Whether you read it as such or merely for amusement, it is a swift, exciting experience. Asbury has created such a rich, factual background for this chronicle of crime and gangsterism that the book gains considerable stature as a revealing picture of New York City’s history through a century of frenzied growth and expansion. Nor have the underworld’s lesser lights been overlooked for these pages are crowded with a host of gang warriors, pickpockets, tong leaders, murderers, politicians, gamblers, prostitutes, dive-keepers and a few would-be reformers. Kid Dropper, Dopey Benny, Gyp the Blood and Owney Madden are a few of the gangster luminaries described, not to mention such female evildoers as Gallus Mag and Sadie the Goat. Here are the stories of the great gangs which terrorized the city and at times menaced its very existence-from the Bowery Boys and the Dead Rabbits to the Gophers and the Eastmans. Herbert Asbury presents here a vivid and startling account of New York gangdom from its beginning in Revolutionary times to comparatively recent days.
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