While gangs certainly existed in Brooklyn before the fifties, the emergence of teenage gangsters was a frightening, new, and previously unseen phenomenon. Brooklyn had the “Mau Maus,” the “Jokers,” the “Bishops,” and the “Barons.” In the Bronx, there were the “Bronx,” the “Fordham Baldies,” and the “Golden Guineas.” East Harlem was home to the “Dragons,” the “Red Wings,” and the “Egyptian Kings.” And in Washington Heights, you had the “Jokers” and “Amsterdam.” Gang leaders were rarely older than 20, and some gangs even had members as young as eight years old. Furthermore, each group laid claim to its own tiny neighborhood—sometimes no larger than six city blocks—but the gang defended its borders with military precision. Read more about Brooklyn’s teenage gangs of the 1950s at brooklyn-yes.com.
The Post-War Boom in Brooklyn
They were typically young, poor, and reckless, but the presence of these groups in the 1950s made them cool. They were the classic, tight-knit group of teenagers who tanned, smoked, and bled together. These teens were violent, sexual, and full of life.
America’s post-war boom really took hold around the 1950s, the first decade where youth culture came into vogue. With the rise of television and rock ‘n’ roll, Hollywood quickly discovered a new archetype: the disaffected rebel without a cause. Co-opting the working-class aesthetic, Hollywood transformed the image of disenfranchised teens into anti-heroes for a new, maturing generation.
The Fifties are often viewed as passive and tame by modern urban reality standards, but life at the time proved the opposite, showcasing images of tough young people, hard lives, and rough lovers who embodied the “cool” of the 1950s.
In reality, the truth was far grimmer. Gangs offered teenagers something the community couldn’t: a sense of family and belonging for those living on the margins. Meanwhile, juvenile delinquency soared throughout the 1950s.
The Jokers Gang
In the 1950s, street gangs of white and Puerto Rican youths were making noise on the streets of New York. The young “Jokers” roamed the Brooklyn streets. This was a group of Catholic school students who had dropped out of school by the age of 15. They typically resided in Park Slope, a neighborhood predominantly inhabited by poor Irish residents at the time.
For the most part, these teenagers never had anyone who truly cared about them. Many adults disliked them. That’s why street gangs emerged, defending their turf—whether it was a local candy store, their corner of the park, or their girls. It was their neighborhood; it belonged to them. Nobody could tell them what to do there, how to do it, or anything like that. Members of the Brooklyn gangs were usually fifteen or sixteen, though there were older boys. The spot on the corner of 17th and 8th Avenue was considered safe. That’s where the little Jokers hung out.
There were strict rules within the gang itself. When members argued with one another, they were not allowed to cause permanent injury. Physically, participants in a dispute were allowed to force an opponent to submit, for example, by using a chokehold, but they were not allowed to kick or hit anyone in the face. Everyone in the gang was tough, but no one was the toughest, though everyone’s capabilities were known.
Therefore, they generally didn’t fight among themselves; they saved their skills, brutality, and abilities for other people or other gangs. If someone physically imposing bothered a smaller member, three or four guys would step up and remind them that they were a team, and that they didn’t fight one another. This way, everyone was safe inside the gang.
Guardians of Their Own Borders
Uninvited guests, however, were greeted with a very different reception. The playground—essentially a concrete slab between 45th and 46th Streets—was next to a bar used by Irish gangs, and the “Spanish” boys knew the area was forbidden territory.
After carefully scoping out the playground, the Puerto Ricans approached the young men on a bench and asked if anyone had seen their friend Frenchie. He had been beaten up by rival gang members, and they wanted to talk to the culprits. The white boys said they knew nothing about it. This seemed to satisfy the Spanish-speaking group, and they retreated into the shadows. But a few minutes later, they returned, having waited for reinforcements. This was a coalition of youths from three gangs: the “Vampires,” the “Young Lords,” and the “Kings of Hearts.”
This time, they blocked the exits from the playground. When the white youths stood up to leave, a Spanish boy stood in their way and declared that no “gringo” was leaving the park. After that, the rest of the Puerto Ricans attacked, lunging with shovel and broom handles, leather belts, and bottles. In the scuffle, one of the boys pulled out a silver-handled knife and plunged it into the back of 16-year-old Robert Young.
He then turned to Young’s friend, Anthony Krzesinski, and stabbed him in the chest, piercing his heart. Within minutes, both boys were dead. These were the ninth and tenth victims of gang violence in Brooklyn during the summer of 1959, and the third and fourth in a single week.
It was this somber, senseless, and all-too-familiar warfare that inspired the creation of “West Side Story.” Conceived in 1949 as a musical about conflicts between Jewish and Irish-Catholic communities in Lower Manhattan, the story was adapted by writer Arthur Laurents after the escalation of gang violence in the early 1950s.
Those who watched the musical know it was an accurate reflection of the conflict between the gangs. Many things felt real, such as the clothing, the language, and the filming locations: basketball courts, rooftops, and tenement buildings. The dance hall scene, where Tony and Maria first meet, was also familiar.
Sometimes over 500 people would gather for dance nights, like the one at the Columbia University ballroom. There was no fight that evening, but the tension was palpable. Certainly, gangs existed before the fifties, but teenage gangsters were a relatively new and terrifying phenomenon.
Any invasion by a rival gang was viewed as an act of aggression and often led to “rumbles”—vicious battles in which gang members attacked each other with everything at hand, from studded belts to baseball bats, car antennas, machetes, and guns. Rumbles sometimes involved over 100 youths and even attracted spectators. On Memorial Day—a US federal holiday at the end of May—crowds would gather at Prospect Park to watch the action that took place there every year, kicking off the summer “season” of gang fights.
The Ethnic Divide
Many of these fights occurred between young people of different ethnic backgrounds. After World War II, hundreds of thousands of young Puerto Ricans and African Americans from the Southern states flocked to New York, particularly Brooklyn, in search of a better future. They ended up competing with each other and with the white working class for jobs and housing.
Certain areas of the city became almost exclusively Black or “Spanish.” But in every case, communities felt cornered—by one another and by the established Irish, Italian, or Jewish communities. Brooklyn residents were morbidly fascinated by these rumbles, yet most people considered juvenile delinquency the greatest threat to society.
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