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, or Midtown West on real estate listings, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, ...

in New York in the 1960s and 1970s. Spillane, the so-called “Gentleman Gangster", was a marked contrast to the violent

Westies The Westies were a New York City-based Irish-American organized crime gang, responsible for racketeering, drug trafficking, and contract killing. They were partnered with the Italian-American Mafia and operated out of the Hell's Kitchen neighbo ...

mob members who succeeded him in Hell's Kitchen.

Life

Spillane was born on July 13, 1933, to Irish parents Michael Anthony Spillane and Margaret Curran.New York Daily News obituary 15 May 1977 He excelled academically and was skipped two grades at the Sacred Heart School in Hell's Kitchen. At the age of 12 he was awarded a full scholarship to attend Rice High School in Manhattan. Spillane left Rice after two years to help support his widowed mother. At 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 Organized crime is a category of transnational organized crime, transnational, national, or local group of centralized enterprises run to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a f ...

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 The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, commonly known as the Javits Center, is a large convention center on Eleventh Avenue between 34th Street and 38th Street in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York City. It was designed by architect James In ...

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 Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh and Eighth Avenue (Manhattan), Eig ...

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

. 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 neighborhood in the western portion of the borough (New York City), borough of Queens in New York City. It is bordered on the south by Maspeth, Queens, Maspeth, on the north by Astoria, Queens, Astoria, on the west by Sunnyside, ...

, 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, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia. ...

through an up-and-coming mobster from

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, named

Roy DeMeo Roy Albert DeMeo (; September 7, 1940 – January 10, 1983) was an American mobster in the Gambino crime family in New York City. He headed a group known as the "DeMeo crew", which consisted of approximately twenty associates involved in murder ...

. This marked the beginning of the end for the Irish mob, as after Spillane's death, Coonan eventually worked 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 DeMeo is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Adriana DeMeo (born 1981), American actress *Bob DeMeo (1955-2022), American musician *Roy DeMeo (1940–1983), Italian-American mobster *William DeMeo (born 1971), American actor, produ ...

murdered Spillane as a favor to Coonan, with

being the shooter. Coonan took over as 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 is the namesake of the bar in Hell's Kitchen called "Mickey Spillane's Hells Kitchen" on 49th Street and 9th Avenue, founded by his son, Mickey Spillane Jr.

In popular culture

Mickey Spillane is portrayed by Mark Noonan in a season one episode of the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

television series '' The Deuce''.

References

External links

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 People murdered in 1977 20th-century American criminals American crime bosses American male criminals American twins Burials at Calvary Cemetery (Queens) Criminals from Manhattan Deaths by firearm in Queens, New York DeMeo Crew victims Gangsters from New York City Murdered American gangsters of Irish descent Murdered Westies (New York gang) members People from Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan People murdered in New York City Unsolved murders in New York (state) Westies (New York gang)