Crazy Butch Gang
Formation | c. 1890 |
---|---|
Dissolved | 1900s |
Purpose |
|
Location |
|
The Crazy Butch Gang was an American juvenile street gang active in the
Crazy Butch
Simon Erenstoft, also known as Crazy Butch, was supposedly orphaned at age 8, abandoned by his parents in Manhattan, where he began pickpocketing. According to legend, he later found a dog, which he later named Rabbi, and trained it to snatch purses and bring them around the corner at Willett Street and Stanton Street where he would be waiting.
Crazy Butch Gang
In the early 1890s the gang began a "snatch racket", where a gang member would purposely drive his bicycle into a pedestrian and begin an argument. As a group had gathered to watch the argument the other gang members would pickpocket the crowd. Then they would meet back at their headquarters on Forsyth Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side to divide up the money.
The gang was allied to the
References
- Asbury, Herbert (1928). The Gangs of New York. New York: Alfred A. Knoff.
- Rose, Joe (1996). The Big Book of Thugs. Factoid Books.
Further reading
- Ferrara, Eric. Gangsters, Murderers & Weirdos of The Lower East Side, Part 1, Part 1. Lulu.com, 2008. ISBN 1-4357-2507-7
- Keats, Charles. Magnificent Masquerade: The Strange Case of Dr. Coster and Mr. Musica. Funk & Wagnalls, 1964.
- Maffi, Mario. Gateway to the Promised Land: Ethnic Cultures on New York's Lower East Side. Rodopi, 1994. ISBN 90-5183-677-5