The Gophers street gang formed in the 1890s from a conglomeration of other Irish street gangs that patrolled the West Side of Manhattan. They were given their name, because after committing one misdeed or another, they hid in the cavernous cellars of the neighborhood to avoid arrest. The Gophers first ruled the area from Seventh to Eleventh Avenues, from Fourteenth Street to Forty-second Street, but later moved north to Fifty-seventh Street. Their numbers grew and eventually numbered more than five hundred thugs, all murderous hooligans of the worst kind.

Their first base of operations was a famous saloon called Battle Row, also the name of the area on 39th Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues where the Gophers committed most of their mayhem. Battle Row was owned by a thug named Mallet Murphy, who was given that nickname because he corrected drunks and other miscreants with a wooden mallet, rather than a blackjack, which was the weapon of choice of that day.

By death, or imprisonment of their chiefs, the Gophers passed through various leaders. The most famous Gopher boss was Owney “The Killer” Madden, whose reign ended in 1913, when he was sent to jail for ten years for killing Little Patsy Doyle, his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend, and an ambitious man trying to replace Gopher. Madden. as the leader of the Gophers.

Another such boss was One Lung Curran, who originated a practice that determined his gang’s fashion. One day, Curran, dismayed that his girlfriend did not have a suitable winter coat, sneaked up on a passing policeman, punched him in the head and stole his winter police coat. He gave the coat to his girlfriend, and after a few modifications, she pulled out a puffy model, with a military cut. Other Gophers followed this trend, and soon there was an epidemic of policemen staggering back to their precinct on West Forty Seventh Street, blood dripping from their heads and dressed only in their shirts, shoes, and trousers. This prompted the police captain of that precinct to send groups of four and five policemen into the Gopher domain, to beat up enough Gophers that the fashion for the outfit would end soon.

Another Gopher leader was Happy Jack Mulraney, so named because his face seemed to have a permanent smile on it. This smile was not intended, but was in fact caused by a peculiar paralysis of the muscles in Mulraney’s face. His henchmen enjoyed inciting the ire of psychopathic killer Mulraney by telling him that someone had mocked his involuntary smile. One day, Paddy the Priest, a bar owner on Tenth Avenue and a close friend of Mulraney’s, made the horrible mistake of asking Mulraney why he didn’t smile on the other side of his face. Mulraney shot Paddy the Priest in the head, killing him instantly, then stole his cash register. Because of his time lapse at trial, Mulraney was sentenced to life in prison.

One day in August 1908, several Gophers left their West Side domain and crashed in the middle of a Lower East Side shootout between Monk Eastman’s gang and Paul Kelly’s Five Pointers. Not wanting to miss out on the fun, the Gophers opened fire, shooting members of both warring gangs. A Gopher later said, “Lots of guys were beating each other up, so why shouldn’t we do a little popping ourselves?”

For years, Gopher’s main source of income was looting the New York Central Railroad’s boxcars and train depot, which ran along Eleventh Avenue. The New York City police were unable, and sometimes unwilling, to stop these shenanigans. So the railroad organized its own “police force”, which was made up mostly of ex-cops, who had been brutalized by the Gophers in the past and were seeking revenge. The result was that “special police” entered Hell’s Kitchen, beating Gophers from one end of the neighborhood to the other, or as one of the policemen put it, “From hell to breakfast.” Sometimes they used clubs and, if necessary, fired their weapons. Being ex-cops and well-trained in firearms, they were much better at gun game than the Gophers.

In 1917, after One Lung Curran’s arrest, and with Madden still in jail and Mulraney in jail to his last breath, the Gophers gradually dissipated. In 1920, the Gophers street gang ceased to exist, only to be replaced in later years by another murderous group called “The Westies”.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *