The Gopher Gang was an early 20th century New York street gang known for its members including Goo Goo Knox, James "Biff" Ellison, and Owney Madden. The twentieth century of the Common Era began on New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous James T "Biff" Ellison (born 1862 was an early New York City gangster Owney "The Killer" Madden ( December 18, 1891 - April 24, 1965) was a leading underworld figure in Manhattan, most notable
Based out of the Irish neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, the Gopher Gang grew to control most of Manhattan from Fourth and Forty-Second Street to Seventh and Eleventh Avenue. Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton and Midtown West, is a neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City that includes roughly the area between 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 Formed from various local street gangs in the 1890s numbering around 500 members into what later became a committee including Marty Brennan, Stumpy Malarkey, and Newburg Gallegher. The 1890s were sometimes referred to as the " Mauve Decade" because William Henry Perkin 's aniline dye allowed the widespread use of that The committee met semi-regularly at their headquarters known as Battle Row, a saloon owned by Mallet Murphy, to discuss robberies and divide profits from Manhattan bordellos and illegal gambling operations.
In the early 1910s the Gophers were led by One Lung Curran who was notorious for his attacks on lone patrolmen. The 1910s decade ran from January 1 1910 through December 31 1919 Although most police rarely patrolled Hell's Kitchen, and only then in large groups, Curran often stole officers' uniforms and, after taking them back to his girlfriend for alterations, would wear the stolen clothes around the neighborhood. This encouraged other gang members to steal uniforms for themselves, becoming a sort of trend among the prominent gang members.
The gang began employing younger apprentice gang members such as the Baby Gophers and other gangs subordinate to the Gophers. These included the Parlor Mob, the Gorillas, and the Rhodes Gang as well as a female gang known as the Lady Gophers. Gorillaz is a Virtual band created in 1998 by Damon Albarn of alternative rock band Blur, and Jamie Hewlett, co-creator of the Comic Led by Battle Annie the Battle Row Ladies Social and Athletic Club, as they were officially called, acted as reserve members of several hundred women for the Gophers in territorial disputes against rival gangs and as strikebreakers during the next decade. A strikebreaker (also called scab or knobstick) is a person who works despite an ongoing strike. With the death of One Lung Curran in 1917, the gang declined in power, breaking up after most of the gang leaders were arrested by the end of the year.
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Popular culture
The 2002 film Gangs of New York directed by Martin Scorsese provided a lightly fictionalized history of the Civil War-era origin of the competing Irish immigrant crime crews which dominated Five Points. Gangs of New York is a 2002 Bildungsroman film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. Causes of the war See also Origins of the American Civil War, Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War The coexistence of a slave-owning South The Five Points Gang was a 19th-century Criminal organization based in the Sixth Ward ( The Five Points) of New York City. The movie explains the social tradition of enduring, if not actually shielding, Irish gangs in Manhattan's Irish neighborhoods.
References
- Asbury, Herbert. The Gangs of New York. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928. ISBN 1-56025-275-8
- T. J. English, Paddy Whacked, (2005) Regan Books ISBN 0-06-059002-5
See also
External links
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