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The Hudson Dusters was a New York City street gang during the early twentieth century. Formed in the late 1890s by Circular Jack, Kid Yorke, and Goo Goo Knox the gang began operating from an apartment house on Hudson Street. Knox, a former member of the Gopher Gang, had fled after a failed attempt to gain leadership of the gang from then leader Marty Brennan. However the two gangs later became allies during the gang wars against Gay Nineties gangs, the Potashes and Boodle Gangs, soon controlling most of Manhattan's Westside as far as 13th Street and eastern Broadway bordering Paul Kelly's Five Points Gang to the north. While the gang dominated the Westside it constantly battled smaller rival gangs including the Fashion Plates, Pearl Buttons and the Marginals for control of the Hudson River docks throughout the 1900s eventually driving the rival gangs out through sheer numbers with over 200 members, not including the Gophers numbering several hundred more, controlling the waterfront by 1910.
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