Crazy Butch Gang

The Crazy Butch Gang was a teenage New York street gang which were known as the cities top pickpockets and sneak thieves during the late nineteenth century. New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous This article is about the crime For the Robert Bresson film see Pickpocket (film. The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar An early member of this gang would later become known as a prominent New York gangster Jack Zelig. "Big" Jack Zelig ( May 13, 1888 - October 5, 1912) was a New York gangster and one of the last leaders of the Monk Eastman Gang

Crazy Butch

Crazy Butch was supposedly orphaned at age 8, abandoned by his parents in Manhattan, where he began pickpocketing. According to legend, he later found a dog, which he later named Rabbi, and trained it to snatch purses and bring them around the corner at Willett Street and Stanton Street where he would be waiting.

In the early 1890s the gang began a "snatch racket", where a gang member would purposely drive his bicycle into a pedestrian and begin an argument. As a group had gathered to watch the argument the other gang members would pickpocket the crowd. Then they would meet back at their headquarters on Forsyth Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side to divide up the money. Forsyth Street runs from Houston Street south to East Broadway in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Manhattan Island, in New York Harbor, is much the largest part of the Borough of Manhattan, one of the Five Boroughs which form the City of New York The Lower East Side is a Neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan.

The gang was allied to the Eastman Gang who were at almost constant war with the Five Points and Humpty Jackson Gangs between the late 1890s and early 1900s as they were incorporated into the Squab Wheelmen, an ally of Monk Eastman's organization. Monk Eastman (c1873-1920 was a New York brawler who founded and led one of the most powerful street gangs in New York City at the turn of the Twentieth Century the Eastman The Five Points Gang was a 19th-century Criminal organization based in the Sixth Ward ( The Five Points) of New York City. Humpty Jackson (died 1914 was a New York criminal and last of the independent gang leaders in New York's underworld during the early 20th century The 1890s were sometimes referred to as the " Mauve Decade" because William Henry Perkin 's aniline dye allowed the widespread use of that The gang broke up when Crazy Butch was killed by Harry the Soldier in a gunfight over a female shoplifter known as the Darby Kid.

Crazy Butch

Crazy Butch Gang

Further reading