Following blockbuster films such as The Untouchables, The Godfather, Goodfellas, Once Upon A Time In America and, more recently, Public Enemies, gangster outfits have become one of the most popular types of 1920’s fancy dress at Halloween and at themed parties, throughout the country.

Always extremely popular with the men, they are now often worn by women, where the Gangster Moll’s outfit is second only to flapper costumes when it comes to female 1920’s fancy dress.

So if you have decided to go to the upcoming costume party in 1920’s fancy dress and more specifically you have decided to buy one of those great gangster outfits that you have found online, what are those little extras that you will need to consider purchasing to make your outfit just that extra bit authentic looking?

Below are five great accessories that will transform your gangster outfit into something that Al Capone himself would have been proud of.

1920s spats

White in colour and made from a soft felt material, 1920’s spats really do help to create a classic twenties shoe look. Make sure that you get some with a Velcro fastening for easy use and with an elastic stirrup between the heal and the sole so that they stay in place properly. The better 1920’s spats that you can find usually includes silver coloured buttons on the side for that extra little touch.

The black spiv moustache

The weaselly looking black spiv mustache makes a superb gangster’s mustache and is quite easy to apply with face paints. However, if you really want to look the part you could always buy a self adhesive one, where no spirit gum is needed, which is more likely to last the night than a painted one would.

Felt trilby hat

A black felt trilby makes a perfect gangster hat and will add a lot to the costume, without costing a great deal. Meanwhile, the ladies might want to consider buying a pin striped fedora hat to compliment their gangster’s moll costume.

Moulded PVC tommy gun

No gangster outfit would be complete without a moulded PVC tommy gun at your side. You will be surprised just how cheaply you can buy these for and they will certainly add a little something to your costume.

Male gangster shoes

Although a pair of gangster shoes are likely to be more expensive than the items mentioned above, these black and white patent shoes are the ultimate 1920’s fancy dress accessory that are guaranteed to complete any gangster’s costume.

Carlito’s Way – somewhat an underrated gangster film (as many people have never seen it) but an absolute classic. Pacino plays a legendary smack-dealer who has just got out of prison and has decided to retire and move to Florida with the love of his life. The only problem is that he needs to make $80,000 to start his business, and the life that he once knew all too well is trying to such him back in.

Casino – This movie is all about paranoia and one man’s struggle to keep the whole of Las Vegas in check. Robert De Niro takes on this incredibly difficult role and plays it to perfection, with Sharon Stone (who plays his wife) and Joe Pesci as the supporting characters.

American Gangster – The newest film on my list; based on a true story and featuring Russell Crow and Denzel Washington this film tells the tale of a drug dealer and the detective ordered to bring him to justice. The film is a cat-and-mouse chase between the two and as the tension builds the film is brought to a magnificent climax that will leave you feeling utterly satisfied.

Scarface – Despite the fact that this movie bombed at the box office and way deemed a failure (possibly due to the film’s length, excessive swearing and violence) it has since risen from the ashes and is has been deemed a true classic by a new generation. Films have often been said to be ahead of their time and there is no better example than with Scarface.

How about being one of the Boondock Saints for Halloween? You could get a few of the Saints tattoos as temporary tattoo stencils put them on and your costume is nearly complete. A dark coat or preferably a pea coat would finish off the costume.

Who are these Boondock Saints

Troy Duffy wrote and directed the Boondock Saints a 1999 crime thriller. The two title characters are Connor and Murphy MacManus played by Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus. They are Catholic Irish fraternal twins. The boys become vigilantes after killing, in self defense, two members of the Russian Mafia.

After experiencing an epiphany, the brothers and their friend David, set out to cleanse their home town of Boston, Massachusetts of crime and evil; all the while being pursued by an FBI Special Agent.

The film begins with a priest saying Mass at a Catholic Church. The priest talks about Kitty Genovese who was killed in New York while screaming for help and being ignored by people around her. This starts the brothers thinkin about what is wrong with society.

While they are celebrating St. Patrick's Day with friends, the two get into a fight with Russian mobsters who want to close the bar down. They try to reason with the gangsters, but the mobsters respond with violence.

The next day, the banged up bodies of two of the gangsters are found in an alley.

