The Swamp Angels were 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 ...

waterfront

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 ...

during the mid-nineteenth century. One of the most successful waterfront gangs of the mid-late 19th century, the "Swamp Angels" dominated the

dockyards A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance a ...

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from the 1850s into the post-

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era. The headquarters of the gang was a

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known as "Gotham Court" on Cherry Street in

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, which gave them access to the sewers under Cherry Street. This allowed the gang to easily raid the

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dockyards and sell off its valuable cargo within hours, before the thefts were discovered the following morning. With the Swamp Angels' success, the

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began posting

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s to guard the waterfront. However, when these law enforcement measures did not slow down the Swamp Angels' criminal activities, the police were forced to send teams of officers into the sewers, which resulted in regular battles between the police and the gang members. Eventually, regular police patrols of the sewers forced the gang to halt its use of the underground

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, although the gang continued to hijack cargo ships as they were being unloaded onto the wharfs. The Swamp Angels were less visible after 1860, but continued to operate on the waterfront, according to one source, until eventually they merged with the rival waterfront gangs into the White Hand Gang at the end of the 19th century.

Resources

* Asbury, Herbert. '' The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld''. Garden City, NY: Garden City Publishing Company, 1927. *Sifakis, Carl. ''Encyclopedia of American Crime''. New York: Facts on File Inc., 1982. Former gangs in New York City Irish-American gangs {{Organized crime groups in New York City