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The Purple Gang was a predominantly Jewish organized crime syndicate that dominated Detroit's underworld from roughly 1927 to 1932. Led by the four Burnstein brothers out of Detroit's lower east side, this group of roughly 50 members hijacked bootleg liquor along the Detroit River, supplied Al Capone with Canadian whiskey, and allegedly helped set up the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Internal violence and the Collingwood Manor Massacre of 1931 ultimately destroyed them from within.
They called them purple. Like the color of bad meat.
In the early 1900s, Detroit's lower east side was a pressure cooker. Thousands of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland crammed into a neighborhood they called Little Jerusalem, a few square blocks bordered by Gratiot Avenue, Brush Street, Willis Avenue, and Russell Street. They worked in factories. They scraped by. They dreamed their children would have better lives.
Some of those children had other plans.
The story of the Purple Gang is one of the most violent, dramatic, and uniquely Detroit chapters in American crime history. It is a story about immigrant ambition twisted sideways, about a half-mile of river that turned a city into the bootleg capital of America, and about a handful of young men from Detroit's east side who became the most feared criminals in the country before destroying themselves from within.
For anyone who loves Detroit history, the Purple Gang story is a reminder that this city has always been fierce, complicated, and impossible to ignore. And for The Perna Team, which has spent more than 24 years helping families buy and sell homes in Metro Detroit's most storied neighborhoods, that complexity is part of what makes this region unlike anywhere else in America.
Here is the complete history.
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Where Did the Purple Gang Come From?
The Purple Gang originated in Detroit's "Little Jerusalem" neighborhood on the lower east side, where American-born children of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire formed a juvenile street gang that evolved into one of the most feared criminal organizations in Prohibition-era America.
The Burnstein brothers (often misspelled Bernstein in historical records) were the nucleus. Abraham (Abe), Raymond (Ray), Joseph (Joe), and Isadore (Izzy) moved with their family from New York City to Detroit as youths, part of the massive immigration wave that reshaped American cities between 1881 and 1914. They landed in Little Jerusalem, also known as the Hastings Street neighborhood or Paradise Valley, and enrolled at Bishop School.
Teachers placed them in the division for "problem children." There they met the Keywell brothers (Harry and Phil), the Fleisher brothers (Harry, Sam, and Lou), Irving Milberg, and Irving Shapiro. Future killers. Future kings.
They started small. Shoplifting. Rolling drunks near Eastern Market. Shaking down the same Jewish merchants their parents worked alongside. Two shopkeepers watched them terrorize the neighborhood and shook their heads.
"These boys are not like other children of their age," one said. "They're tainted. Off-color."
"They're rotten," the other replied. "Purple. Like the color of bad meat. A purple gang."
The name stuck. (Though historians have cataloged at least five different origin theories, including a connection to Samuel "Sammie Purple" Cohen, an early leader, the purple dye used to destroy garments during the Cleaners and Dyers War, a member's purple sweater, and ties to a taxi company called the Purple Line.)
Before becoming the Purples, the group was known as the Sugar House Boys, apprenticing under older Detroit gangsters Charles Leiter and Henry Shorr at the Oakland Sugar House. There, the young men learned the business of extortion, hijacking, and violence. By the time Prohibition arrived, they were ready.
The same lower east side streets that produced the Purple Gang also shaped one of the most important athletes in American history — Joe Louis
Why Did Prohibition Hit Detroit Differently Than Other American Cities?
Michigan became one of the first major industrial states to ban alcohol when voters approved a constitutional prohibition amendment in November 1916, which took effect May 1, 1918. That gave Detroit's criminal underworld a two-year head start on the rest of the country before national Prohibition began in January 1920.
Industrialist Henry Ford played a role in making Michigan dry. Ford owned the River Rouge plant and wanted a sober workforce, so he backed the Damon Act, a state law that (along with the Wiley Act) prohibited virtually all possession, manufacture, and sale of alcohol.
When the 18th Amendment brought national Prohibition in January 1920, Detroit gangsters had already been perfecting their smuggling operations for nearly two years. And by the time America grew tired of the experiment, Michigan led the way out too. On April 10, 1933, Michigan became the first state to ratify the 21st Amendment, repealing Prohibition. National repeal followed on December 5, 1933.
Michigan was first in and first out. And in between, Detroit became the epicenter of America's illegal liquor trade.
How Did the Detroit River Become America's Bootleg Highway?
The Detroit River, barely half a mile wide at its narrowest point, separated bone-dry America from Windsor, Ontario, where Canadian distilleries legally produced whiskey "for export." By the late 1920s, an estimated 75 percent of all alcohol smuggled into the United States flowed through the Windsor-Detroit corridor.
Look at a map. That narrow strip of water was the most valuable half-mile in the criminal underworld. There were no bridges across the Detroit River until the Ambassador Bridge opened in November 1929. Before that, it was all boats, ice roads, and ingenuity.