One of the more powerful scenes is when the Saints recite the family prayer. The family prayer, a prayer to illustrate an oath / oration to God, that they will do whatever they can to shepherd the weak past the evils brought forth by man and the dissatisfaction with those who would do harm to the innocent people, and giving thanks to God that they are able to do something about it. That the souls of the wicked shall be purified with blood, and returned to their maker. "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

And shepherds we will be, my Lord, for Thee. Your power has descended forth from your hand, that we may swiftly carry out your command. So we shall send forth a river to Thee, teeming with souls shall it be. "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti."

So, for a great Halloween costume get the Boondock Saints temporary tattoo stencils and some attitude and have fun.

1920’s fashion has influenced our culture, either from real history or movies that we all know and 1920’s costumes became highly popular. For ladies and girls, flapper dresses are certainly a must wear once in a life, and gangster suits for men always make their effect too. The 20’s costumes carry a lot of things and here are few examples of what you can find.

As we just mentioned, a flapper dress is an excellent choice for Halloween or any other fun party. If you want to be sexy and rebel, but elegant too, a flapper costume brings you everything. You will usually find sexy dress dripping with fringe and a feather headband to be a complete female 1920’s costume. Add to these few accessories like a cigarette holder, a boa and sexy shoes and you’ll be gorgeous.

One very nice other flapper outfit you may like is the faux-fur flapper coat, just beautiful. There are of course many styles of flapper dress, generally short, though longer styles are available too.

For men of course, the gangster suit is quite simply the most representative male 1920’s costume you can get. Don’t worry there are tons of styles available, though if you party with friends you can decide gangster suits to be a great group costumes. With or without stripes of various colors, the costume is generally black or grey, though some white suits look perfect. A hat is something you may want to add to complete the ensemble, and you may like a white scarf too.

And if you need an accessory, a toy gun is almost inevitable.

Flapper dresses and gangster suits are definitely the great costumes of the Roaring Twenties. Wearing one will reveal your rebel and bad behavior. You’ll be ready to enter jazz clubs and flirt with crime with total fun. 1920’s costumes are a hit on Halloween!

Solntsevskaya Bratva, named after the Solntsevo neighborhood, is the most powerful and most dangerous mafia group of Russia. It is estimated to have more than 5,000 members.

Solntsevskaya Bratva was formed in 1980s by the gangsters Syergyej Mihajlov ‘Mikhas’ and Viktor Averin. They based their organization on Western guidelines rather than following the traditional style, but the discipline was strictly followed. Syergyej Mihajlov Mikhas instead of vor called himself a businessman.

The mafia gangs under this group had a complete control over the south-west region of the city. This group later on merged with the Orekhovskaya mafia group which was run by Syergyej Timofeyev, a thief-in-law. This merger occurred due to the fear of Chechen mafia group.

In 1989, Mikhaylov along with several other leaders were arrested which negatively effected this organization. Several other gangsters tried forming their separate groups but in vain, as most of them got killed.

In spite of all this, Solntsevskaya Bratva regained itself in the 90s and emerged as the most powerful and dangerous criminal organization. Mikhaylov took hold of it along with the businesses owned by Orekhovskaya group.

Solntsevskaya Bratva was believed to control around 120 legitimate businesses in the Moscow, Crimea and Samara regions as well as many businesses abroad. The Bratva offers them protection as well as assists them in various other matters other than the legal.

Mikhaylov was arrested in 1996 in Switzerland, but strangely enough all the witnesses were found dead before his trial. So as there was no evidence against Mikhaylov, he was freed and to-date he is the boss of the Bratva.

Jack “Legs” Diamond was shot and injured badly so many times, he was called “The Gangster Who Couldn’t be Killed.”

Diamond, born on July 10th, 1897, of parents from Kilrush, County Clare in Ireland, spent the early years of his life in Philadelphia. After his mother died from a viral infection when Diamond was thirteen, he and his younger brother Eddie fell in with a group of toughs called “The Boiler Gang.” Diamond was arrested more than a dozen times for assorted robberies and mayhem, and after spending a few months in a juvenile reformatory, Diamond was drafted into the army. Army life did not suit Diamond too well. He served less than a year, then decided to go AWOL. He was soon caught and sentenced to three to five years at the Federal Penitentiary in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Diamond was released from prison in 1921, and he decided that New York City was where he could make his fortune. Diamond and his brother Eddie relocated to Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where they fell in with an up-and-coming gangster named Lucky Luciano. Diamond did various odd jobs for Luciano, including a little bootlegging, in conjunction with Brooklyn thug Vannie Higgins. Diamond’s marriage to Florance Williams lasted only a few months (he was never home). But his luck changed, when Luciano introduced Diamond to Arnold “The Brain” Rothstein, a notorious gambler and financial wizard. This was the break Diamond was waiting for and he made the best of it.

