Editing West Side Gang (section)

==Two-faction structure==
The coalition was not organized like a hierarchical Mafia family. Its members and associates profited from cargo theft, extortion, gambling, loansharking and influence over waterfront labor. Journalist Daniel J. Wakin, summarizing Clark's research, identifies Butler, Sullivan and Yanowsky as the heads of its two most powerful factions.<ref name="Wakin">Daniel J. Wakin, [https://danieljwakin.com/2018/02/25/post-pub-updates-west-side-gangs-fight-it-out-in-the-30s/ “West Side Gangs Fight It Out in the ’30s”], February 25, 2018.</ref>

The '''Butler faction''' was centered on Big Joe Butler. Clark describes Robert J. “Farmer” Sullivan, a veteran Greenwich Village gangster, as Butler's partner and veteran confidant rather than assigning him a formal subordinate rank. Future waterfront bosses Eddie McGrath and John “Cockeye” Dunn emerged from this group.<ref name="Clark" />

The '''Yanowsky faction''' was led by Charlie Yanowsky, a New York-born racketeer who had previously led New Jersey's '''Rope Ladder Gang'''. That earlier crew reportedly used rope ladders to climb rail cars and steal freight. After New Jersey authorities acted against it in 1933, Yanowsky moved into the Manhattan West Side underworld and developed his own following.<ref name="Clark" /> The Rope Ladder Gang was therefore an earlier Yanowsky organization, not a third West Side faction independently fighting Butler.