The Potashes were a 19th-century Irish-American

street gang A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectivel ...

active in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

and the

New York waterfront New York Harbor is at the mouth of the Hudson River where it empties into New York Bay near the East River tidal estuary, and then into the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of the United States. It is one of the largest natural harbors in t ...

during the early to mid-1890s. One of the many to rise in

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 ...

during the " Gay Nineties"-period, the gang was led by Red Shay Meehan and based near the Babbit Soap Factory on Washington Street (hence their name) near present-day Rector Street. The gang was described as ''"a collection of hard fighters, who terrorized the whole neighborhood and even dominated the other gangs"''. They and the much older

Boodle Gang The Boodle Gang was an American street gang active in New York City during the mid-to- late 19th century. The gang were notorious "butcher cart thieves" during the 1850s and their hijacking methods would later be used by criminals of the early twe ...

dominated Lower West Side Manhattan until the end of the 1890s when they were displaced by the then emerging

Hudson Dusters The Hudson Dusters was a New York City street gang during the early twentieth century. Formation Formed in the late 1890s by "Circular Jack", "Kid Yorke", and "Goo Goo Knox", the gang began operating from an apartment house on Hudson Str ...

who controlled the area for the next decade. Sante, Lucy. ''Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York''. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003. (pg. 216-217, 225);

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Potashes (Gang) Irish-American gangs Irish-American culture in New York City Former gangs in New York City