After starting out as a bodyguard for Rothstein, Rothstein brought Diamond in as a partner in his lucrative heroin business. When his pockets became full enough with cash, and his need for Rothstein diminished, Diamond, in concert with his brother Eddie, decided to branch out on their own. They figured they could make a bundle hijacking the bootlegging trucks of other mobsters, including those of Owney Madden and Big Bill Dwyer. This was not a very good idea, since Madden and Dwyer were part of a bigger syndicate of criminals, that included Luciano, Dutch Schultz and Meyer Lansky. In no time, Diamond was persona non grata in the gangster world, and free pickings for anyone who wanted to get rid of him.

In October of 1924, Diamond was driving a Dodge sedan up Fifth Avenue, when at 110 Street, a black limo pulled along side him. A shotgun fired at Diamond from the back window of the limo, but Diamond was too quick to be killed. He ducked down and hit the accelerator, without looking where he was going. Luckily, he was able to escape his shooters and drive himself to nearby Mount Sinai Hospital. The doctors removed pellets in his head, face and feet, and when the cops arrived to question him, Diamond dummied up.

“I dunno a thing about it,” Diamond told the fuzz. “Why would anyone want to shoot me? They must of got the wrong guy.”

Soon Diamond became friends with a gangster not looking to kill him. His name was “Little Augie” Orgen. Orgen installed Diamond as his chief bodyguard. In return, Orgen gave Diamond a nice share of his bootlegging and narcotics business. This friendship went just fine, until October 15, 1927, when Louis Lepke and Gurrah Shapiro gunned down Orgen on the corner of Norfolk and Delancey Street, with Diamond supposedly standing guard over Orgen’s safety. Diamond was shot in the arms and legs (probably by accident), necessitating another trip to the hospital. Upon his release, he made nice with Lepke and Shapiro, and as a result, the two killers gave Diamond Orgen’s bootlegging and narcotics businesses, as a reward for being stupid enough to get in the way of bullets meant for Orgen.

Now Diamond was on top of the world. He had plenty of cash to throw around, and he became a mainstay in all of New York City top nightclubs, usually with showgirl Kiki Roberts on his arm, despite the fact he was still married to his second wife Alice Kenny. Diamond was seen regularly at the Cotton Club, El Fay and the Stork Club, and his picture was frequently in the newspapers, which portrayed Diamond not as a gangster, but as a handsome man-about-town. Soon Diamond was part owner of the Hotsy Totsy Club on Broadway between 54th and 55th Street, with Hymie Cohen as his fronting partner. The Hotsy Totsy Club had a back room where Diamond frequently settled business disputes, usually by shooting his adversaries to death, then carrying them out as if they were drunk.

Diamond’s downfall started, when on July, 13, 1929, three unruly dockworkers got loaded and started a ruckus at the bar of the Hotsy Totsy Club. Diamond jumped in, with his gang member Charles Entratta, to stop his manager from being throttled. “I’m Jack Diamond and I run this place,” Diamond told the dockworkers. “If you don’t calm down, I’ll blow your (expletive) heads off.”

Talking didn’t work and soon the shooting started. When the smoke cleared, two dockworkers were dead and one injured. As a result, Diamond and Entratta took it on the lam. While they were in hiding, Diamond decided that before he could go back to doing what he was doing, the bartender and three witnesses had to be killed. And soon they were. Cohen turned up dead too, and the hat check girl, the cashier and one waiter disappeared from the face of the earth. Diamond and Entratta, with everyone out of the way who could possibly harm them, calmly turned themselves into the police and said, “I heard we were wanted for questioning.” No charges were ever brought against them, but Diamond realized New York City was no longer safe for him, so he closed the Hotsy Totsy Club and relocated to Greene County in upstate, New York.

