Michael J. Spillane (July 13, 1933 – May 13, 1977) was an Irish-American mobster who controlled

Hell's Kitchen Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the ea ...

in New York in the 1960s and 1970s. Spillane, the so-called “Gentleman Gangster", was a marked contrast to the violent Westies mob members who succeeded him in Hell's Kitchen.

Life

Spillane was born on July 13, 1933, to Michael Anthony Spillane and Margaret Curran. At 16 or 17, he attempted to rob a movie theater, but was shot by a police officer. He spent four years in prison. After his release from prison, Spillane started as a numbers runner for various organized crime figures in Hell's Kitchen. In 1960, Mickey took over the rackets left to him by his predecessor Hughie Mulligan. He married Maureen McManus, the daughter of the powerful Hell's Kitchen Democratic district leader Eugene McManus. Though Italian mobsters dominated organized crime in the city, the Italian mob stayed out of Hell's Kitchen while Spillane was the boss. Often, Spillane would kidnap members of the Italian Mafia and hold them for ransom to raise money for his operations. Although he ran the rackets such as gambling and loansharking, he never allowed the sale of drugs. It was Spillane's refusal to allow the Italian mobsters to participate in the rackets in Hell's Kitchen and along the west side of Manhattan that led to his downfall. The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center was being built on Spillane's westside. The amount of money the new convention center was going to generate was enormous. Coupled with the amount Spillane was already generating from

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylv ...

, the Hudson River waterfront and the local unions and Spillane would have been powerful enough to challenge the Italians for control of the city. So began the infamous Irish-Italian Mob War of 1970s.

Irish-Italian Mob War

In the 1970s, under Spillane, the Irish mob became organized and expanded their control out of Hell's Kitchen to most of the west side of Manhattan. The Italian Mafia, seeing this as a threat, demanded involvement in the soon-to-be-built Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. The convention center was being constructed in the Chelsea neighborhood of NYC just south of Hell's Kitchen. Spillane refused to allow any involvement by the Italians. The Italian gangsters greatly outnumbered the members of the Irish mob, but Spillane was successful in keeping control of the convention center. The Italians, frustrated and embarrassed by their defeat to Spillane and the Irish gangsters, responded by hiring a rogue Irish-American hitman named Joseph "Mad Dog" Sullivan to assassinate Tom Devaney, Eddie "the Butcher" Cummiskey, and Tom "the Greek" Kapatos, three of Spillane's chief lieutenants. By the mid-1970s, Spillane had moved his family out of Hell's Kitchen to

Woodside, Queens Woodside is a residential and commercial neighborhood in the western portion of the borough of Queens in New York City. It is bordered on the south by Maspeth, on the north by Astoria, on the west by Sunnyside, and on the east by Elmhurst, ...

, because of threats of violence against his children. In 1966, a young upstart named Jimmy Coonan began slowly muscling in on Spillane's territory. Ultimately, Coonan was sent to prison for ten years in 1967 for homicide. When he was released from prison, Coonan sought to align himself with the

Gambino crime family The Gambino crime family (pronounced ) is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Ame ...

through an up-and-coming mobster from

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, beh ...

, named Roy DeMeo. This would mark the beginning of the end for the Irish mob, as after Spillane's death, Coonan would eventually work for the Gambinos.

Death

On May 13, 1977, Spillane, aged 43, was killed outside his apartment in Queens. It has long been rumored that the DeMeo crew murdered Spillane as a favor to Coonan, who subsequently took over as the boss of the Hell's Kitchen Irish Mob. Spillane is buried in Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York.

Family

Spillane had three children. Michael (Mickey), Robert and Denise. Robert, an actor, fell six stories to his death on July 10, 2010, in Manhattan, New York, when he leaned against his apartment window screen. The screen gave way while Robert was calling his brother. Mickey Spillane owns the bar in Hell's Kitchen called "Mickey Spillane's Hells Kitchen" on 49th Street and 9th Avenue.

In popular culture

Mickey Spillane is portrayed by Mark Noonan in a season one episode of the HBO television series '' The Deuce''.

References

Books

*Clark, Neil G. ''Dock Boss: Eddie McGrath and the West Side Waterfront''. Barricade Books, 2017. *English, T. J. ''The Westies''. St. Martin's Paperbacks, 1991. *English, T. J. ''Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster''. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. {{DEFAULTSORT:Spillane, Mickey 1933 births 1977 deaths 1977 murders in the United States 20th-century American criminals American gangsters DeMeo Crew victims Male murder victims Murdered American gangsters of Irish descent People from Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan People murdered by the Gambino crime family People murdered in New York City Deaths by firearm in Queens, New York Unsolved murders in the United States American twins Westies (New York gang) Criminals from Manhattan Gangsters from New York City Burials at Calvary Cemetery (Queens)