29
Nov
The Forty Thieves, Shirt Tails and Plug Uglies were a gang that fought for territory, stole and mugged people, and sometimes joined forces to fight groups from other areas of the city, like the waterfront and the Bowery district. The city's poorer areas like the Five Points, provided a place for gangs that had strong ethnic identities, mostly Irish. In some instances, parents are supportive of their children joining gangs, and might have been part of the same group in the past. Both gangs today have franchise groups operating from cities across the nation. In the 1950s and 1960s, the…