This site was created as an exploration in historical research, using as its basis the landmark 1928 book by Herbert Asbury, The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld.

These posts revisit names and stories mentioned by Asbury, using genealogical information, government (court and prison) records, and newspaper archives to discover any interesting facets that might interest those who have enjoyed reading this classic portrayal of the New York crime universe.

Topics of each blog post will be picked at random from the text; at a later point a further page might be added to the site to reassemble them in order according to Asbury’s chapters and chapter sections.

I do not cite every source material collected, but will note significant ones; and do try to identify Asbury’s specific sources (since he did not use footnotes).

This is a follow-up to a similar blog site I authored in 2018-2019, Professional Criminals of America -Revised, which re-examined the 204 criminals in Thomas J. Byrnes 1886 edition of that title.

–Jerry Kuntz             http://www.jerrykuntz.org        jpkntz@gmail.com

 

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