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I found this old article from 1976 about Detroit street gangs. I was living in Detroit then and I don’t remember this. The Errol Flynn’s gang [[Flynn Nastys) sound familiar but some of the other gangs don’t:
The Chains and Bishops, The Black Killers, the Greenfield Hustlers, the Apple Gang, the Black Godfather Henry Marzette, the Chambers Brothers, and more.
Share what you know about this.
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Ahhh the BKs, weren't they the ones supposedly responsible for that raid on the Average White Band concert at Cobo? They were from the west side I believe.
The Flynns are remembered in part for their signature hand-pump dance move, which became part of the whole jitting phenomena. I remember going to east side parties where folks would be asked to put a little "flynn action" into their dancing.
In my neighborhood the big gang for a while was the ludicrously named Coney Onlys [[Corleones?), aka the Sconies. There was also the Mad Dogs and the Sheridan Strips, but mostly those were just loose groups of local kids on a particular street or set of streets.
All of this '70s stuff died down pretty quickly though, and was swept away when the crack boom came and the actually well-organized drug selling youth gangs run by people like the Chambers brothers came onto the scene.
Back in the day, there was a street gang in the Junction-Michigan neighborhood called the Pimpin' Pierogis. I can still remember bruisers like "Slow Mo" Modzelewski and "Tombstone" Jarzembowski strutting down the sidewalk and chanting "Ooo-sa-sa-sa, hit 'em in the head with a big kielbasa." While we all recall Detroit's crack epidemic of the '80s, how come nobody says anything about the Chrusciki Craze of the early '60s, when these knuckleheads would sit in the alley behind Beatrice's New Warsaw Bakery & Bait Shop on Wesson, snorting the powder sugar off a five-pound box of angel wings and saying bad things about Rita Bell?
Mean streets, indeed. I'm off to say a novena.
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In my neighborhood the big gang for a while was the ludicrously named Coney Onlys [[Corleones?), aka the Sconies. There was also the Mad Dogs and the Sheridan Strips, but mostly those were just loose groups of local kids on a particular street or set of streets.
Yeah, I remember them as the Coney Onies. I believe they roamed primarily on the Westside, from 7 mile to Fenkell.
Of course you have the YBI's, Zone 8's, The Smurfs of Six Mile, Schoolcraft Boys, Cash Flow Posse's, Detroit Kings by Pablo Bonilla, The Mack Ave's [[ Mack Ave and Bewick and Garland St. was their hangout spot.)
Later in 2000s came the P-Rock and G-monts, Chi-Town and Archdale Cliques along with few Crips that faded out and the fast growth of E. 7 Mile Bloods.
what sort of anti-gang intervention/diversion initiatives were active in the city during the 1970s era.
Great question.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hypestyles
I vaguely recall efforts to promote basketball as an alternative activity. Seems pretty ineffective in retrospect.
There were also efforts to promote portable swimming pools during hot summer months after the riotous 1960s.
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Originally Posted by CassTechGrad
Judge Greg Mathis was one of the Errol Flynn’s arrested in this ambush.
I think that's the reason my husband's family moved to the farm; they needed to keep Teddie from the hellish life of being a Pierogi Pony for the gang.
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Originally Posted by rickbak
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Originally Posted by Wheels
Probably one of the very few that turned his life around.
Then there's that well-known Grosse Pointe gang, The Cake Eaters.
Weren't they the one's with the tattoo of Marie Antoinette?Quote:
Originally Posted by GPCharles
Yes, right underneath the monogram on their Brooks Brothers button-down, oxford cloth dresshirts.
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Originally Posted by GPCharles
The Cake Eaters call themselves a gang, but the going around their fancy hoods cussing out black people when they cross Mack or Alter Rd.
Then you have your Detroit street gangs that are do nothings.
Like the Marcus Garvey Branch of the Black Panther Party led by Malik Shabazz who used to Mayor Mike Duggan's Campaign Manager.
Detroit Chapter of the Black Hebrew Israelites. They just standing there in Woodward Ave. street preaching every weekend cussing white people.
Westwood hoods seemed to have a presence in and near Blightmoore. Then again they could have just been 8 th graders at Vetal Middle School. I'm pretty sure the sconies reached down to Fullerton. And as mentioned the BKs seemed to be city wide.
No one has mentioned the Chene gang yet.
As for YBI and Chambers brothers, both were 80s, the former heroin runners who hired Young Boys between 13-17 years old [[as their record would clear when they were no longer juveniles) 1981-85, and the latter post 85 during the crack epidemic. Both controlled the entire city. I could tell you stories of YBI in Grandmont in the 80s, and I do have an employee who does demo for me who was an "enforcer" that Butch would bail out regularly.
The Earl Flynns, not the Errol Flynns. I used to chuckle when I saw the buildings they tagged. I did not know whether they did not know the proper spelling or were just lazy. Someone in the gang had to have watched Bill Kennedy at the Movies.Quote:
Originally Posted by CassTechGrad
Y'all forgot about the OG's - The Purple Gang!
My mother lived on Palmer West of Chene, and grandma swore the Purples hung out in a loft over the Palmer Bakery on the NW corner.
Many of the street gangs had dissipated by 1979. Young Boys Incorporate had helped, in a negative light, get rid of the street gangs by employing some of them to sell dope which really destroyed the neighborhoods throughout the city at breakneck speed