"He must have done something. They don't kill you for nothing." - Chicago Gangster Ted Newberry. Rubbed out January 7, 1933

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Extra, extra!!

Yesterday I was interviewed for a NYC paper called Metro NY. Should be out today or tomorrow. So if you live or work in NYC go out and grab one. If you found your way here from that article welcome, pull up a dead guy and relax. Speaking of yesterday, July 16, was the 100th anniversary of a shoot out between the Gophers and another westside gang called the Goldens. The battle was to settle a quarrel that started ten days before at a baseball game. Supposedly about forty armed members of the Gophers and the same number of Goldens banged away at each other. The police, who knew a battle was brewing between the two mobs, managed to disperse the two gangs but not until one hundred shots had been fired.* Miraculously there were only two injuries. William Lynch, a Gopher, was wounded in the hip and was found hobbling away. He was taken to Roosevelt Hospital where Joseph Gando, a Golden, had arrived with a bullet wound to the neck. Neither man would talk to the police and it was suggested that Gando’s would probably die. Wonder if Owney Madden was present? Sure, its our blog if we want him to have been there, then I say he was there.

*a hundred shots sounds like a lot to me so am taking that number with a grain of salt.

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