The Bowery Boys (vernacular Bowery Bhoys) were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish criminal gang based in the Bowery neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City in the early-mid-19th century. In contrast with the Irish immigrant tenement of the Five Points (one of the worst city slums in the United States), the Bowery was a more prosperous working-class community. Despite its reputation as one of the most notorious street gangs of New York City at the time, the majority of the Bowery Boys led law-abiding lives for the most part. The gang was made up exclusively of volunteer firemen—though some also worked as tradesmen, mechanics, and butchers (the primary trade of prominent leader William "Bill the Butcher" Poole)—and would fight rival fire companies over who would extinguish a fire. The Bowery Boys often battled multiple outfits of the infamous Five Points, most notably the Dead Rabbits, with whom they feuded for decades. The uniform of a Bowery Boy generally consisted of a stovepipe hat in variable condition, a red shirt, and dark trousers tucked into boots—this style paying homage to their fireman roots.
History
In the Antebellum Period, the population of single working men living in lower Manhattan increased significantly. These young men were drawn to the city by rising wages for laborers, brought about by growing technology and industrialization that followed the War of 1812. Typically firemen or mechanics, b'hoys spent their free time in the theaters and bars that surrounded their living wards around the Bowery. The Bowery B'hoys were also known for their gang activity, engaging in fights and riots with members of opposing gangs such as the Dead Rabbits.
Writer James Dabney McCabe observed of the Bowery B'hoy in 1872: “You might see him ‘strutting along like a king’ with his breeches stuck in his boots, his coat on his arm, his flaming red shirt tied at the collar with a cravat such as could be seen nowhere else...None so ready as he for a fight, none so quick to resent the intrusion of a respectable man into his haunts.” The term B'hoy was also widely used to describe a young man of the working-class who enjoyed drinking, seeking out adventure, and finding fun. Bowery B'hoys had a distaste for aristocracy and a love of independence, bravery, and loyalty.