Five Points Gang was a 19th-century and early 20th-century criminal organization, primarily of Italian-American origins, based in the Sixth Ward (
The Five PointsFive Points was a neighborhood in central lower Manhattan in New York City. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south...
) of
ManhattanManhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
,
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Since the early 19th century, the area was first known for gangs of Irish immigrants.
Paul KellyPaul Kelly was an Italian immigrant who founded the Five Points Gang in New York City after starting some brothels with prize monies earned in boxing...
, born as Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli, was an Italian American who founded the Five Points Gang, one of the dominant street gangs in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Over the years, Kelly recruited youths who later became prominent criminals, such as
Johnny TorrioJohn "Papa Johnny" Torrio , also known as "The Fox", was an Italian-American mobster who helped build the criminal empire known as the Chicago Outfit in the 1920s that was later inherited by his protege, Al Capone...
,
Al CaponeAlphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
and
Lucky LucianoCharlie "Lucky" Luciano was an Italian mobster born in Sicily. Luciano is considered the father of modern organized crime in the United States for splitting New York City into five different Mafia crime families and the establishment of the first commission...
.
The Five Points
The area of Manhattan where five streets converged was known as "The Five Points". the streets were Mulberry; Anthony (now Worth); Cross (now Park); Orange (now Baxter); and Little Water (extinct)This area lay between
BroadwayBroadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...
and the
BoweryBowery , commonly called "the Bowery," is a street and a small neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan...
, an area occupied by present-day Chinatown. By the 1820s, this district had been a center of poor immigrant settlement and was considered a
"slum"A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...
area.
GamblingGambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
dens and brothels were numerous in the Five Points area, and it was considered a dangerous destination, where many people had been mugged, particularly at night. In 1842,
Charles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
visited the area and was appalled at the poor living conditions in substandard housing. In that decade, various church groups worked to end the vices in the district to help its many poor families who lived there. The Sixth Ward had a reputation as an area with a corrupt political process, more true particularly after the
American Civil WarThe American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. In one election, the total number of ballots filed was higher than the number of registered voters in the area.
Origins
By the 1870s a wave of Italian and Eastern European Jewish immigrants were settling into the area. Criminal gangs competed for control of the revenue to be made from illicit activities. Ethnic
IrishThe Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
gangs, such as the
WhyosThe Whyos, a collection of the various post-Civil War street gangs of New York, was the city's dominant street gang during the late 19th century. The gang controlled most of Manhattan from the late 1860s until the early 1890s, when the Monk Eastman Gang defeated the last of the Whyos...
, replaced the
ChichestersThe Chichesters were an early Five Points street gang during the mid 19th century in New York. The gang began stealing from stores and warehouses and selling the stolen goods to local fences in 1820s, later becoming involved in illegal gambling and robbery...
, and fought against the newer, predominantly Jewish gangs, such as
Monk EastmanEdward "Monk" Eastman was a New York City Gangster who founded and led one of the most powerful street gangs in New York City at the turn of the Twentieth Century, the Eastman Gang. His other aliases included Joseph "Joe" Morris, Joe Marvin, William "Bill" Delaney, and Edward "Eddie" Delaney...
's
Eastman Coin CollectorsThe Eastman Gang was the last of New York's street gangs which dominated the city's underworld during the late 1890s until early 1910s. Along with the Five Points Gang under Paul Kelly, the Eastmans succeeded the long dominant Whyos as the first non-Irish street gang to gain prominence in the...
.
The Italian immigrant and criminal Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli, also known as
Paul KellyPaul Kelly was an Italian immigrant who founded the Five Points Gang in New York City after starting some brothels with prize monies earned in boxing...
, formed the
ItalianThe Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
Five Points Gang. It became one of the most significant street gangs in United States history and changed the way criminal groups operated in America. During the gang's later years, Kelly's second-in-command was John Torrio, who helped form a national crime syndicate in the United States. The Five Points Gang had a reputation for brutality, and in battles with rival gangs, they often fought to the death. Kelly and Torrio recruited members from other gangs in New York to join the Five Points organization.
Al CaponeAlphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
came from the James Street gang, and would later rise to be one of the most notorious criminals in the country. Torrio was the first to establish his style of racketeering in Chicago, and recruited Capone to join him there.
