The Crazy Butch Gang was an American juvenile street gang active in the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

underworld during the late nineteenth century. Largely active in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...

, the group were widely known as the cities top pickpockets and sneak thieves during the " Gay Nineties" period. An early member of this gang would later become known as a prominent New York gangster

Jack Zelig "Big" Jack Zelig (May 13, 1888 – October 5, 1912) was an American gangster and one of the last leaders of the Eastman Gang. Biography Born Selig Harry Lefkowitz in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York, Zelig was a well ...

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

to divide up the money. The gang was allied to the

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 the early 1910s. Along with the Five Points Gang under Italian-American Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli, best known as Paul Kell ...

who were at almost constant war with the Five Points and Humpty Jackson Gangs between the late 1890s and early 1900s as they were incorporated into the ''Squab Wheelmen'', an ally of Monk Eastman's organization. The gang broke up when Crazy Butch was killed by Harry the Soldier in a gunfight over a female shoplifter known as the Darby Kid.

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Crazy Butch

Crazy Butch Gang

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Further reading