Rise And Fall Of ‘The Westies,’ New York’s Last Irish gang, As New TV Series Charts Their Murders And Shakedowns

I watched the first episode of The Westies on MGM +.  

The TV series is a fictional retelling of the Irish American New York City street gang. Although I would have preferred to watch a series closer to the true history (which is dramatic enough, I would think) the series was interesting and I liked two of the lead actors, J.K. Simmons and Titus Welliver. 

Michael Kaplan at the New York Post offers a piece on the new series. 

Thousands of families visit the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center every year for events like the Westminster dog show, Comic Con and International Auto Show.

Very few of them realize the blood spilled, extortion extracted and dead bodies connected with the exhibition space, as it rose from the ashes of former rail-yards to host such jazzy gatherings.

These days, the Javits Center is the spot for glitzy conventions and gatherings.  

During construction between 1979 through 1986 and in the early years of operation, the burgeoning Center on the very West end of 34^th Street was a cash cow for New York’s criminal elite.

It also limned the rise and fall of a violent Hell’s Kitchen-based Irish gang, the Westies. Those gangsters and the Javits Center play key roles in a new scripted crime series,

“The Westies felt like they owned the neighborhood where the Javits Center was,” series co-creator Chris Brancato, who specializes in historically inspired crime dramas, told The Post. 

“Cops were on the pad [payroll] and the Westies felt a sense of freedom to do what they wanted, whether it was legal or not,” such as bookmaking, loan sharking, drug dealing and contract killings. 

Underhand opportunities abounded at the New York City signature construction project of the ‘80s, which required the use of workers from a wide swath of unions, who already had mobsters rifling their coffers. "Everyone understood  that the Javits Center was going to be an unprecedented bounty of criminal rackets," T. J. English, author of the definitive book on the gang, "The Westies" (not part of the series, which is more a "historical fiction," according to Brancato) told the Post. 

You can read the rest of the piece via the link below: 

Rise and fall of 'The Westies,' New York's last Irish gang, as new series charts their murders and shakedowns