Informer - Oct 2023

Journalists Craig Thompson and Allen Raymond wrote “the lower East Side ... in the first 20 years of the 20th century was the greatest breeding ground for gunmen and racketeers, since risen to eminence, that this country has ever seen.” Conditions in the pre-Prohibition Lower East Side certainly fueled an explosion in gangs and racketeering. Underworld giants like Meyer Lansky, Lepke Buchalter and “Charlie Luciano” Lucania were products of that environment. But that was a small part of the area’s underworld history. Read about: - End of the Whyos. - Bandits' Roost. - McGurk and Suicide Hall. - Hoodlum/hero Monk Eastman. - NYC's first Mafia boss? - The truth about Paul Kelly. - The "Tong Wars." - Frank Lanza in New York. - Gangster "Johnny Spanish." - Lansky's early years in Manhattan. - Death Avenue: 1910-1924. - Mobster bios. Issue also includes: 1928 Mafia conventioneers, Butcher wasn't from Five Points, and more.

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