The Real Story Behind Gangs of New York

In 1979, the movie The Warriors depicted New York street gangs and was a hit, but it wasn't all that close to real life. Then the 2002 movie Gangs of New York did the same, but more than hundred years earlier. Was it at all accurate? Nobody from that period is around to tell us, but the fictionalized movie was based on a non-fiction book. If you saw the movie but didn't read the book, let's just say the story was longer and more complicated than what was shown on screen.

In the movie, the war was between Confederation of American Natives and the Dead Rabbits, reduced to Protestant vs. Catholic, or Anglo-Americans vs. Irish immigrants. in the historical events, it was more a war over control of a small slum neighborhood, where people with no social mobility, no hope, and few resources will fight to the death to keep the only thing they have, which is their identity with a group. But history is not just written by the winners, but by those with access to the press, so there are still questions about what really happened. We may never know the entire truth.