Charles "Lucky" LucianoCharlie "Lucky" Luciano was an Italian mobster born in Sicily. Luciano is considered the father of modern organized crime in the United States for splitting New York City into five different Mafia crime families and the establishment of the first commission...
, also joined the Five Points crew, and was later considered the most powerful criminal in the country.
Rise to power
As the Five Points Gang became more experienced, Kelly and his lieutenants saw the money to be made by supporting corrupt politicians in their election bids. By threatening voters, falsifying voter lists and stuffing ballot boxes, the gang helped aid city officials of the
Tammany HallTammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...
era to retain power. At the turn of the 20th century, the only competitors to the Five Pointers was from Monk Eastman's gang.
The rivals disputed claims to a strip of territory of the
Lower East SideThe Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
in Manhattan. In 1901 a Five Pointer shot Eastman in the stomach, but he survived. Soon after, one of his crew killed a Five Pointer in retaliation. The feud escalated by 1903, and the two gangs openly engaged in warfare. In one incident Kelly, Torrio and 50 Five Pointers were in a gun battle with a similarly sized force of Eastman's gang. Police called to the scene had to retreat from the battle, which lasted several hours. Three men were killed, and many were wounded in the battle. When the police finally gained control of the situation, they arrested Eastman, but he spent only a few hours in jail. A Tammany-controlled judge released him after Eastman swore that he was innocent.
The general public was angered about warfare in the streets. A Tammany Hall deputy named Tom Foley brought Kelly and Eastman together and told them that neither would receive any political protection if they did not resolve the border dispute. They restored peace for a short time, but within two months, violence had risen again. Officials brought together the two leaders but asked them to take each other on in a boxing match, with the winner's gang to take the disputed territory.
On the appointed day, hundreds of men from both sides met at an abandoned house in the Bronx. Eastman and Kelly fought each other for two hours. Kelly had been a boxer in his younger days, and was said to make a better showing in the earlier rounds, but Eastman was a larger man and fought ferociously. At the end of the match, neither man had been knocked out, and the match was declared a draw. The gang leaders told their men that they were still at war. At this point, the Tammany Hall bosses decided to back the Five Points crew, and to withdraw any legal or political help to Eastman and his gang. In 1904 Eastman was beaten unconscious by a policeman who had foiled a robbery in progress. Eastman was convicted of the crime and sentenced to a 10-year term in
Sing SingSing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services in the town of Ossining, New York...
. His successor
Max "Kid Twist" ZwerbachMax "Kid Twist" Zweifach occasionally referred to as Zwerbach was an American gangster who, during the turn of the century, belonged to the Eastman Gang and later succeeded the New York gang leader following his arrest in 1904.-Biography:Born Maxwell Zweifach in Austria on March 14, 1884, to...
was murdered in 1908 by members of the Five Points Gang, and the Eastman crew began to crumble.
Final years
Paolo Vaccarelli/Paul Kelly survived an attempt on his life, after being shot three times by two of his lieutenants,
James T. "Biff" EllisonJames T. Ellison , better known as Biff Ellison, was a New York City gangster affiliated with the Five Points Gang and later a leader of the Gopher Gang...
and Pat "Razor" Riley, in a gun battle inside one of his nightclubs.
Tammany HallTammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...
pressure made him keep a lower profile after this incident. He became more involved in the nascent labor union rackets. He died of natural causes in 1936.
After Monk Eastman was released in 1909, he never regained leadership of his former criminal organization. He fell into a life of petty crime and repeated jail terms. Within a few years, Eastman joined the army as a 44-year-old man to fight in
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, and had a distinguished military record fighting in combat as fearlessly as he had on the streets of New York. After his honorable discharge in 1919, a year later he was shot five times and killed by a
prohibitionProhibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
agent named Jerry Bohan. He was given a funeral with full military honors.
Gradually the
MafiaThe Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
gangs took over the rackets and criminal activities formerly controlled by the Five Points Gang. Former Five Pointers such as Torrio, Capone and Luciano became the leaders of the new groups, and expanded their operations on a national and international basis. With the
18th AmendmentThe Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution established Prohibition in the United States. The separate Volstead Act set down methods of enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, and defined which "intoxicating liquors" were prohibited, and which were excluded from prohibition...
and the
Volstead ActThe National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was the enabling legislation for the Eighteenth Amendment which established prohibition in the United States...
establishing Prohibition in 1920, profits from bootlegged liquor became a huge source of revenue for the Mafia families.