Title: Westies - Wikipedia
Headings: Westies
Westies
Contents
History
Spillane years
Irish–Italian war of the 1970s
Spillane–Coonan wars
Trouble with the Genovese family
Coonan and Featherstone
The Yugo era
See also
References
Further reading

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Westies
Hell's Kitchen between 48th and 49th street on Ninth Avenue looking northeast toward Time Warner Center and Hearst Tower
Founded
1960s
Founder
James Coonan
Founding location
Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States
Years active
1960s–1988
Territory
Hell's Kitchen and other neighborhoods in New York City, and some parts of New Jersey
Ethnicity
Irish American
Membership (est.) 12–20
Activities
Racketeering, assault, burglary, kidnapping, illegal gambling, fraud, extortion, drug trafficking, counterfeiting, robbery, murder
Allies
Gambino crime family
Rivals
Mickey Spillane 's gang
Notable members
James Coonan
Edward Cummiskey
Mickey Featherstone
James McElroy
Boško Radonjić
The Westies were a New York City -based Irish American organized crime gang, responsible for racketeering, drug trafficking, and contract killing. They were partnered with the Italian-American Mafia and operated out of the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan. According to crime author T.J. English, "Although never more than twelve to twenty members—depending on who was in or out of jail at any given time— the Westies became synonymous with the last generation of Irish in the birthplace of the Irish Mob ." According to the NYPD Organized Crime Squad and the FBI, the Westies were responsible for 60–100 murders between 1968 and 1986. Contents
1 History
1.1 Spillane years
1.2 Irish–Italian war of the 1970s
1.3 Spillane–Coonan wars
1.4 Trouble with the Genovese family
1.5 Coonan and Featherstone
1.6 The Yugo era
2 See also
3 References
4 Further reading
History
Spillane years
In the early 1960s, Mickey Spillane stepped into a power vacuum that had existed in Hell's Kitchen since gang leaders fled the area in the early 1950s to avoid prosecution. A mobster from Queens, named Hughie Mulligan, had been running Hell's Kitchen; Spillane, a native, was his apprentice until assuming leadership. Spillane sent flowers to neighbors in the hospital and provided turkeys to needy families during Thanksgiving, in addition to running gambling enterprises such as bookmaking and policy, accompanied inevitably by loansharking.