Joe Bruno on the Mob – The Crazy Butch Gang

In the Gay Nineties, Crazy Butch was one of the youngest criminals on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Legend has it that Butch was abandoned by his parents when he was only eight years old, and as a result, Butch lived on the streets and became, what was known at the time, a “street urchin.”

One day, Butch was scrounging on the streets looking for food to eat, when he met a dog, who was abandoned too. Butch took the dog under his wing and named the dog “Rabbi,” because the dog was so smart.

Butch began teaching Rabbi “tricks,” but not the usual tricks kids would teach their dogs. When Butch spotted an old lady carrying a handbag, he would tell Rabbi to “Go fetch.” And that Rabbi would do, by lunging at the handbag and tearing it off the arm of the startled woman. Then Rabbi, handbag tightly in his mouth, would run to the corner of Willett Street and Stanton Street, where Butch would be waiting. Butch would get the contents of the handbag, and Rabbi would get himself a nice big bone, one of which Butch always kept in his pocket, in case a mark suddenly appeared.

Butch and Rabbi were so successful in their stealing, other street urchins started following them, so that they could learn the tricks of the trade too. Soon Butch had his own gang of pre-teen and teenage crooks, which he called the “Crazy Butch Gang.”

When Butch accumulated enough cash, he bought himself a huge bicycle; not only for transportation, but to be used as an instrument for his next scheme. Butch would peddle the bike on the crowded streets of lower Manhattan, followed by his gang, and Rabbi. When Butch thought the time was right, he’d plow his bike into an unsuspecting female pedestrian. Instead of apologizing to the fallen lady, Butch would jump off his bike and begin berated his victim with remarks like, “What are you blind, or somethin’? You old bag!”

Almost immediately, a curious crowd would form a circle around Butch and his victim. While unsuspecting onlookers were scoping out the Crazy Butch situation, Butch’s gang, ranging from 10 – 15 incorrigible kids, would slip though the crowd, picking every pocket in sight. Rabbi would grab his customary handbag, usually from the very person Butch had knocked to the pavement. Then the gang members would scatter in different directions. They would meet later at their headquarters, a small third-floor apartment on Forsyth Street, to divvy up the profits.

As Butch and his gang started getting older and more bolder, they attracted the attention of Paul Kelly’s Five Points Gangs, which ruled the same neighborhood where Crazy Butch had been pilfering. Apparently, Butch’s gang had victimized a few relatives of the Five Points Gang, and it was rumored that one of the Five Pointers himself had been pickpocketed by the Crazy Butch Gang.

Soon, Butch heard that the Five Pointers were out to get him and his gang, so one summer day Butch decided to test how good his gang’s defenses were in their Forsyth Street apartment. Not being the brightest of mugs, Butch crept up the stairs, then screaming like a banshee, he busted into his gang’s apartment, firing away with a revolver in each hand. His startled gangs members, most of whom were taking naps, were totally taken by surprise. One of the gang members, Little Kishky, was sitting on the window sill with the window open. Little Kishky fell backwards out the window to the pavement three floors below. It is not clear if Crazy Butch paid for Little Kishky’s hospital expenses.

As the Crazy Butch Gang got older, to neutralize the Five Pointers who were constantly after them, Butch’s gang joined forces with the 2000-strong Monk Eastman Gang, which was constantly at war with Paul Kelly’s Five Pointers.

This worked well for a while until Butch made the mistake of falling for a female shoplifter named The Darby Kid. Butch loved the The Darby Kid, and apparently The Darby Kid loved Butch. However, The Darby Kid had a jealous boyfriend named Harry the Soldier, who was always packing heat. Harry the Soldier caught up with Butch and shot him dead, which sent The Darby Kid right back into the arms of Harry the Soldier.