From upstate New York, Diamond ran a little bootlegging operation. But after a few months of impatience, he sent word back to gangsters in New York City, namely Dutch Schultz and Owney Madden, who had scooped up Diamond’s rackets in his absence, that he was coming back to take back what was his. This put a target right on Diamond’s back, and he became known as the “clay pigeon of the underworld.”

Diamond was sitting at the bar of the Aratoga Inn near Arca, New York, when three men dressed as duck hunters barreled into the bar and filled Diamond with bullets. The doctors gave him little chance for survival, but four weeks later, Diamond walked out of the hospital and told the press, “Well, I made it again. Nobody can kill Jack Legs Diamond.”

A few months later, as Diamond was leaving an upstate roadside inn, was shot four times; in the back, leg, lung and liver, but again, he beat the odds the doctors gave him, and survived. He was not so lucky in December of 1931, when after a night of heavy drinking at the Kenmore Hotel in Albany, he staggered back drunk to his nearby boarding room and fell asleep. The landlady said afterwards that she heard Diamond pleading for his life, before she heard three shots. Apparently two gunman had burst into Diamond’s room, and while one held him by his two ears, the other put three slugs into his brain.

The killers escaped in a red Packard, putting an end to the myth that Jack “Legs” Diamond was the gangster who couldn’t be killed.

Gangster rap, or hardcore rap, is generally considered a sub genre of the larger category of rap music, which itself is a subcategory of hip-hop. Gangster rap is differentiable from other rap music in that it makes use of images of urban life associated with crime (Haugen, 2). According to the Encyclopedia Britannica definition of gangster rap, the top four images associated with the genre are violence, drugs, materialism and sexual promiscuity.

Gangster Rappers as Defining the Hip-Hop Social Group

As the hip-hop movement has gained recognition throughout the United States, it has established itself as one of the fastest growing social groups anywhere. In the late 1990s immediately following the murders of both Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace, two nationally known gangster rappers, a propaganda campaign escalated against rap music and the hip-hop culture (Slaughter). Although gangster rap only represented a small percentage of the hip-hop culture at the time, all hip-hop and rap music was instantly stereotyped negatively as being “gangter-like”. Why? Well, this gangster version of hip-hop was the highest selling and most recognized form of hip-hop music among the majority class. And many critics have determined that this is because America is in love with sex, drugs and violence (Whaley).

Hip-Hop’s Rejection of Inferior Social Group Status

Henri Tajfel, a social psychologist who developed a theory of inter-group relations and social change, argues that members of a social group deemed inferior by a majority class can either accept or reject their inferior position in society. If a group refuses to accept its inferior position in society as just, it will attempt as a group to change things (Coates, 8-9). A large number of hip-hop artists have used their musical lyrics to reject the inferior social status placed upon them by the majority class.

The Reconstruction of the Gangster Identity

I have found that hip-hop artists use lyrics, both musical and poetic, to redefine the negatives characteristics given to their culture by the majority class, and in the process, reconstruct the gangster identity. By examining these hip-hop and gangster rap lyrics as text, I will show ways in which the lyrics attempt to reconstruct the stereotyped gangster rap identity by examining different views of violence, drugs, materialism and sexual promiscuity. In the end, one tends to wonder: Who exactly are the real gangsters?

Violence

That the hip-hop culture represents gangster-like violence is perhaps the biggest disputed claim amongst hip-hop artists. In order to disprove this claim, many hip-hop artists have pointed to the violence that exists within the majority social group, and how it leads to violence all over the world.

In “Violence”, 2 Pac demonstrates his belief that violence was prevalent long before gangster rap existed:

I told em fight back, attack on society

Look through our history, America’s the violent one

Here, the poet points to American society as “the violent one” and that he has to be violent in order to “fight back.”

In “Who Knew”, Eminem showed a similar viewpoint by expressing his belief that violence is a common occurrence in American society, yet not challenged in genres outside of the urban environment:

So who’s bringin’ the guns in this country?

Where he’s shootin’ all sorts of these bad guys with an Uzi

Here, the poet questions the existence of violence in a country that allows firearms and violent movies.

