DrillGamez: Chiraq Vol 1, #1

By James Bailey

The history of Chicago's street gangs, so I researched news articles, books, forum posts, interviewed old students and people from Chicago communities, and researched old social services records from the 1950s and 1960s. I translate poorly written pieces and stories in meaning. My work also included research into Puerto Rican, Mexican, white, and African American migration, as well as investigating the neighborhoods they lived or still live in, to establish the origins of these street gangs through interviews and further research. I have been doing this research for over 20 years; However, I have no experience as an "official" researcher, I just did it from home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Lamont Bailey
• Release date: May 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781393357629

Book preview

DrillGamez

Chiraq Vol 1, Volume 1

James Bailey

Published by James Lamont Bailey, 2022.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

DRILLGAMEZ

First edition. May 13, 2022.

Copyright © 2022 James Bailey.

Written by James Bailey.

Also by James Bailey

Chiraq Vol 1

DrillGamez

Keto Diet For Beginnings Meal Prep Edition

Keto Diet For Beginnings Meal Prep Edition

Standalone

Keto Diet For Beginnings

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Also By James Bailey

Dedication

DrillGamez (Chiraq Vol 1, #1)

DEDICATION

All Praise Is To Allah

Thanks To My Parents

My Folks Family And Friends

CHAPTER 1 GAYLORDS

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The Gaylords are one of Chicago's oldest street gangs. We'll start by tracing their roots to the mid-1930s. That doesn't mean the Gaylords can be attributed to their existence in the 1930s, it just means they had roots back then. I had to look at a lot of resources to piece together this history of the Gaylords and a lot of information can be found on the Gaylord website http://www.gaylords712.com which is one of the best resources I've used.

I'll start this story in the mid 1930s in the Noble Square section of the West Town neighborhood in Chicago's West Side (West Town is technically a West Side neighborhood, but often considered unofficial part of the North Side , watch). It was at this time that the Postal Athletic Club was founded, which was very active in sports. They are registered as an official SAC (Social Athletic Club) club, which makes them fully legit. Let me clarify something, the Postal Athletic Club was never involved in any criminal activity and it was not a gang or even close and they had been around for at least 25 years, maybe even longer. They had a storefront somewhere in Noble Square that probably belonged to a member. In this shop they had a separate room for all their trophies, a collection that grew over the years. In the late 1940s, the Postal Athletic Club created a younger offshoot known as the 'Junior Postals'. It was up to the neighborhood kids to get involved to keep them out of trouble and give them something to do. They especially liked basketball and softball (Short & Strodtbeck 1961)

To keep the timeline running smoothly, let's take a moment and shift the focus from the Noble Square area and bring this to the Little Village area in 1950. That year, the Outlaws Motorcycle Club opened a garage/clubhouse at the intersection of 25 and Rockwell. The Outlaws made the decision to leave their original suburban McCook clubhouse and move to the city due to the fact that the Outlaws were growing and could no longer fit in the suburbs. When the bandits arrived, they were rowdy, riding loud motorcycles that echoed through the neighborhood. The bandits were bastards at the time, and some were in their thirties. Before long, the Outlaws were not appreciated by many people in this community. They were seen as outsiders and caused problems with groups of young men nearby. Tired of the bandits, a group of men in their early twenties formed their own club to take on the rival biker gang they called the Gay Lords. The Little Village Gay Lords were the first gang to use the name Gay Lords when the Junior Postals were just a baseball team. The first Gay Lords of Little Village were in their twenties and will soon also be cycling. They opened a motorcycle repair shop right across from the Outlaws on 25th and Rockwell and it fueled their rivalry. Gay Lords headquarters in Little Village was 24th and Whipple and that's where it all started.

At the intersection of 24th and Whipple, there are two corner buildings designed for businesses. One is a former CFD fire station at 2358 S. Whipple. The other is what appears to be a bar. I theorize that these two places may have been the first meeting places of the Gay Lords of Little Village. Maybe the first Gay Lords were firefighters or sons of firefighters and maybe they all drank at the bar across the street.

Now let's revisit the Junior Postals in Noble Square. In the early 1950s, the Junior Postals got a little older and started acting like assholes, drinking, swearing and causing trouble. Most of the young boys lived near Grand and Ogden and Huron and Noble near Noble Square. In 1953, they brought their drunkenness to the Post Office clubhouse and eventually destroyed the sports equipment that belonged to the clubhouse. The Postal Athletic Club had had enough of these teens and threw them out of the clubhouse and onto the streets. 13-year-old Anthony Johnny Boy Anarina and his good friend Bobby Shipball started their own club; however, they were not mentioned by name, but were a group of former juniors and other children who hung out in the Grand and Ogden area. That's how the story began.

