The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the New York Underworld

This is the 1927 book that years later inspired the movie of the same name. It is a book about criminal violence, corrupt politics and police, and illicit sex. The City of New York, from the late colonial period up to the early twentieth century, was a bustling hub of commerce, industry, and immigration. For many the city was the gateway to a new life in America, and for many others it was a place to steal a buck from their fellow New Yorkers and visitors to the city with thievery, fraud, and vice—in neighborhoods such as the Five Points, the Bowery, Hells Kitchen, and the Water Front.

These are the stories of the infamous criminals of the era—the many vicious gangs and their “specialties.” At many times in the city’s history the notoriously corrupt police force was just another gang. The crooked political machines, including the infamous Tammany Hall, cast a blind eye towards all sorts of gambling dens, dance halls, houses of ill repute, sellers of illegal liquor and drugs, pickpockets, brawlers, murderers, lewd performances, and more. No one was safe, and it took until the twentieth century for the City of New York to become a place where rampant criminality was (somewhat) under control.