Dock Boss: Eddie McGrath and the West Side Waterfront

by Neil G. Clark

Overview

At a time when New York City’s booming waterfront industry was ruled by lawless criminals, one gangster towered above the rest and secretly controlled the docks for over thirty years. Dock Boss: The Story of Eddie McGrath and the West Side Waterfront explores the rise of Eddie McGrath from a Depression Era thug to the preeminent racketeer on Manhattan’s lucrative waterfront.
    McGrath’s life takes readers on a journey through the tail-end of Prohibition, the sordid years of violent gang rule on the bustling waterfront, and finally the decline of the dock mobsters following a period of longshoremen rebellion in the 1950s.
    This is the real-life story of the bloodshed that long haunted the ports of New York City.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781569808207
Publisher:	Barricade Books, Incorporated
Publication date:	06/08/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	347
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Neil G. Clark,  is a researcher and writer who has conducted over five years of investigation on the topic.
The book is based on over a thousand previously unreleased law enforcement reports on waterfront gangsters,
hundreds of rare archival records,
interviews, dozens of trial transcripts, and numerous newspapers accounts.

Table of Contents

Waterfront Gang Charts ix

Prologue: Gang Rule-A Longshoreman's Story xiii

1 Growing Pains 1

2 Let the Liquor Flow 7

3 1929: Robberies and More Arrests 11

4 1930: The Gangster's Great Depression 19

5 New Friends 23

6 The Gang's All Here 31

7 Rubel 43

8 The West Side Wars: The Trouble with Red and Tommy 51

9 The West Side Wars: Returning Fire 55

10 The West Side Wars: Reputations Are Made 65

11 The West Side Wars: On the Offensive 71

12 The West Side Wars: The End and The Beginning 85

13 Loose Ends 93

14 Loading 97

15 Boss Joe and The Boys 103

16 Spaghetti Dinners 113

17 Varick 119

18 Let the Good Times Roll 125

19 Ghosts From the Past 135

20 The Best of the West 145

21 1940 153

22 Coercion 161

23 In Florida We Trust 171

24 War Rations 177

25 The Rebels 181

26 61 Grove Street 189

27 The Trial 203

28 Troubles 209

29 Crime on the Waterfront 215

30 Condemned 223

31 Under Pressure 227

32 Blowing Up 231

33 A New Life 239

34 Crime Commission 243

35 War Zone 249

36 "Like Water Off My Back" 261

37 Top Hoodlum? 267

38 The Daily Grind 271

39 A Tangled Web 277

40 A Dentist, a Stockbroker and a Gangster 285

Acknowledgements 291

Selected Bibliography 293

Index 301