Going back to Little Village, the year was now 1954. The Gaylords712 site shows the earliest March 3, 1954 evidence of the existence of the Little Village Gay Lord. I found this same article that briefly mentions the Gaylords712 site and which I will elaborate on in more detail. The article appeared in the Chicago Tribune on March 3, 1954 and it is about a basketball game at 2300 S. Lawndale Ave (23rd and Lawndale) between the Gay Lords and the Outlaws in which the Gay Lords defeated the Outlaws in a close game 58 to 56. After the match, a huge brawl ensued in which 60 boys were fighting. I could only imagine that tensions were high after such a close game. Those who know basketball know that the end of a tight game leads to mistakes and anger, so everything erupted on this court. Apparently someone called the police as soon as 50 members of the outlaws showed up to join the fight. When the police arrived, they only arrested one member of the Outlaws, but they arrested 5 Gay Lords. Two other Italians living in Cicero were arrested. I think they were old-fashioned bandits, but the police found no connection to these two men, ages 24 and 25. The other 6 arrested were between 16 and 19 years old. The addresses of all the Gay Lords mentioned all had addresses in Little Village and no addresses in Noble Square or anywhere near that area.

The 1954 article shows that by this time both gangs had already grown in large numbers, exceeding 50 members of each gang by the beginning of the year. These Gay Lords hung out on 24th and Marshall Boulevard in front of John Spry Elementary School (2400 S Marshall Blvd, Chicago, IL 60623), the same intersection where the legendary 24th and Marshall Boulevard Latin Kings began, but they didn't. have not done. This only happened in the mid-1960s and it was mainly because the Gay Lords voluntarily left that area to serve in Vietnam. The Gay Lords also had a strong presence at the high school across the street, then known as Harrison High School. They also hung out at a bookstore that was right across from Harrison High School. The Gay Lords of Little Village were Polish and Bohemian while the Gay Lords of Noble Square were mainly Italian with a few Mexicans so that's a difference. The Gay Lords of Little Village wore the colors gray and blue which became the official colors of the Gaylords in later years. At 25th and Rockwell Garage, the Gay Lords were greasers who repaired and rode Cushman and Whizzer motorcycles. Oilers all over the world were very attached to bikes in the 50's and repairing them was also a big hobby of theirs, so these Gay Lords fit the classic style of the 50's oilers.

By the mid-1950s, there were certainly some high school students joining the Little Village Gay Lords and soon they were dominating Harrison High School and the Junior ROTC program.

Another part of its founding history is that of the Gay Lords SAC which was founded in 1954 in the Near West Side neighborhood at the intersection of Ashland Avenue and Taylor Street. In the late 1950s, the Taylor Street Gay Lords moved to Polk and Miller in the Near West Side community before closing their chapter in 1964. This Gay Lords group was not a fight club according to the http://www.gaylords712.com/history1.html website. It was just a club playing basketball, baseball, football, bowling and going to balls. There is no history of them fighting anyone. It is also unclear whether this Gay Lords club had anything to do with the Little Village Gay Lords. It's possible this group broke away from Little Village or branched out and started their own Gay Lords chapter. Even if it isn't true, they were very similar. The Gay Lords Noble Square and Taylor Street were predominantly Italian, all three clubs were very sporty. The Noble Square and Little Village Gay Lords were fond of bicycles, and the Noble Square and Little Village Gay Lords would battle Latin Kings in later years. Regardless of what you may think, the Gaylords have had a very complex history, growing from Gay Lords to Gaylords.

From the mid-1950s through the late 1950s, the Little Village chapter grew and now dominates from 21st Street to 26th Street, Whipple Street to Marshall Boulevard. In the late 1950s, Gay Lords graduated from Harley Davidson Motorcycles, causing girls to flock to them; not only that, the Gay Lords ran Harrison High School and the Outlaws weren't happy about all this causing more strife. The Gay Lords also fought black gangs from the nearby Near West Side. Gay Lords fought Vice Lords, Egyptian Cobras, and Roman Saints for attending Harrison High School while commuting from the Near West Side neighborhood to the Maxwell Street Market area.

Anthony Anarina returned to West Town in 1956, was now 16 and organized the group of now 37 boys into something akin to a club, but it wasn't until 1958 that they officially called themselves Gay Lords. Bobby Shipball came up with the name. Once the Gay Lords organization started in 1958, it now had 90 members, making it one of the largest outfits in the region, and legends began at the intersection of Huron and Noble, the homeland of the Gaylords..

