West Side Gang
 West Side Highway and Piers 95–98 in 1937; this contextual photograph does not depict gang members | |
| Origins | |
|---|---|
| Founding Location | Manhattan, New York City |
| Territory | Manhattan's West Side waterfront Greenwich Village and Chelsea |
| Lineage | |
| Successor(s) | Dunn-McGrath Gang (through the victorious Butler faction) |
| Profile | |
| Structure | Loose coalition of two factions |
| Activities | Waterfront and labor racketeering Cargo theft and armed robbery Extortion Gambling and loansharking Murder |
| Politics | |
| Leader | Joseph “Big Joe” Butler (Butler faction) Robert J. “Farmer” Sullivan (Butler's partner) Charles “Charlie the Jew” Yanowsky (Yanowsky faction) |
| Notable Members | Edward “Eddie” McGrath John “Cockeye” Dunn |
| Activity | |
| Status | Defunct |
| Years Active | Early 1930s–c. 1934 (coalition; factional war continued afterward) |
| Dissolved Date | c. 1934 |
| Dissolution Cause | War between the Butler and Yanowsky factions |
The West Side Gang was a loose 1930s criminal coalition operating around Manhattan's West Side waterfront. Historian Neil G. Clark writes that the group had no formal name but was occasionally called the “West Side Gang” by law enforcement. It contained two principal factions: one led by Joseph “Big Joe” Butler with his partner Robert J. “Farmer” Sullivan, and another led by Charles “Charlie the Jew” Yanowsky.[1] It was distinct from later organizations broadly grouped under the Westside Irish Mob label.
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.[2]
The Butler faction was led by Big Joe Butler. Clark describes Robert J. “Farmer” Sullivan, a veteran Greenwich Village gangster, as Butler's partner. Future waterfront bosses Eddie McGrath and John “Cockeye” Dunn emerged from this group.[1]
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.[1] The Rope Ladder Gang was therefore an earlier Yanowsky organization, not a third West Side faction independently fighting Butler.
Rubel robbery crew
The name “Rubel Gang” is best understood as a label for participants in the 1934 Rubel armored-car robbery, not as a separate, formally subordinate gang with four joint leaders. Clark identifies Bernard “Bennie the Bum” McMahon, John “Fats” Manning, Joe Kress and robbery specialist John “Archie” Stewart as West Side participants in the heist. Wakin, relying on Clark, says these men were members or associates of Yanowsky's faction; he also reports Clark's conclusion that Yanowsky supplied machine guns used in the robbery and that Kress participated with Yanowsky in the killing of a Butler-affiliated gangster.[2] Contemporary reporting later described the Rubel robbery as a $427,950 hold-up and documented indictments and trials, but did not by itself establish a separate Rubel organization under Yanowsky.[3][4]
Factional war and aftermath
Cooperation collapsed into a war between the Butler and Yanowsky factions during the middle 1930s. Members crossed factional lines, Butler-affiliated men were targeted, and the unified West Side Gang label ceased to describe a functioning coalition. 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.[5]
The Butler side, increasingly led by McGrath and Dunn, eventually prevailed as Yanowsky associates were killed or imprisoned. Manning was among those later shot to death, while the Butler organization consolidated waterfront rackets and evolved into the Dunn-McGrath Gang.[1][2] Yanowsky survived his imprisonment and later carried cards as a waterfront-union business agent; he was found stabbed to death in Clifton, New Jersey, in 1948.[6]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Neil G. Clark, Dock Boss: Eddie McGrath and the West Side Waterfront (Fort Lee, New Jersey: Barricade Books, 2017), especially chapters 4–9.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Daniel J. Wakin, “West Side Gangs Fight It Out in the ’30s”, February 25, 2018.
- ↑ “Eight Are Indicted in Rubel Hold-Up”, The New York Times, November 4, 1938.
- ↑ “Robber Describes Rubel Hold-Up in Minute Detail in Brooklyn Court”, The New York Times, June 29, 1939.
- ↑ “‘I'm Glad I Got It,’ Mutters Gangster After Being Shot”, The Washington Daily News, January 31, 1936, p. 25.
- ↑ “Business Agent of Union Found Stabbed to Death”, Evening Star, July 17, 1948, p. 4.