Editing West Side Gang (section)

==Factional war and aftermath==
The two groups initially cooperated, but their robbery and pier-racket operations increasingly overlapped. Clark dates a “cold war” to late 1934 and an open struggle for the West Side to early 1935. On January 16, 1935, Yanowsky and Joe Kress reportedly found Butler associate James “Ding Dong” Bell at the Market Diner in Greenwich Village, where Yanowsky shot him.<ref name="Clark" /> The incident supports direct violence between factional figures but does not establish a formal command order binding every associate.

Yanowsky was shot and captured by federal agents in Hoboken in January 1936 while wanted for questioning about a gang killing, a bank robbery and an interstate silk hijacking.<ref>[https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn82016181/1936-01-31/ed-1/?sp=25 “‘I'm Glad I Got It,’ Mutters Gangster After Being Shot”], ''The Washington Daily News'', January 31, 1936, p. 25.</ref> On March 15, Butler was fatally wounded in a shotgun ambush near the Hotel New Yorker. Three Yanowsky-group associates were charged, but the charges were later dropped for insufficient evidence; the evidence does not establish that Yanowsky ordered Butler's killing. Sullivan was fatally shot during a purported reconciliation dinner in Matawan Township, New Jersey, on September 20.<ref name="Clark" /> Nothing located establishes that Sullivan had inherited a formal boss title after Butler's death.

The Butler side, increasingly led by McGrath and Dunn, eventually prevailed as Yanowsky associates were killed or imprisoned. The surviving Butler organization consolidated the more lucrative waterfront rackets and evolved into the [[Dunn-McGrath Gang]].<ref name="Clark" /><ref name="Wakin" /> Yanowsky survived his imprisonment and later worked as a New Jersey waterfront-union business agent. He was found stabbed to death in Clifton, New Jersey, in 1948; contemporary reporting connected that later killing to a New Jersey waterfront struggle rather than the earlier Manhattan faction war.<ref>[https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83045462/1948-07-17/ed-1/?sp=4 “Business Agent of Union Found Stabbed to Death”], ''Evening Star'', July 17, 1948, p. 4.</ref>