Before you get to the article\u2026<\/p>\n
On February 23, 2018, my book on the Mau Maus and Sand Street Angels, who were two Brooklyn youth gangs from the 1950s, has been completed.\u00a0 It took 15 years of research and writing to complete Brooklyn Rumble: Mau Maus, Sand Street Angels, and the End of an Era.\u00a0 <\/em>This book is roughly 6\u2033x9\u2033 and has 370 pages and includes a look at the characters in the Mau Maus and the details of a gang killing that happened in February 1959 in front of the iconic Brooklyn Paramount Theater (now Long Island University).\u00a0 If you want to buy a copy, click here and this link will take you to an online ordering page<\/a>.<\/p>\n ——-<\/p>\n * Please see note at bottom of page<\/p>\n Here is an interesting story related by Harrison Salisbury, a writer for the Times<\/i> during the 1950s, who documented what happened when a youth gang from Manhattan took on the Mafia in a fight over turf.\u00a0 This is the only time I ever heard of a youth gang actively working against the Mafia.<\/p>\n \u2026Near 125th<\/sup> Street there was an active bopping gang which went under the name of the Young Turks.\u00a0 The Turks were turbulent youngsters, constantly fighting a neighboring gang called the Dark Angels. <\/span><\/p>\n There was a vacant building in the block where the Turks had their hangout.\u00a0 One afternoon a moving van pulled up, unloaded filing cases, desks, office equipment under the watchful eyes of several tan-suited, shoulder-padded, hip-bulging, sharp-eyed men.\u00a0 A couple of days later one of the tan-suited men sought out Sonny, the leader of the Turks. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cGet your kids off this block,\u201d the sharp-eyed man said.\u00a0 \u201cWe don\u2019 want no trouble around here.\u00a0 No cops, no fights.\u00a0 Cool it \u2013 get what I mean?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWho you talking for?\u201d Sonny asked. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNo damn questions,\u201d the sharp-eyed man said.\u00a0 \u201cYou damn well know who runs things around here.\u00a0 Now get scarce.\u00a0 And remember.\u00a0 We don\u2019 want no cops messin\u2019 round this block.\u00a0 And we don\u2019 want no reason for no cops messin\u2019 around.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Sonny reported his conversation to his pals. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThinks he\u2019s a big shot,\u201d Sonny said.\u00a0 \u201cJust because he\u2019s a Syndicate man.\u00a0 Thinks he can come on our turf and order us around.\u00a0 Wise guy.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Street warfare went on.\u00a0 The Turks and the Angels paid no attention to the warning.\u00a0 A night or two later the block was choked with squad cars, summoned to halt a rumble.\u00a0 The Syndicate got mad.\u00a0 It was a big investment to protect and it didn\u2019t want street kids jeopardizing that investment.\u00a0 The next night when the kids congregated on the street a couple of the sharp-eyed, tan-suited young men sauntered out, drew their pistols and fired a fusillade or two over the heads of the kids.\u00a0 The kids ran \u2013 but not far. <\/span><\/p>\n The following night they threw rocks through the windows of the Syndicate building.\u00a0 The night after they did the same thing. <\/span><\/p>\n A week later a Youth Board supervisor had a strange visitor.\u00a0 He was an indignant representative of the Syndicate. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLook, man,\u201d the Syndicate representative said, \u201cyou gotta do something about those kids in the block off 125th<\/sup> Street.\u00a0 They got no sense, these kids.\u00a0 They smash up the street every night.\u00a0 Cops come down there two, three times an evening.\u00a0 How long you think we can operate in a place like that?\u00a0 We\u2019re businessmen.\u00a0 We don\u2019t want no trouble.\u00a0 You gotta get those kids of our back.\u00a0 They\u2019re crazy.\u00a0 They don\u2019t care what they do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The Youth Board worker conveyed the Syndicate message to Sonny. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cTell \u2018em to shove it,\u201d Sonny said.\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s a-matter with those guys?\u00a0 We\u2019re just kids.\u00a0 What they mean shooting at us?\u00a0 Ain\u2019t no big people going to shoot at us and get away with it.\u00a0 We weren\u2019t doing them no harm.\u00a0 That\u2019s our turf.\u00a0 It don\u2019t belong to no Syndicate or nobody but us.\u00a0 They got no right to move in on us.\u00a0 We\u2019re just kids.\u00a0 They don\u2019t like it \u2013 they can punk out.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Which is what the Syndicate did.\u00a0 Despairing of ever calling it cool with their adolescent antagonists the Syndicate ordered in the moving van \u2013 and punked out.<\/span><\/p>\n * A reader emailed me the other day asking some questions about this quote that Salisbury provided in his book.\u00a0 Something didn’t seem right about it to him.\u00a0 He has known and been around wiseguys all his life, and the actions of men in this quote doesn’t connect with what he knows the Mafia to be like.\u00a0 Once an operation is set up almost nothing can stop them, much less some bricks through the window.\u00a0 Anyone who interferes is taken care of and the operation continues.<\/p>\n I asked him if the Mafia was ever referred to as the Syndicate because I assumed that meant the Mob.\u00a0 His reply was that the Mafia has been called many things in New York City – including the Syndicate.\u00a0 However, at the time period this took place, around 1957-1958, Black organized crime figures who controlled the drugs and numbers racket in Harlem were called the Syndicate.\u00a0 Although the Mafia oversaw Harlem going back to the days of Dutch Schultz, the day-to-day running was controlled entirely by the Blacks.<\/p>\n With this in mind, this story sounds like it could very well refer to the Young Turks taking on not the Mafia but the Syndicate, Black organized crime running the drugs and numbers in Harlem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Before you get to the article\u2026 On February 23, 2018, my book on the Mau Maus and Sand Street Angels, who were two Brooklyn youth gangs from the 1950s, has been completed.\u00a0 It took 15 years of research and writing … Continue reading