The Grady Gang was a
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 ...
sneak thief gang during the 1860s. Organized by
fence John D. "Traveling Mike" Grady following the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
, the Grady Gang operated in
Broadway's "Thieves Exchange" where Grady would regularly purchase up to $10,000 in stolen goods.
He soon formed his own gang from many of the prominent thieves of the decade including
Billy "The Kid" Burke,
"Boston" Pet Anderson,
Hod Ennis,
Eddie Pettengill and
Jake Rand. The gang's most successful theft was the robbery of $2 million in cash and bank certificates from financier
Rufus L. Lord on March 7, 1866. By the end of the decade, most of the gang members had retired; however, Grady would continue operating as a fence. Later, he competed against rival fence
Marm Mandelbaum
Fredericka "Marm" Mandelbaum (March 25, 1825 – February 26, 1894)Holub, Rona"Fredericka Mandelbaum."In ''Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present'', vol. 2, edited by William J. Hausman. German Histo ...
who had formed a gang of her own. Grady, however, bought out Mandelbaum by offering her gang members much higher prices than she could afford to pay and she was quickly eliminated as a competitor.
References
*Asbury, Herbert. ''The Gangs of New York''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928.
*Sifakis, Carl. ''Encyclopedia of American Crime'', Facts On File, Inc.: New York, 1982.
{{Organized crime groups in New York City
Former gangs in New York City
Irish-American gangs
Irish-American culture in New York City