Gangs

A diorama about New York gang color, pageantry, danger, and comic book oriented design!

I wanted to offer a New York gang diorama, inspired by the Scorsese film Gangs of New York (Leo DiCaprio), since this is after all the age of great diarism. I hope you read this last one, and thanks so much for bearing with me as I struggled to retire from short-story writing and leave a creative corner, WritersCafe, that I simply cherish!

Thanks (signing off),

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This wasn't a typical city, but then again, New York City was the heartbeat of the civilized world after the fall of the British Empire, right? However, NYC was beset by rival clans or 'gangs' vying for dominion in a place where immigrants and commerce made traffic a thing of high chatter! A visitor to New York would at first only notice the yellow taxis and buildings in the sunset.

In the night, there was another 'face' to NYC. This was the life and arena of the New York gangs. There were mulitple gangs with grand histories and creative customs. Some gangs proudly wore face-paint and costumes, while others simply flocked together on the streets at 2 a.m. The police tried to keep things 'normal' and populated, but the tone of gang life in New York was something of a ghost-story!

New York was so beautiful, you know? Everyone loved to see Central Park in the snow with the lights of the buildings reminding them of Christmas. Shoppers flocked to Macy's and Empire Records. Times Square prepared for New Year's Eve. There was something tangibly young about NYC. People just liked to make art there.

However, the leaders of the NY gangs were anything but imaginative dancers! These men liked to present themselves as pronounced leaders of special mobilization of youngsters and young adults. They wore masks and sunglasses or beards and denim. They led ethnic gangs or Caucasian clans. They made New York not only a place for art but also a place for rather dramatic diarism!

The ethnic gangs had a rich history in the United States and especially in New York. Being part of these gangs meant you had somewhere to go and a place to flock in times of great social traffic intrigue caused by general immigration and unemployment worries! These ethnic gangs, like their standard or 'normal' counterparts, often carried proud and colorful names like the Bloody Latins or the Mellow Buddhists.

Of course, if you were a young person whose older sibling was part of one of these iconic 'gangs of New York' illuminating the color of the night in the city, you might wield a fantastic toy water-rifle in the streets during the summer, preparing to take part in one of these gangs and making your mark as a New York baddie or goodie! Here, we see the importance of toys in the marketing of everyday dogma.

Of course, the most prominent gang leaders boasted groupies or bevies of beautiful women who were maidservants and angels and were often called 'sirens' or 'nurses' serving the greater good of the glory of gang leadership prestige! These female vixens reminded everyone involved in gang life in NYC that these special social groups reflected a modern-day interest in the realism of human depression...and low-brow politics.

Do you know of the Suits, a prominent gang in early New York? This gang tried to both celebrate and exploit Industrialization and make it work for the gang members seeking to make the city a thing of vibrant muscle. Of course, the Suits also wielded pocket-knives and were not your expected Dickensian street nomads. No, these folks symbolized the sheer mysticism of New York and its potential violence!

Gangs are not always easy to celebrate or even romanticize, regardless if you're a fan or member or not! Yes, some of these gangs wear eerie rabbit-masks and make field-trips into the forests in New York State to pay homage to their God of War, Ares. These gangs are not representative of the general American yearning for peace and Christian humility. These gangs remind us that America is a den of doctors!

One of the leaders of a special NYC gang called the Rascals liked collecting ornate handmade glass swans (animals) which he proudly displayed in the windowsill of his apartment. When rival gang members passed by, they'd look up at this man's window and notice the glass swans and wonder if the gang this apartment-dwelling 'diarist' was a part of, the delicious Rascals, respected the general notion of pedestrian demonology. The Rascals appreciated why animals symbolized urban depression.

The ethnic gangs can be quite scary. Since they fashion their own logos on jackets, they might make you think wandering around New York late at night is like tempting fate by going searching for werewolves alone. You need protection and friends to walk around NYC in a time when gangs rule the parks and streets. One ethnic gang in New York, the Bats, who hated the Rascals, wanted to destroy those 'damned' glass swans their leader displayed on his windowsill. This was a new kind of social warfare --- a thing of real dolls.

That's why we love movies about New York gangs and gangs in general, right? We appreciate if a film-maker/storyteller wants to boast his interest in urban gang life by showcasing great stories about gang drama and romance and violence and even low-brow politics. Without such storytelling, we might start to worry that social activity in America, since it's so darn unpredictable, can be unmanly.

Gang members like to even showcase and parade their special artwork and graffiti and cartoons and doodles to remind themselves and the 'public audience' that urban life in New York requires imagination and patience! The cops wonder what these gangs have cooking in their brains, and the gangs want the cops to get a glimpse of their minds through their unusual form of dirty art.

You don't have to be a part of the Rascals to appreciate animals like squirrels in NYC. A sister of a Rascal gang member was engaged to a brother of a Bats gang member and this created some serious Romeo/Juliet or West Side Story gossip. This offbeat romance led to a private neon-church wedding in the Bronx (NY) and drew in a photographer who decided to blog about this symbolic 'peace' event on the Internet. You have to wonder now why and how a fabled place like NYC would draw in the interest of an anti-social terrorist group, such as the one that destroyed the World Trade Center.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5)

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Reviews

[wordman]

you are a very talented writer,why retire ,,i could see a series in this write..i think the italians had the ultimate new york gangs,al capone and all the ones in that era,illustrations was just as great as the write