In the hurly-burly decades after the Civil War, uptown and downtown, on and off the Bowery and all over Five Points, the New York underworld boasted a roster of real-life shady characters—crooked barkeeps, cops on the take, sundry fences, countless thieves and gangs galore—who could put a Damon Runyon to shame. Over on the West Read More
In the hurly-burly decades after the Civil War, uptown and downtown, on and off the Bowery and all over Five Points, the New York underworld boasted a roster of real-life shady characters—crooked barkeeps, cops on the take, sundry fences, countless thieves and gangs galore—who could put a Damon Runyon to shame. Over on the West Read More
One of the mysteries of Gangs of New York concerns the moniker of the Dead Rabbits-the mythic, supposedly ultraviolent 1850′s Irish gang that plays a central role in both Martin Scorsese’s $70 million epic and the 1927 book by Herbert Asbury on which it is based. Historian Tyler Anbinder, in his book The Five Points Read More
