THE WESTIES RISE AND FALL: New Series Dives into Murders and Shakedowns of NYC's Last Irish Gang

The Westies, New York’s last Irish gang, ruled Hell’s Kitchen with an iron fist in the ‘70s and ‘80s. A new scripted crime series on MGM+, “The Westies,” premieres July 12, diving deep into their violent reign. From extortion to contract killings, they squeezed every penny out of the Javits Center construction — a cash cow for the criminal elite. Series co-creator Chris Brancato laid it straight: “The Westies felt like they owned the neighborhood where the Javits Center was.” Cops were on their payroll, and the gang had free rein to run bookmaking, loan sharking, and drug dealing. T.J. English, author of the definitive book on the gang, added, “That included food carts, cement laying, painting, even porta-potties 🚮. Everything from soup to nuts.” But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. The Italian mafia, particularly the Gambino crime family, wanted a piece of the pie. This led to the Irish-Italian war of the ‘70s. The Westies, known for their over-the-top violence, were linked to 30 unsolved killings by 1986. One night, they even brought a milk carton with a victim’s genitalia into their hangout bar 😠. As the ‘80s rolled in, things got messy. The Westies’ volatile leader Jimmy Coonan and his enforcer Mickey Featherstone were eventually busted. Featherstone turned state's evidence, leading to a wave of arrests. By 1988, Coonan was sentenced to 75 years for racketeering, and the gang’s grip on Hell’s Kitchen was broken.