The methods were creative and relentless. Speedboats hauled cases of whiskey across the river in minutes. In winter, drivers used "whiskey sixes" (lightweight cars with six-cylinder engines) to race across the frozen surface of the river and Lake St. Clair. Smugglers dragged sleds behind ice skaters. Others forged customs papers claiming cargo was bound for Cuba or Mexico. There were even underground tunnels.
A crew known as the Little Jewish Navy operated a fleet of boats handling the waterborne smuggling operations on behalf of (and sometimes in competition with) the Purple Gang.
By 1929, rum-running netted an estimated $215 million per year in the Detroit area, making it the city's second-largest industry behind only automobile manufacturing. Detroit sprouted an estimated 16,000 to 25,000 speakeasies (secret bars called "blind pigs"), according to a Detroit News estimate from 1928. The city earned the nickname "Whiskeytown."
This is the part of Detroit's Prohibition history that surprises most people: the scale. This was not a handful of criminals running bottles across a river. This was an industry larger than every business in the city except the auto plants. And the Purple Gang sat at the center of it.
What Made the Purple Gang Different From Other Prohibition-Era Gangs?
The Purple Gang was primarily a hijacking operation, not a smuggling ring. Rather than risk arrest running liquor across the border, the Purples waited on the American side and stole shipments from other smugglers at gunpoint, often killing the drivers on the spot.
This business model was brutally efficient. One bottle of bonded Canadian whiskey, once in Purple Gang hands, went to a cutting plant where it was diluted with water and coloring to produce three bottles for sale. Triple the profit with none of the smuggling risk.
The message this sent through the underworld was unmistakable. And it reached Chicago.
Al Capone was the most powerful gangster in America. When Capone looked at Detroit, he saw both opportunity and a problem. The Purple Gang was small (only about 50 members at peak) but ferociously violent. Capone ran the numbers and decided partnership beat war.
For years, the Purples supplied Capone's organization with Old Log Cabin Canadian whiskey. The relationship made them rich, connected, and dangerous.
Beyond bootlegging, the gang's operations included gambling (they controlled more than 700 horse-racing betting parlors through a forced wire service subscription), drug distribution, extortion, kidnapping for ransom, prostitution, prizefight film hijacking, and insurance fraud through staged accidents. Their power extended through a network of bribes reaching from street-level Detroit police officers to City Hall.
The gang was allegedly responsible for more than 500 murders during the bootleg wars, though historians note this figure, while widely cited, is likely exaggerated and impossible to verify.
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What Was the Cleaners and Dyers War?
The Cleaners and Dyers War (1925 to 1928) was a violent extortion campaign in which the Purple Gang inserted itself into Detroit's laundry industry unions, using bombings, beatings, arsons, and murder to force businesses into membership in a gang-controlled trade association.
Abe Burnstein, operating as the gang's behind-the-scenes business strategist, formed the Wholesale Cleaners and Dyers Association in partnership with the Detroit Federation of Labor. Independently owned cleaners were forced to join or face the consequences. Shops were dynamited. Plants were destroyed. Employees were beaten. Some were killed.
In one tactic that may have contributed to the gang's name, purple dye was reportedly dumped on garments to destroy them, effectively putting non-compliant shops out of business.
In 1928, nine Purple Gang members (including Abe Burnstein, Ray Burnstein, Irving Milberg, Eddie Fletcher, and Abe Axler) were tried for extortion. All were acquitted. The gang emerged from the trial more powerful than ever, with virtually no legal check on their operations.
What Were the Purple Gang's Most Infamous Murders in Detroit?
The Purple Gang committed a string of high-profile murders in Detroit throughout the late 1920s, including the Milaflores Apartments massacre of March 1927 (the first machine-gun homicide in the city's history) and the shooting of Detroit police officer Vivian Welsh in early 1928.
The Milaflores Apartments Massacre (March 28, 1927)
Three independent racketeers, Frank Wright, Joe Bloom, and George Cohen, had been muscling into Purple Gang territory, kidnapping Detroit gamblers (including Purple Gang affiliates) for ransom and murdering a Purple Gang-associated liquor distributor named Johnny Reid. The Purples set a trap, luring the three men to the Milaflores Apartments at 106 East Alexandrine Avenue under the pretense of a meeting.
When the men arrived, they were torn apart by machine-gun fire. More than 100 bullet holes were found in the apartment. Evidence connected the scene to Purple Gang members Eddie Fletcher and Abe Axler. Fred "Killer" Burke, a St. Louis transplant and Purple Gang associate believed to have wielded the Thompson submachine gun, was also a prime suspect.
No one was ever convicted. But the Milaflores massacre marked the first use of an automatic weapon in a Detroit homicide, and it put the entire underworld on notice.
The Murder of Officer Vivian Welsh (January 1928)
Detroit police officer Vivian Welsh was shot and killed in the street. The car used in the killing was traced to Ray Burnstein, and Abe Burnstein was arrested. Both were released due to lack of evidence. Welsh, it later emerged, had been a dirty cop extorting bootleggers and speakeasy operators, including those under Purple Gang protection.
