventh avenue, now the heart of the theatrical district. The Dave Hyson Association was merely a device to beat the excise laws and enable the management of the Hall to comply with the provision which permitted liquor to be sold after hours at a dance given by a legitimate social organization. Each of the waiters organized an association and gave dances in turn throughout the winter.

  The merriment was at its height when Owney the Killer stepped into the Hall and strode to the middle of the dance floor, where he stood with folded arms and glared menacingly about him. Almost instantly the music stopped, the women began to crowd toward the exits and the men backed into the corners, looking to their artillery. But the Killer waved a lordly hand.

  “Go on and have your fun!” he shouted. “I won’t bump anybody off here tonight!”

  He beckoned to Dave Hyson and graciously shook the trembling waiter’s hand.

  “Let ’em dance, Dave,” he commanded. “I don’t want to spoil youse guys’ party!”

  He then retired to the balcony, where he took a seat from which he could see and be seen. For several hours he sat alone, drinking whiskey and preening himself, enjoying the coy glances of the women and the envious glares of other and less famous gangsters. Soon after midnight a woman climbed the stairs and sat at his table. She was pretty and she prattled charmingly in obvious hero worship, and the gang chieftain was so interested in her that he relaxed and paid no attention to the eleven men who came up one by one and unostentatiously took seats near him. But finally the woman went downstairs, and Owney the Killer glanced lazily downward to the dance floor. Then his idle gaze swept the balcony. He saw enemies on three sides of him, eleven men who stared at him out of cold eyes. He knew that they intended to kill him, and would shoot before he could even so much as make a movement toward his pocket. Nevertheless, he slowly rose to his feet and faced them, for Owney the Killer was no coward.

  “Come on, youse guys!” he cried. “Youse wouldn’t shoot nobody! Who did youse ever bump off?”

  One of the eleven men cursed. That broke the tension. Guns blazed and Owney the Killer went down, and while he lay unconscious on the floor his enemies went calmly down the stairs and into the street; and no hand was raised to stop them. Patrolmen pushed their way through the crowd after a while, and sent the gangster to a hospital. Later a detective asked who had shot him.

  “Nothin’ doin’,” said Madden. “The boys’ll get ’em. It’s nobody’s business but mine who put these slugs into me.”

  Surgeons dug half a dozen bullets out of the gangster’s body, and he recovered after a long time. And in less than a week after the shooting three of the eleven men had been murdered.

  While Madden was recuperating from his wounds Little Patsy Doyle, an obscure member of the old Gophers who had spent much of his time along Broadway, suddenly appeared in Hell’s Kitchen and for no apparent reason blackjacked a policeman. Encouraged by the favorable comment which greeted this exploit, he endeavored to gain control of the gang, industriously spreading a report that Madden had been permanently crippled. Little Patsy was not alone ambitious; he nursed a grievance because his girl, Freda Horner, had cast him out and announced that she was going to marry Owney the Killer, or at least live with him, which in the underworld amounted to the same thing. Little Patsy acquired a small following of disgruntled thugs, but before he could make any considerable progress Madden was discharged from the hospital and immediately took steps to suppress the insurrection. He had scarcely returned to the Kitchen when Little Patsy was slugged with a piece of lead pipe and almost killed; but with the courage of desperation himself embarked upon a slugging spree and blackjacked several of Madden’s favorite henchmen. And he not only slugged Tony Romanello, one of Owney the Killer’s friends, but stabbed and shot him as well, for Romanello had taunted him with the fact that Madden had appropriated his girl.

  Little Patsy became increasingly obnoxious, and Madden marked him for the sacrifice. Ugly rumors that Little Patsy was a stool-pigeon and a snitch began to circulate in Hell’s Kitchen, and one by one the rebel’s adherents deserted him and again swore fealty to Owney the Killer. At length the time came for direct action. Madden w
ent into conference with two of his best gunmen, Art Biedler and Johnny McArdle, and commissioned them to attend to the job of permanently silencing Little Patsy. Freda Horner was instructed to have speech with Margaret Everdeane, a warm friend of many Gophers and the current sweetheart of Willie the Sailor, otherwise William Mott, and devise a scheme whereby Little Patsy could be lured within range of the guns. So it happened that on the night of November 28, 1914, Margaret Everdeane telephoned to Little Patsy that Freda Horner was pining away for love of him and desired mightily to be reconciled.