With the loss of their leader, the Crazy Butch Gang split up for good. Some went solo and others were absorbed into other Lower East Side gangs. One of the Crazy Butch Gang who made it to the top was Big Jack Zelig, who was known by the police as “The Toughest Man in New York City.” Big Jack took over the Eastman gang after Monk Eastman was sent to prison for robbery, and Monk’s successor Max “Kid Twist” Zwerbach was shot to death in Coney Island. But alas, on October 15, 1912, Zelig was shot to death himself at the age of 24, while riding the 2nd Avenue Streetcar.

There is no record of what happened to Rabbi, the handbag-snatching dog.

http://www.amazon.com/Mobsters-Gangs-Crooks-Creeps-ebook/dp/B006H99D1U/ref=zg_bs_11010_5

Joe Bruno on the Mob — Johnny Spanish (John Weyer)

Johnny Spanish, whose real name was John Weyer, was one of the most feared gangsters in the early part of the 20^th century. He took the name Johnny Spanish because he was half Jewish and half Spanish, but on the Spanish side he claimed to be a descendant of Butcher Weyer, the last Governor of Cuba. So he figured Johnny Spanish had much more cache in it than plain old John Weyer.

Spanish was born on the Lower East side of Manhattan, and he quickly immersed himself in various street crimes. The short, frail and morose Spanish was a loner, whose specialty was robbing saloons. Yet he liked to throw in the twist of sending a message to the saloon owner first, telling them of his imminent arrival. His legend grew immensely when he performed that feat at a dive on Norfolk Street, owned by Mersher the Strong Arm. Spanish gave Mersher notice that he would arrive at a certain time, and that he did, armed with his usual four guns, and an accomplice lurking behind him. He threw a couple of shots through the mirror behind the bar, then emptied the till. Then to add insult to injury, he lined 10 customers against the wall and relived them of all their cash and jewelry. Spanish’s notoriety grew, and soon he was accepted into Paul Kelly’s Five Points Gang, where he continued his shenanigans.

Spanish found it profitable to steal the proceeds of the very lucrative suss gambling games, which was a variation of the popular faro. He had his eye on one such game, operated by Kid Jigger on Forsyth Street. One day he approached Jigger, who was known to be a fierce gunfighter, and demanded half the take from his game, from that point on.

“And why should I give you half my stuss graft?” Jigger inquired.

“Because I’ll knock you off if you don’t,” Spanish said.

Jigger laughed. Spanish took offense and told him, “Alright then, I’ll knock you off tomorrow night.”

Sure enough, being a man of his word, on the following night as Jigger strode from his suss game on Forsyth Street, Spanish opened fire with two guns. Jigger ran back into the building to safely, but the bullets struck an eight-year-old girl, who was innocently playing in the streets, killing her on the spot. This necessitated Spanish leaving the city for several months, and when he returned, he was alarmed to find out that his girlfriend (who happened to be pregnant by who knows who), had been stolen by fellow thug Kid Dropper, real named Nathan Kaplan. Spanish figured he’d settle with his ex-girlfriend first. He grabbed her off the streets, threw her in a taxicab, the headed out to the marshes of Maspeth, Long Island. There he tied her to a tree, then emptied five shots into her pregnant belly. He left her there to die, but miraculously the woman survived and her baby was subsequently born with three missing fingers.

For this atrocity, Spanish was arrested and sentenced to seven years in Sing Sing Prison. Upon his release in 1917, Paul Kelly’s Five Points Gang was no more, and Spanish figured he could take over Kelly’s former rackets. Only Kid Dropper had the same idea. The two old foes battled over the union protection racket for more than two years. One day in early 1919, the bulkier Dropper cornered Spanish on the street and carved him up bad with a knife. Spanish survived, but not for long.

On July 29, 1919, Spanish was entering a restaurant at 19 Second Avenue, when Dropper and two accomplices opened fire, hitting Spanish several times in the chest. Bullets being better than blades, Spanish died a few days later in Bellevue Hospital.

http://www.amazon.com/Mobsters-Gangs-Crooks-Creeps-ebook/dp/B0058J44QO/ref=zg_bs_11010_1