The Illicit Apple: A History of Gangs, Vice & Crime in NYC

Join LESHP director Eric Ferrara for a colorful journey through the Big Apple's lurid and illicit history of vice and crime. Explore the role that crime and vice has played in the everyday lives of New Yorkers over the last 400 years, and trace the origins of contemporary organized crime.

Discussed in this presentation: Blackmarket trading between Native Americans and Dutch settlers; crime and punishment during Colonial era NY; expansion of crime in NYC during industrialization; the criminal's role in shaping NYC politics; "Gangs of New York" era Irish and Protestant warfare; origins Mafia and the Jewish mob; The rise of such gangster heavyweights as Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel, Arnold Rothstien, and much more.

Three Village Historical Society
93 North Country Road
Setauket, NY 11733