Editing Madden Gang (section)

==Formation and bootlegging==
Madden had been imprisoned for the 1914 killing of former Gopher Patsy Doyle. A January 1923 report announcing his parole still called him a “Gopher Gang chief.”<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1923/01/23/archives/gopher-gang-chief-to-get-parole-as-model-prisoner.html “Gopher Gang Chief to Get Parole as Model Prisoner”], ''The New York Times'', January 23, 1923.</ref> Historian J. Anne Funderburg writes that Madden began with small-scale liquor trafficking after his release, took over a Manhattan brewery in 1924 and operated it as the Phoenix Bottling Company, later the Phoenix Cereal Beverage Company. Its beer became known as “Madden's Number One.”<ref name="Funderburg">J. Anne Funderburg, [https://books.google.com/books?id=aEdXAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA89 ''Bootleggers and Beer Barons of the Prohibition Era''] (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2014), pp. 89–94.</ref>

Federal agents raided the Phoenix plant at Tenth Avenue and West Twenty-fifth Street in 1931 and reported finding 30,000 gallons of high-test beer. Contemporary reports connected the brewery syndicate to Madden and William “Big Bill” Dwyer.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1931/07/22/archives/25-dry-agents-raid-1500000-brewery-30000-gallons-of-hightest-beer.html “25 Dry Agents Raid $1,500,000 Brewery”], ''The New York Times'', July 22, 1931.</ref> In 1933, ''The New York Times'' called Phoenix reputedly owned by Madden and Dwyer, preserving the qualification rather than establishing legal ownership.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1933/04/19/archives/phoenix-padlock-stands-brewery-withdraws-its-plea-to-reopen-appeal.html “Phoenix Padlock Stands”], ''The New York Times'', April 19, 1933.</ref>

The organizational label was contemporary. In 1932, ''The New York Times'' described William Frost, also known as William Teed, as a reputed member of the “Owen Madden gang.”<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1932/10/29/archives/reputed-aide-of-madden-seized.html “Reputed Aide of Madden Seized”], ''The New York Times'', October 29, 1932.</ref> During the 1933 O'Connell kidnapping investigation, the ''Washington Times'' reported that detectives searched buildings previously used by the “Owney Madden gang to handle beer in pre-legal days.”<ref>[https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84026749/1933-07-18/ed-1/?sp=7 “New York Searched”], ''The Washington Times'', July 18, 1933, p. 7.</ref>

Madden's enterprises extended into Harlem nightlife, most famously the Cotton Club. These investments overlapped with the bootlegging organization but do not establish that every employee, performer or investor was a gang member.