Origins
By the 1870s a wave of Italian and Eastern European Jewish immigrants were settling into the area. Criminal gangs competed for control of the revenue to be made from illicit activities. Ethnic Irish gangs, such as the Whyos, replaced the Chichesters, and fought against the newer, predominantly Jewish gangs, such as Monk Eastman's Eastman Coin Collectors.
The Italian immigrant and criminal Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli, also known as Paul Kelly, formed the Italian Five Points Gang. It became one of the most significant street gangs in United States history and changed the way criminal groups operated in America. During the gang's later years, Kelly's second-in-command was John Torrio, who helped form a national crime syndicate in the United States. The Five Points Gang had a reputation for brutality, and in battles with rival gangs, they often fought to the death. Kelly and Torrio recruited members from other gangs in New York to join the Five Points organization. Al Capone came from the James Street gang, and would later rise to be one of the most notorious criminals in the country. Torrio was the first to establish his style of racketeering in Chicago, and recruited Capone to join him there. Charles "Lucky" Luciano, also joined the Five Points crew, and was later considered the most powerful criminal in the country.
Read more about this topic: Five Points Gang
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“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
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—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
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