Table of Contents

List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsPreface: Crossing 96th StreetIntroduction: The Capeman and the Vampires3Ch. 1Remaking New York27Ch. 2Discovering Gangs: The Role of Race in the 1940s51Ch. 3Defending Place: Ethnicity and Territory78Ch. 4Becoming Men: The Use of the Streets in Defining Masculinity106Ch. 5Making a Gang Culture: Form, Style, and Ritual in the Gang World137Ch. 6Leaving the Gang: Pathways into Adulthood164Ch. 7Intervening in Gangs: The Problems and Possibilities of Social Work188Ch. 8Drugs, Politics, and Gangs, 1960-1975217Conclusion: Comparing Gangs: Contemporary Gangs in Historical Perspective246Notes263Index319

Promotional Information

A very strong analysis of gangs in postwar New York City. Schneider's historical approach to understanding gang activities is innovative... This is a well-written and interesting book that should appeal to a wide audience. -- Ruth Horowitz, New York University In this marvelous and fascinating book, Eric Schneider tells the real West Side Story. With a wide array of sources-including interviews with former gang members-he locates the post-war history of New York City's gangs in the multiple transformations of the city's social ecology, economy, ethnic and race relations, institutions, and culture. -- Michael B. Katz, University of Pennsylvania Drawing on an extraordinary range of primary and secondary materials, Eric Schneider has produced an incisive and compelling history of youth gangs in New York City. -- Ellen Dwyer, Indiana University An original and imaginative work both of historical significance and narrative power. It is thoroughly grounded in the scholarly literature... At the same time, it is so well written and contains so many remarkable stories that it will be accessible to general readers as well. -- Margaret Marsh, Rutgers University This is the kind of book we need to regain our sanity about young people and violence. -- Carl Nightingale, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Schneider succeeds in offering an insightful analysis of youth gangs, linking the methods of social history with those of sociology, anthropology, and criminology. This book is well worth the attention of a wide readership. -- David Wolcott

About the Author

Eric C. Schneider is Assistant Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences and Adjunct Associate Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of In the Web of Class: Delinquents and Reformers in Boston, 1810s-1930s.

Reviews

"A comprehensive and tantalizing picture of the street gang culture that was part of the New York City mythology from the '40s to the '70s. [Schneider] knows his way around the streets and does a particularly good job of making sense of the drug plague that ended the original postwar gang culture... Schneider's understanding (if not affection) for the gang style informs the work throughout. Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings is a sharp book about a peculiar moment in the New York life--one that seems strangely antiquated as we approach the new millennium."--Martin Jackson, Village Voice "[Schneider's] study of Manhattan youth gangs in the years after World War II blends academic disciplines with the author's recollections of the events he traces.Fascinating history."--Booklist "Superb. This is a marvelous piece of work: beautifully written, nicely organized, thoroughly researched, consistently insightful."--New York History "Drawing on countless sources meticulously noted, [Schneider] offers reasons for the emergence of gangs, shows us their particular culture, assesses intervention programs, and traces their decline in the 1960s and resurgence in the 1970s. Throughout, he augments his scholarly research with excerpts from interviews with former gang members."--Library Journal