Westside Irish Mob
Westside Irish Mob, also written West Side Irish Mob, is an informal term used for successive Irish-American organized-crime groups based in Hell's Kitchen and on Manhattan's West Side. It may refer to:
- The Spillane Gang, led by Mickey Spillane, which controlled neighborhood and waterfront rackets during much of the 1960s and 1970s.
- The Westies, led by James Coonan, which fought Spillane's organization and became dominant after Spillane's death in 1977.
The federal appellate decision in United States v. Coonan listed “Westside Irish Mob” among the names used for Coonan's organization. The same decision separately described the Westies as having been formed to wrest control of Hell's Kitchen from Spillane, making the two groups successive rivals rather than one uninterrupted organization.[1] Crime writer T. J. English likewise treats Spillane's organization and Coonan's crew as distinct phases of Irish-American organized crime in Hell's Kitchen.[2]
References
- ↑ United States v. Coonan, 938 F.2d 1553, 1558–60 (2d Cir. 1991).
- ↑ T. J. English, The Westies: Inside the Hell's Kitchen Irish Mob (St. Martin's Press, 1990).