Streetplay.com   Home Contact us E-mail this page  ShareThis
City Play logo
Living Dangerously
The Games Events Photos Stories Features Fun & Prizes Discussion Links Store About Us

City Play: Section guide

• City Play home
• Acknowledgements

Featured excerpts
• Winter fun
• Living dangeroulsy
• Stoops
• On the roof

• Order City Play from Amazon


Streetplay.com on Facebook

When mischief turns criminal Previous

The history of street battles from the 1880s to the present reveals a vast escalation in weaponry. Henry Noble MacCracken recalls how his 1880s gang fought “The Great Whip War” with the "Micks," escalating the level of violence by introducing the riding whip, a common piece of paraphernalia in a horse-drawn city. In the 1950s, gangs fought with zip guns and switchblades, and deaths became commonplace; but these battles seem tame when contrasted witb today’s drug wars fought not over control over play spaces, but over business rights to drug turf-—and fought not with fists and knives but with automatic weapons.

Manhattan gang The Cadets
1978: The Cadets, Lower East Side, Manhattan
(Photo copyright ©1978 Martha Cooper, used with permission)

Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Taken from City Play, copyright ©1990. Used with permission by Streetplay.com.

Streetplay home | What's new? | About us | Contact us | Streetplay blog | SPWiki: The Streetplay Wiki
The Games | Photos | Stories & Features | Fun & Prizes | Discussion | Links | Store
Major games: Stickball | Handball | Skully | Hopscotch | Game rules / Rulesheets
On the web: Streetplay on Facebook | Streetplay on Twitter | Streetplay on YouTube | Streetplay on Flickr

Copyright ©2012 Streetplay.com. Use, retransmission, or duplication of any portion of this site (unless otherise noted) without the permission of Streetplay.com is prohibited.