In “Casualties of War”, Rakim blames the United States government, specifically its Head of State, as the group causing the violence in society with their war-like ways:

I’ma get back to New York in one piece

Flashback to Nam, I might not make it back

In this text, the poet refers to our country’s decision to go to war as an example of the violence that exists amongst the majority social class.

In “The Watcher”, Dr. Dre redefines the negative characteristic of violence by pointing to the police force as the source of violence, and therefore, referring to them as “gangster-like”:

Things just ain’t the same for gangstas

It’s dangerous, to people who look like strangers

Here, the poet accuses the majority class of keeping them “trapped in the same place we raised in” and that the perceived violence is only due to the introduction of “people who look like strangers.”

These are examples of how hip-hop artists redefine the image of violence by showing how it exists or was created within the majority social group.

Drugs

Another common disputed stereotype of hip-hop artists is their use and distribution of illegal drugs. In attempts to redefine this negative characteristic, many hip-hop artists have pointed at the majority social group as the facilitator of drug abuse.

In “Justify My Thug”, Jay-Z speaks directly to members of government, raising questions about who has made the availability and use of these drugs possible:

Mr. President, there’s drugs in our residence

Every other corner there’s a liquor store – what is up?

In this example, the poet inquires as to why there is a liquor store in “every other corner” of his community.

In “I Want to Talk to You”, Nas uses the same approach to challenge the notion of drug distribution by asking his representatives what they would do in his situation:

Why y’all made it so hard, damn

Imagine your kids gotta sling crack to survive

Here, the poet claims that the distribution of drugs is not only an effect of the poverty that exists in his environment, but also a means of survival.

In “Manifesto”, Talib Kweli actually accuses the government of being the body which allows drugs into the country:

Like the C.I.A. be bringin’ in crack cocaine bailin’ out of planes

People sell crack cause they broke

In this example, the poet accuses the C.I.A. of flying drugs into the country, and again reiterates the point that it is a means of survival due to the “supply and demand” of a capitalist society.

In “Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangster”, the Geto Boys fully redefine the negative characteristic of drug distribution by accusing the President of being a drug dealer, and therefore, a gangster:

And now, a word from the President!

So we can bust you know who

These examples show how hip-hop artists redefine the image of being drug dealers and users by again pointing to the majority class as the creator of the drug problem in this country.

Materialism

Hip-hop music is also seen by the majority class as a genre dominated by materialism. Again, artists point back to the majority class in an attempt to redefine this negative characteristic.

In “Respiration”, Black Star points to all the wealth surrounding urban areas, and how it absorbs the lower class in materialism, making them want parts of that wealth:

Where mercenaries is paid to trade hot stock tips

Is preposterous, stay alive, you play or die, no options

Here, the poet talks about various materialistic aspects of the majority class, and how the lower class must “play or die” to “stay alive.”

In “All Falls Down”, Kanye West actually blames this materialism on American society:

It seems we living the American dream

For the road to riches and diamond rings

In this example, the poet blames the “American dream” for materialism, saying it causes people to “do the ugliest things” for “riches and diamond rings.”

In “Los Angeles Times”, Xzibit also blames this materialism on the majority class, claiming that is what the youth are taught coming up in urban environments:

Welcome to L.A.

Sex power and wealth, forget everything else

Here, the poet expresses his belief that certain aspects of materialism, including “power and wealth” are taught to children through occurrences in society.

These are examples how hip-hop artists redefine the negative characteristic of being materialistic by showing examples of how this materialism is prevalent in the majority class, and often created within that class.

Sex

And the final debated stereotype of the hip-hop social class is that they are sexually promiscuous, often leading to disrespectful treatment towards women. The poets also attempt to redefine this stereotype by blaming the core of the problem on society.

In “Pussy Galore”, the Roots claim that the country’s obsession with sex is pushed by sexually-driven marketing campaigns:

Lookin’ out the limo window up at the billboards

For real yo, the world is a sex machine

In this example, the poet retells a personal experience in which he saw sex advertisements as “promotin’ everything.” And in order to “get them listening”, he claims, “you gotta show a little skin.”

In “Get By”, Talib Kweli blames this sexual obsession on what we view on television:

The TV got us reachin’ for stars

Some people get breast enhancements and penis enlargers

Here, the poet expresses his belief that television creates a misconception of what people should be sexually, and that contributes to the promiscuity that is being blamed on the hip-hop movement.

