You may have heard of the Bowery Boys, a notorious New York street gang of the mid-19th century. But there were plenty of other gangs fighting it out for turf during that time, and some of them had pretty great names. Here are 15 street gangs you wouldn't want to mess with, even if their names made you laugh.
1. BAXTER STREET DUDES
Teenage former newsies who went around stealing when not performing at the theater they ran.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
2. BOODLE GANG
Specialized in hijacking wagons and raiding food stores.
3. CORCORAN'S ROOSTERS
Also known as the Charlton Street Gang, they specialized in robbing cargo ships.
4. HUMPTY JACKSON GANG
With a leader whose most noticeable feature was his humpback, this gang worked the Lower East Side.
5. MOLASSES GANG
Their thing was to get a shopkeeper to fill a hat with molasses and then slap it over his head and run off with the cash drawer.
6. CRAZY BUTCH GANG
A ragtag, clever bunch of teen pickpockets.
7. TUB OF BLOOD BUNCH
Worked the East River waterfront from their headquarters, a lovely-sounding bar called Tub of Blood.
8. WHYOS
New York's most powerful 1870s gang used a special call that sounded like "why-oh!"
9. YAKEY YAKES
The leader Yakey Yake Brady got his nickname when a German bartender mispronounced his name, Jake, as "Yake."
10. KOSHER NOSTRA
More formally known as the Yiddish Black Hand Gang.
11. PLUG UGLIES
A Baltimore gang active in pre-Civil War politics, AKA election day rioting.
12. KERRYONIONS
An Irish gang from County Kerry.
13. DAYBREAK BOYS
Known for wreaking murderous havoc on the New York waterfront in the 1850s.
14. POTASHES
Potash (from the Dutch for "pot ash") is the name for potassium compounds once commonly used in soap-making. This gang was headquartered near the Babbit Soap Factory on the Lower West Side.
15. DEAD RABBITS
A splinter group from the Roach Guard, this Irish gang fought hard against the Bowery Boys in over 200 battles.
