The Short Tails also known as the Short Tail Gang for their distinctive short tailed jacket coats were an 1880s-1890s Irish gang located in the Corlear's Hook section of the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Historically, it w ...

on Rivington street in the vicinity of Mangin and Goerck streets of

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. The

Eastman Gang The Eastman Gang was a predominately Jewish-American organized crime, Jewish-American street gang that dominated parts of the underworld in New York City during the late 1890s until the early 1910s. Along with the increasingly Italian-American a ...

were also headquartered around Corlear's Hook and may have had its beginnings as a break away gang of the Short Tail Gang. The Short Tails along with rival gangs the

Daybreak Boys The Daybreak Boys was a New York City street gang during the mid nineteenth century. History Formed in the late 1840s, by 1852 the teenaged Daybreak Boys were suspected by police to have been responsible for 20 to 40 murders between 1850 and 18 ...

Patsy Conroy Gang The Patsey Conroy Gang or Patsy Conroys were a group of river pirates active along the New York City waterfront of the old Fourth Ward during the post-American Civil War era. For nearly twenty years the Patsy Conroys dominated the area of C ...

Swamp Angels The Swamp Angels were a New York City waterfront street gang during the mid-nineteenth century. One of the most successful waterfront gangs of the mid-late 19th century, the "Swamp Angels" dominated the dockyards of New York Harbor from the 18 ...

, and

Hook Gang The Hook Gang was a street gang, and later a band of river pirates, active in New York City in the 1860s and 1870s. The gang was prominent in the Fourth Ward and Corlear's Hook districts immediately after the American Civil War, until their ...

worked the New York City waterfront plundering ships of their cargo on the

East River The East River is a saltwater Estuary, tidal estuary or strait in New York City. The waterway, which is not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island, ...

.Nathan, George Jean and Henry Louis Mencken. 1927. ''The American Mercury - Volume 12''. p. 360. The Short Tail Gang was photographed in 1887, under a pier by noted photographer

Jacob Riis Jacob August Riis ( ; May 3, 1849 – May 26, 1914) was a Danish-American social reformer, " muck-raking" journalist, and social documentary photographer. He contributed significantly to the cause of urban reform in the United States of Ame ...

, being one of the few 19th century New York gangs to allow its members to be photographed. In fear of being identified and arrested by the law, usually individual police

mug shots A mug shot or mugshot (an informal term for police photograph or booking photograph) is a photographic portrait of a person from the shoulders up, typically taken after a person is placed under arrest. The primary purpose of the mug shot is to ...

were the only criminal pictures known to exist. Pearce Bartlett

Corlears Hook Lower East Side New York City 1876 Cropped

In popular culture

In the 2014 film ''

Winter's Tale ''The Winter's Tale'' is a play by William Shakespeare originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, many modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some criti ...

'' the Short Tails and the

Dead Rabbits The Dead Rabbits were an Irish American criminal street gang active in Lower Manhattan in the 1830s to 1850s. The Dead Rabbits were so named after a dead rabbit was thrown into the center of the room during a gang meeting, prompting some members ...

gangs are featured prominently as well as in the 1983

Mark Helprin Mark Helprin (; born June 28, 1947) is an American-Israeli novelist, journalist, conservative commentator, Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, Fellow of the American Academy in Rome ...

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

of the same name.

References

*Harlow, Alvin Fay.
''Old Bowery Days: The Chronicles of a Famous Street''
1931. *Nathan, George Jean and Henry Louis Mencken.
''The American Mercury - Volume 12''
1927. *Raczkowski, Christopher T. ''The Unblinking Eye: Vision, Modernity and Detection in American Literature''. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, 2004.

External links

* International Center of Photography (Complete Photographic Collection of Jacob Riis) {{Organized crime groups in New York City Former gangs in New York City 19th century in New York City