Hip-hop artists have used their lyrics and poetry to influence the rejection and reconstruction of the gangster identity that plagues their social class. This is accomplished through the redefining of negative characteristics assigned by the majority class. In most cases, these redefinitions include pointing to the majority class as the real holders of these negative characteristics. The redefining of these “gangster-like” images through hip-hop lyrics helps to reconstruct the gangster identity by questioning “gangster-like” behaviors and which social class actually has these behaviors. So the question presented is: Who exactly are the gangsters?

Works Cited / Discography

2 Pac. 2Pacalypse Now. Jive Records, 1991.

Black Star. Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star. Rawkus Records, 1998.

Coates, Jennifer. Women, Men and Language. Longman Publishing, New York: 1993.

Dr. Dre. The Chronic 2001. Interscope Records, 1999.

Eminem. The Marshall Mathers LP. Interscope Records, 2000.

Geto Boys. Uncut Dope LP. Interscope Records, 1999.

Haugen, Jason. “‘Unladylike Divas’: Language, Gender and Female Gangster Rappers.” Popular Music and Society: December, 2003.

Jay Z. The Black Album. Def Jam, 2003.

Kanye West. College Dropout. Roc-A-Fella Records, 2004.

Nas. I Am. Sony Records, 1999.

Rakim. Don’t Sweat the Technique. MCA Records, 1992.

Rawkus Records. Lyricist Lounge Volume 1. Priority Records, 1999.

Slaughter, Peter. “Attack on Rap Music.” Barutiwa Weekly News. June 14, 1997.

Talib Kweli & DJ Hi-Tek. Train of Thought. Rawkus Records, 2000.

Talib Kweli. Quality. Rawkus Records, 2003.

The Roots. Phrenology. MCA Records, 2002.

Whaley, Angela. “Hip Hop is Not for Sale.” Colorado State University’s Talking Back: Volume 3, Issue 1.

Xzibit. 40 Days and 40 Nights. Loud Records, 1998.

The Fedora is most commonly known as a gangster hat, a hat which saw such widespread use and particular popularity amongst infamous prohibition-era gangsters such as Al Capone and Bugsy Siegal that it will be forever more associated with them.

With the distinctive front pinch and wide, floppy and pliable rim the fedora is a distinctive hat indeed. The actual name ‘Fedora’ came about due to a stage play which was running in 1882. The main character, Princess Fedora Romazova, wore a hat just like it, thus it became known as a Fedora.

Another variation of the fedora is the trilby, a hat very similar although it has a less ostentatious and less menacing look about it due to the narrower rim. Such stars as Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears have worn a trilby before.

Although you are much less likely to see young high-profile gangsters wearing a fedora hat these days they still do hold much popularity among older people, but this isn’t to say the fedora is a hat for the old. Many young stars still wear the fedora hat and trilby hat. Run DMC are one example of how fedora hats are still seen as ‘urban cool’, and they look anything but ridiculous. My guess is it is only a matter of time before we again see a huge resurgence in popularity for this hat, and the sight of younger generations walking down the street sporting a fedora as commonplace, yet the epitome of chic.

HBO’s hit series drama, Boardwalk Empire, depicts the gangster life of the 1920’s; the start of the prohibition. Characters such as Al Capone, Lucky Luciano and others are portrayed.

In these days, gangsters had the best fashion sense. This is mainly because they had a disposable income. They would walk into a clothing store and ask for the best shirts, jackets, slacks and shoes money could buy. Their entire wardrobe was put together by the shop designers.

Among these ruthless killers and thugs, there were gentlemen; names like Arnold Rothstein would come to mind. In the series, Boardwalk Empire, one gangster/gentleman stands out from the rest, when it comes to style. Nucky Thompson.

The History

The Nucky Thompson shoes have become very famous in the last two months due to the recent success of the show. The thing that separates Mr. Thompson from the rest of the gangsters is the word gangster. Mr. Thompson wasn’t a gangster; he was just a corrupt politician. The character was based on Enoch Lewis Nucky Johnson, a boss of the Republican political machine that ran Atlantic City.