  “The poor kid’s all busted up over the way she treated you, Patsy,” said Margaret Everdeane. “She wants to see you, Patsy. I’ll have her with me an’ Willie, an’ you can talk to her.”

  An appointment was made, and shortly before midnight Little Patsy entered a saloon at Eighth avenue and Forty-first street. He was too much occupied with thoughts of Freda Horner to observe three men who lurked in the shadows across the street, or to notice that two pushed through the swinging doors not three minutes after he had entered the saloon. He strode hurriedly past the bar and into the back room, where he found Margaret Everdeane sitting at a table with Willie the Sailor. But Freda Horner was not there.

  “Where’s Freda?” demanded Little Patsy, suspiciously.

  “She’s gone out a minute, Patsy,” said Margaret Everdeane. “She’ll be right back. Sit down, Patsy.”

  A moment later a bartender came in and said that a man outside wanted to see Little Patsy. The gangster entered the bar-room, but saw no one he knew.

  “Who wanted to see me?” he asked.

  “I did,” said a voice.

  Little Patsy turned to face the speaker, and was greeted with a bullet in his lung. He reeled, and two more shots ploughed through his body, and he collapsed to the floor. He scrambled painfully to his feet and attempted to draw his revolver, but lacked the strength to pull it from his pocket. Lurching drunkenly, his face as white as the thin blanket of snow which covered the pavement, Little Patsy staggered out of the saloon and fell dead in the street.

  Owney the Killer was arrested two or three days later, and at his trial Freda Horner and Margaret Everdeane turned state’s evidence. Crying and raving that he had been jobbed. Madden was sent to Sing Sing for ten to twenty years, while Johnny McArdle was given a sentence of thirteen years and Art Biedler one of eighteen. And at Police Headquarters the detectives drew a breath of relief and scratched the name of Owney the Killer from their list of dangerous gangsters. But in January, 1923, after having served less than his minimum term. Madden was released on parole, and went to work for a taxicab company, the officials of which said that he had been hired to protect their drivers from unfair competition. In plain language, that meant blackjack the opposition. But this job lasted only a few months, and the next heard of the gang leader he and five other men were arrested near White Plains, in Westchester county, while riding on a truck which contained twenty-five thousand dollars worth of stolen liquor. The police said that Madden had been actively engaged as a hi-jacker, but the charges against him were dismissed when he told the court that he had merely begged a ride and did not know what was in the truck. Since then he has more or less dropped out of sight, but is said to have backed several night clubs in Harlem and mid-Manhattan.

  WHILE Big Jack Zelig was leading his gangsters in the wars against Chick Tricker and Jack Sirocco, and Owney Madden was welding a faction of the old Gophers into a formidable organization, scores of other gangs were in process of formation throughout the city, for the sympathy with which the police and politicians regarded the activities of Zelig and his contemporary chieftains had vastly encouraged every ambitious young thug in New York. Early in 1911 Terrible John Torrio appeared along the East River water front, in the old Fourth Ward, and as chieftain of the James street gang terrorized a large area for almost five years, when he removed to the west and soon became a conspicuous figure in the underworld of Chicago. The gangs captained by Joe Baker and Joe Morello struggled fiercely for supremacy along the upper East Side; five men were killed in a great battle at 114th street and Third avenue on April 17, 1912, and eventually they simply shot each other to pieces. The Red Peppers and Duffy Hills continued their nightly brawling in East 102nd street in the vicinity of Third and Second avenues, while the Pearl Buttons, ancient enemies of the Hudson Dusters, moved uptown late in 1910 and became lords of the area around West 100th street from Broadway to Central Park. The Parlor Mob, hitherto a vassal organization of the Gophers, abandoned Hell’s Kitchen when the special police of the New York Central Railroad went into action.

  and assumed control of the Central Park district around Sixty-sixth street, wherein were many low class tenements.

  Late in 1911 the Car Barn Gang came into existence, and soon became one of the most feared collections of criminals and brawlers in the city. Its members were recruited principally from the young hoodlums who loafed around the East River docks, fighting, stealing, and rolling lushes. But as members of the gang they became gunmen and highwaymen, and the Car Barn area, roughly from Ninetieth to One Hundredth streets and from Third avenue to the East River, became as dangerous for respectable people as Hell’s Kitchen. The first intimation that the police had that the thugs of this district had formally organized was when the following placard suddenly appeared on a lamppost near the old car barns at Second avenue and Ninety-seventh street:

  Notice COPS KEEP OUT!

