I lived in New York City for 15 years, 1972-1987. The street gangs weren't the real problem then. It was the Mob. The Mafia. If you had a competing business to one of their businesses, they would offer to buy you out real cheap. If you refused, they would burn you out. They of course had their protection racket also. Fortunately never in my neighborhoods.
They controlled the garbage removal companies. Not the residentail garbage. The city's sanitation removed that garbage. It was the companies that removed the garbage for businesses. I worked at a place on Jane Street in the Village (Greenwich Village). We would put the trash out in 50 gallon drums. The company's thugs would keep stealing the drums. They were trying to force the company to rent a dumpster. The company refused. We kept getting more drums from a scrap metal place. The thugs who took the trash, would take the drums also.
The #2 man in senority called up the carting company and threatened to film their employees taking our drums with a camera. Nothing happened for about a month. No one stole any more drums.
Then one day as I arrived for work, I noticed the entire front of the business, which was mostly wood and glass, was burned out. The thugs came early in the morning, put gasoline and paper in the drums, and then pushed them up close to the building. The never stole our drums again. They didn't have to. They already made their point. " You should have rented our dumpsters. It would have cost you a lot less money." I found out that it cost over $100,000 dollars for repairs. This was in the 1980's Today, it would be in the millions.
If you live in the city long enough, you will eventually meet up with the mob, one way or the other. That's why we always loved it when the mob familes would have turf wars and rub each other out. Like when Joey Gallo was gunned down in Umberto's Clam House in Brooklyn.