Enough about the history, lets get back to the style. In the opening credits of Boardwalk Empire, we see Steve Buscemi approach a shoreline in a fabulous 3 piece, pin stripped suit. A shot of his beautiful wing tips graces the camera: the infamous Nucky Thompson shoes.

The Two-Toned Wing Tip Shoes

The Nucky Thompson shoes are two toned wing tips by Forzieri. Forzieri is an Italian shoe making brand that makes all of their shoes by hand. The shoes themselves have amazing perforations that run throughout the shoe. The soles are made of excellent, and durable, quality leather. The interior of the beautiful Forzieri wing tip shoes has an entire layer of leather added to the shoe. This prevents any discomfort from the external stitching. Only the best made shoes have this. Would Nucky Thompson wear anything but the best? Absolutely not.

Although the Nucky Thompson shoes are a bit pricey, they have an additional Hollywood-star quality to them that adds value to an already amazing shoe. If you’d like more information on the Nucky Thompson shoes, visit Soletopia.

Paul Kelly was the most high profile New York City gangster in the early 1900’s. Real name Paulo Vaccarelli, Kelly was was born in Sicily in 1879. He immigrated to America in the early 1890’s and soon became a bantemweight boxer of some note. He changed his name from the Italian Vacacarelli to the Irish-sounding Kelly, in order to get more fights, at a time when being Italian in America was frowned upon as being low class.

Unlike most gangsters of his day, Kelly was an intelligent, erudite man, who could speak three languages. He was a dapper dresser, and an easy person to like, which is why he was able to recruit so many quality gangsters to work under him.

After Kelly retired from boxing, he formed the notorious Five Points Gang in lower Manhattan. The 1500-member Five Points Gang was the breeding ground for some of the most famous gangsters ever to set foot in America. Their members included, Johnny Torrio and Al Capone (both of whom later emigrated to control Chicago), Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Lucky Luciano and Frankie Yale. While Kelly’s gang was almost entirely comprised of Italians, his main nemesis was Monk Eastman, who headed a 2000-strong, mostly Jewish gang. Kelly and Eastman’s crew fought often and violently. The dividing line for their territories was the Bowery. Kelly’s domain was west of the Bowery and Eastman ruled to the east of the Bowery. Everything else was neutral territory and that’s where the trouble started, causing disputes over who controlled what and where.

Both men worked for Tammany Hall, as head-busters on Election Day, where either one group, or the other, would stand guard at all the polling places, making sure the Tammany Hall-backed candidate got the bulk of the votes. Finally, the two gangs became so out-of-control dangerous to the community, the Tammany Hall bosses ordered Eastman and Kelly to duke it out themselves, mano a mano, with the winner getting control of the prized neutral territories. The two men went at it for a full two hours, and even though the ex-boxer Kelly was fifty pounds lighter than the hulking Eastman, neither man was able to knock out the other man. The fight was ruled a draw, and they went back to their usual violent, territorial disputes.

Kelly’s base of operations was his fancy New Brighton Athletic Club on Great Jones Street, just north of Houston Street. In April 1905, police raided the club and arrested several members, including Kelly. Even though four policemen testified they had witnessed illegal activities in the club, due to the false testimony of a police captain named Burke, and a Tammany Hall-appointed judge named Barlow, Kelly’s case was summarily dismissed, to the roar of a cheering crowd of hundreds of Kelly supporters in the courthouse.

Kelly’s luck ran out in November, 1908, when two of his former henchmen, Biff Ellison and Razor Riley barged into the New Brighton Athletic club with guns blazing. Kelly was sitting at a table with his two bodyguards, Bill Harrington and Rough House Hogan. Kelly dove under the table, but not before he was shot three times. Harrington took a bullet to the head and died instantly. Kelly fired back from under the table and he injured both Ellison and Riley.

Even though he recovered from his injuries, Kelly’s clout was never the same after the shooting incident. Within days, and since Kelly’s notoriety had lost him the favor of Tammany Hall, police shut down the New Brighton Athletic Club. Kelly relocated to Italian Harlem and toned down his criminal endeavors to a point. Kelly became intimately involved in union activities, some legal and some not-so-legal, and eventually he was elected vice president of the International Longshoremen Association.

Unlike his arch-enemy Eastman, who was shot to death on the streets in 1920, Kelly died in 1936 of natural causes.