  NO POLICEMAN WILL HEREAFTER BE ALLOWED IN THIS BLOCK. BY ORDER OF

  THE CAR BARN GANG.

  The police soon found that the Car Barners were prepared and eager to enforce their proclamation. Half a dozen patrolmen who ventured into the forbidden area were stabbed or beaten with slung-shot and blackjack, and thereafter they patrolled the district in fours and fives. After Mayor Gaynor’s Order No. 7 had been revoked the Strong Arm Squad made frequent excursions into the the domain of the Car Barners and clubbed the gangsters unmercifully, but it was not until two of their principal captains had been sent to the electric chair that the gang was smashed. These martyrs were Big Bill Lingley and Freddie Muehfeldt, better known as The Kid. Lingley was reputed to have been one of the organizers of the Car Barn Gang; he was a widely known desperado and burglar, and habitually carried two revolvers, a blackjack and a slung shot, which he was very keen to use, either on the police or an inoffensive citizen. Freddie Muehfeldt came of a good family, and in his early boyhood was prominent in Sunday School work, so much so, indeed, that his good mother expressed the hope that he might in time become a clergyman. But in his late teens the boy acquired an aversion to work and took to loafing on the docks, where he conceived a tremendous admiration for Big Bill Lingley, whose swagger was imitated by the boys of the neighborhood. Big Bill saw possibilities in young Muehfeldt and took the lad under his wing, and together they set out to bring honor to the Car Barners and glory to their own names. Accompanied by half a dozen satelhtes, they began a series of raids upon saloons from Fourteenth street northward to the Bronx, meeting with much success and filling their pockets with gold. But at length a liquor dealer in the Bronx, just across the Harlem River, fought back in defense of his till, and Big Bill and Freddie Muehfeldt promptly killed him. Both paid the penalty for murder, and the career of The Kid was ended before he was twenty-one years old.

  South of the Car Barn kingdom, around Fifty-ninth street, the Bridge Twisters prowled the darkened streets under the approaches to the Queensboro Bridge over the East River. At Fortieth street and the River, and as far inland as Third avenue, there was constant fighting between the Tunnel Gang, the Terry Reilleys and the Corcoran’s Roosters led by Tommy Corcoran; and the Gas House Gang continued to flourish along Eighteenth street and as far west as Fourth avenue, although these thugs were not so successful as during the days of Monk Eastman and Paul Kelly. The Gas Housers vanished from the scene early in 1914, when their last great chieftain. Tommy Lynch, was killed in a fierce battle with the Jimmy Curley gang captained by Gold Mine Ji
mmy Carrigio. A little farther south were the Carpenters, small in numbers but murderous of habit; and the lower East Side fairly swarmed with gangs of all degrees of importance. Among them were the Little Doggies, the Neighbors’ Sons, the Dock Rats, the Chisel Gang, the Folly Gang; and the Frog Hollows, who operated uptown as well, and specialized in white slavery. They were finally dispersed late in 1913 when three of their principal thugs were sent to prison for a total of more than forty-two years. And in this area, also, were the gangs captained by Dopey Benny Fein; Joe the Greaser, otherwise Joseph Rosensweig; Billy Lustig, Pinchey Paul, Little Rhody; Punk Madden, who was no relation to Owney the Killer; Pickles Laydon; Ralph the Barber, whose real name was Ralph Daniello; Yoske Nigger, born Joseph Toplinsky; Johnny Levinsky, and Charles Vitoffsky, called Charley the Cripple. Along the lower West Side north of the Battery there were innumerable small gangs which preyed upon the produce and chicken markets, and found the rivalry between men engaged in these lines of business greatly to their advantage. The most notable exploit of these thugs was the murder of Barnett Baff, a chicken dealer, in 1914. This job was reputed to have cost its instigators forty-two hundred dollars, which was divided among several gang leaders, while the man who actually fired the death shot received but fifty dollars. The police always believed that Baff’s death was procured by his business rivals, for competition was very keen and it was not uncommon for a man whose affairs were threatened by the enterprise of a rival to hire gangsters to wreck the enemy’s establishment and, if necessary, kill him.