Eastman Gang

The Eastman Gang was the last of New York's street gangs which dominated the city's underworld during the late 1890s until early 1910s. Along with the Five Points Gang under Paul Kelly, the Eastmans succeeded the long dominant Whyos as the first non-Irish street gang to gain prominence in the underworld during the 1890s, and marked the beginning of a thirty to forty-year period of Jewish-American influence within organized crime in New York City.

Under the leadership of Monk Eastman, a well known bouncer and hired thug, the Eastmans would spend the next decade establishing a criminal empire in Manhattan's Lower East Side through criminal activities, including prostitution and illegal gambling, specifically operating stuss games, as well as later establishing political connections through Tammany Hall.