Even in gang-ridden 19th century New York, with mobsters being rubbed out by rival thugs with guns and other weapons all the time, the old-fashioned fistfight was still used to solve disputes.
That’s what happened in the turf war between criminal Monk Eastman and Paul Kelly, leader of the Five Points Gang.
The simian, wild-haired Eastman (right) controlled Chrystie Street to East 14th Street, wrote Andrew Roth in Infamous Manhattan.
Paul Kelly (below), a dapper Italian with an Irish name, ruled west of Bowery.
Both gangs were under the thumb of Tammany Hall politicos. Tired of their gun battles over disputed neutral territory, Tammany brass organized an old-school fight in a barn in the Bronx in 1903 between the two men.
This “fist duel,” as a 1923 New York Times article dubbed it, didn’t solve a thing.
Eastman and Kelly went at each other in that barn for hours before it was called a draw.
The turf war mostly resolved itself when Eastman was sent to Sing Sing for robbery in 1904, then fought in World War I (he became a decorated soldier).
Kelly had control of the Lower East Side until 1908, when a deadly gun battle—and then Tammany Hall’s desire to clean up the Bowery—reduced his criminal power.
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Tags: 19th century New York City, East Village gangs, Eastman vs. Kelly fight, Five Points Gang, gangs in 19th century New York, Gangs of New York City, gay nineties, Lower East Side gangs, Monk Eastman, Monk Eastman World War I, Paul Kelly, Tammany Hall
