Dock Boss

Eddie McGrath and the West Side Waterfront

By: Neil G. Clark

Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla

Dock Boss: Eddie McGrath and the West Side Waterfront is the fascinating account of one gangster's ascension from altar boy to the leader of New York City's violent Irish Mob.

Eddie McGrath's life and crimes are traced through the tail-end of Prohibition, the gang warfare of the 1930s that propelled him into the position of an organized crime boss, the sordid years of underworld control over the bustling waterfront, McGrath's involvement in dozens of gangland murders, and finally the decline of the dock mobsters following a period of longshoremen rebellion in the 1950s.

Like walking into the backroom of a smoky West Side tavern, the book also features all the other unsavory characters who operated on the waterfront, including McGrath's brother-in-law, John "Cockeye" Dunn; the gang's hitman of choice, Andrew "Squint" Sheridan; racketeers such as Mickey Bowers, Timothy O'Mara, Charlie Yanowsky, Joe Butler, and Albert Ackalitis; as well as a plethora of corrupt union officials, robbers, enforcers, shakedown artists, loan sharks, boss loaders, and bookies.

This is the real-life story of the preeminent racketeer on Manhattan's lucrative waterfront and the bloodshed that long haunted the ports of New York City.

©2017 Neil G. Clark (P)2018 Tantor

You can't beat the detail

You can't beat the detail and level of obvious research that went into this book. If you are interested in learning about corruption on the NYC waterfront from Prohibition to the 1960s, look no further. As someone who has tried to research this time and place on my own, it can be very difficult because so few of those involved laid it all out there for everyone to see. You can clearly tell that Clarke did the research to put the puzzle pieces together and shed some light on a confusing time period. It was a great read.