Bowery Boys

The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish criminal gang based in the Bowery neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City in the early-mid-19th century. In contrast with the Irish immigrant tenement of the Five Points, the Bowery was a more prosperous working-class community. The gang was made up exclusively of volunteer firemen—though some also worked as tradesmen, mechanics, and butchers —and would fight rival fire companies over who would extinguish a fire. The Bowery Boys o