Editing Spillane Gang (section)

==History==
Spillane emerged as Hell's Kitchen's principal Irish-American racketeer around 1960. His crew drew income from gambling, loansharking, hijacking, extortion and influence over waterfront and construction-related labor. ''The New Yorker'' later described Spillane as the neighborhood's “Gentleman Gangster” and reported that he ran rackets there for nearly two decades.<ref>Ben McGrath, [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/01/15/smoke-filled-room-west-side-coup “Smoke-Filled Room: West Side Coup”], ''The New Yorker'', January 8, 2007.</ref>

The Second Circuit's account in ''United States v. Coonan'' states that Coonan and his associates formed their organization in the mid-1960s specifically to wrest control of Hell's Kitchen from Spillane, then the predominant gang leader. The rivalry continued despite Coonan's imprisonment, and Coonan ultimately displaced Spillane's organization.<ref name="Coonan" />

During the 1970s, violence also surrounded control of West Side piers, unions and prospective construction business connected with the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Three prominent Spillane associates—Thomas Devaney, Edward Cummiskey and Thomas Kapatos—were killed during the conflict. Contemporary and later accounts connected their deaths to pressure from Italian-American organized-crime interests seeking access to West Side rackets.<ref>James Traub, [https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/05/magazine/the-lord-s-of-hell-s-kitchen.html “The Lords of Hell's Kitchen”], ''The New York Times Magazine'', April 5, 1987.</ref><ref name="English" />