Gangsters, Murderers & Weirdos of the Lower East Side

A new book, part one in a series of three, focuses on the Lower East Side neighborhood known since the 1960s as the East Village (E.14th Street to E. Houston Street, east of Broadway). This neighborhood really earned its criminal stripes in the 20th century. It was a Jewish mob fortress for the first couple decades of the 1900s. The Italian Mob muscled in by the 1920s, but they fled the city for a period of time in the 1930s and 40s, when newly elected Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Special Prosecutor (and future NY Governor/presidential hopeful), Thomas E. Dewy, handed out arrest warrants for every major mob boss within their jurisdiction.