The Gay Lords' sports were basketball in the colder seasons and baseball in the warmer seasons. The Gay Lords have played tournaments at St Mary's Church and are said to have a very good team for a long time. When the Gay Lords were first hunted, they hung out at a place they called Guys, a candy store owned by a woman in Huron and Throop. The Gay Lords were only allowed to hang out outside the store, but if they gathered in large numbers inside, the woman would kick them out. When it was cold outside, the Gay Lords hung out in Eckhart Park, which borders Chestnut on Chicago Ave and Elizabeth on Noble. In this park they liked to hang out in the lobby, game room and gym. Park staff were always angry with the Gay Lords for making a lot of noise, often being disrespectful and causing a mess, typical of a fatter club.

The Noble Square Gay Lords of the late 1950s were seen wearing light green summer coats with a coat of arms sewn on with a shield, a skull with a top hat, a bottle of whiskey, dice and a walking stick. The early racial makeup of the Gay Lords consisted mainly of white members who were Polish, German and Italian and early stories even said there were Mexican members as well (Short & Strodtbeck, 1961)

In the late 1950s, the Noble Square Gaylords began to expand and became a major presence at Wells High School (936 N Ashland Ave, Chicago, IL 60622) in the East Village neighborhood. Gaylords, C-Notes, Dominos and Lazy Gents were the dominant Italian gangs and the Playboys were founded because they felt the Gaylords and other Italian gangs were bullying them and causing trouble in their neighbourhood. The creation of the Ventures is also said to have been caused by the Gaylords, as the two gangs beat him up in the stairwells of Wells High School in the early 1960s. Much of the conflict between the Italian gangs and the Polish and Irish gangs involved girls and school dances, a common cause of scum fights.In het begin van de jaren zestig regeerden de Gay Lords nog steeds over Little Village en vochten nu met Satans volgelingen in het nabijgelegen 18th Street terwijl ze probeerden uit te breiden naar het nabijgelegen Marshall Square-gebied.

At the time, the Noble Square Gay Lords numbered between 30 and 40 members, according to social workers. The president of them (1961) was not fully aware of who all the members of the club were. He knew 7 other solid members, but most of the members came and went over time. Sometimes you could be a Gay Lord for a day if you were willing to fight against the enemies. Source: (Short & Strodtbeck, 1961). The Gay Lords' worst enemies in the north were Playboys, Sons of Satan Slaves (Ventures), Pulaski Park, C-Notes, and some small Puerto Rican gang groups like the Spanish Lords of Imperials (later known as Latin Kings). Much like Social Services interviewed the Gay Lord's president, this section saw an expansion as they moved to West Humbold Park and opened a section in Augusta and Monticello, and finally Springfield and Lemoyne. The Gay Lords were needed in this area when Puerto Ricans began settling in the area in the early 1960s and the Imperials operated on the beach and Spaulding. The territory of West Humboldt Park was arguably the first extensive portions of the north face.

There were Senior Gay Lords and Junior Gay Lords dating back to the earliest days. It was also in the early 1960s that the Gay Lords were in transition with their name change from Gay Lords to Gaylords and their new colors had to be gray and black or light blue and black depending on the section. Another major change was the emblem that the Gaylords would wear, such as the skull with a bottle of whiskey, etc., was replaced by a Celtic cross with a sunburst which would become the permanent symbol of the Gaylords (Short & Strodtbeck, 1961).

In 1963, the Little Village Gaylords held another game just at the intersection of 24th and Marshall Boulevard. Some of the first Mexican families moved into the Little Village community around this time, and soon the first Mexican gang started at this intersection to defend against the Gaylords and the Satan Disciples. This gang of kids at John Spry School called themselves the Markings, and named themselves after Marshall Boulevard. The Gaylords were furious with these young invaders and fought well against them, especially the Junior Gaylords.

A little later, in 1964, the MarKings allied with the Imperials and other deformations and merged into one organization known as the Latin Kings. The Latin kings emerged and quickly became a major force to be reckoned with. The Gaylords of Noble Square knew the Latin King and Imperials, as did the Taylor and Ashland Gaylords, perhaps this is where all the sections turn to United Kingdoms. There were also Latin Kings in Bridgeport, so Archer and Throop aimed too familiar with this new equipment. Latin Kings were huge early on and North Side Latin Kings at Beach and Spaulding and Leavitt and Schiller ruled the South Sides at 24th and Marshall Boulevard, making more trouble for Gaylords.

Latin Kings is causing problems for Italian, Irish, Polish and German curves in the West Town region. The Gaylords-Gentn hierarchy by signing a truce with CNotes and Lassen to fight the Latin battle against the king and warlords. When the Playboys, Ventures and Pulaski Park came together under the name PVP later in the same year of 1964, it was the beginning of a close-knit brotherhood between the C-Notes and the Gaylords to fight gangs. † however,