The Jerry Buckley Case (1930)
The gang was also suspected in the murder of Jerry Buckley, a popular Detroit radio personality gunned down in the lobby of the LaSalle Hotel downtown. Whether the Purples were actually responsible is disputed. Detroit police suspected the local Sicilian mob. No one was ever charged, and the case remains officially unsolved.
For years, witnesses were too terrified to testify against anyone identified as a Purple. Cases collapsed. Evidence disappeared. The gang operated with near-total impunity.
How Did the Purple Gang Rise to National Prominence at the Atlantic City Conference?
In May 1929, Abe Burnstein was invited to the Atlantic City Conference, considered by most crime historians to be the first major organized crime summit in American history. His presence alongside Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, and Lucky Luciano elevated the Purple Gang's status from a regional powerhouse to a nationally recognized criminal organization.
The conference, held May 13 through 16, 1929, brought together the heads of organized crime families from across the country. The organizing host was Atlantic City boss Enoch "Nucky" Johnson. Major attendees included Capone representing Chicago, Lansky and Luciano from New York, and representatives from Cleveland, Boston, Kansas City, and other major cities.
Abe Burnstein represented Detroit. The gang that started with boys stealing fruit from pushcarts on Hastings Street now sat alongside the most powerful criminals in the nation.
The conference reportedly addressed the need to stop violent turf wars, divide territories, and organize criminal operations on a national scale. It represented the first concrete step toward what historians would later call the National Crime Syndicate.
For the Purple Gang, it was both the peak of their influence and a marker of how far they had come. Within two years, they would begin to fall apart.
If you are curious about the neighborhoods where this history played out and what they look like today, search homes across Metro Detroit to explore how these communities have transformed over the past century.
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How Was the Purple Gang Connected to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre?
The Purple Gang is widely suspected of helping orchestrate the February 14, 1929, St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, in which seven members of Bugs Moran's North Side Gang were gunned down. Though never proven, multiple witnesses and law enforcement sources linked the gang to both the setup and the surveillance for the hit.
According to the theory that has persisted for nearly a century, Abe Burnstein made the call. He contacted Moran on February 13, claiming a recently hijacked shipment of Purple Gang whiskey was available at a bargain price. Moran sent his men to a garage at 2122 North Clark Street on February 14 to receive the delivery.
Instead of whiskey, four men arrived (two dressed as police officers). They lined Moran's men against a wall. Approximately seventy rounds from Thompson submachine guns later, seven men lay dead. Moran himself, running late that morning, never showed.
A witness across the street identified Harry and Phil Keywell as lookouts stationed in rented rooms overlooking the garage. Both were questioned and eventually cleared by Chicago police, but the suspicion has never fully dissipated. Other sources also name Eddie Fletcher and Abe Axler as possible participants.
The massacre shocked America, made Capone Public Enemy Number One, and cemented the Purple Gang's place in criminal legend.
What most people get wrong about the St. Valentine's Day Massacre: Many assume it was a purely Chicago affair. The evidence, while circumstantial, strongly suggests it was a multi-city operation. The whiskey bait, the out-of-town lookouts, and the Purple Gang's established supply relationship with Capone all point to Detroit playing a critical role in the most infamous gangland killing in American history.
What Was the Collingwood Manor Massacre, and Why Did It Destroy the Purple Gang?
On September 16, 1931, three men affiliated with the Purple Gang's Little Jewish Navy faction were lured to Apartment 211 at 1740 Collingwood Avenue in Detroit for a "peace conference" and murdered. The subsequent trial and convictions of three top Purple Gang members broke the gang's power permanently.
The victims, Herman "Hymie" Paul, Isadore "Joe" Sutker, and Joseph "Nigger Joe" Lebowitz, were former Chicago-area operators who had fled to Detroit after crossing Al Capone. (Capone had given them an ultimatum: leave Chicago voluntarily or in a box.) In Detroit, they joined a smaller faction of the Purples called the Little Jewish Navy but grew ambitious. They tried to operate independently and owed Ray Burnstein money.
Ray Burnstein devised the plan. A mutual friend named Sol Levine drove the three men to the Collingwood apartment, believing the meeting was legitimate. Waiting inside were Ray Burnstein, Harry Keywell, Irving Milberg, and Harry Fleisher.
Fleisher fired first, killing Lebowitz at point-blank range with a .38 caliber revolver. Keywell and Milberg opened fire on Sutker and Paul. All three victims were unarmed. All three were dead in seconds. Sol Levine was spared due to his friendship with Burnstein.
The killers fled, nearly running over a child and a judge's sister in the back alley. They dumped their revolvers (serial numbers filed off) into a bucket of green paint before escaping in a black 1930 Chrysler.
An anonymous phone tip led police to 2649 Calvert, where Ray Burnstein and Harry Keywell were arrested in their pajamas. Irving Milberg was arrested the following night while trying to flee the city. Harry Fleisher disappeared and remained a fugitive for nine months before surrendering in June 1932. (His case was eventually dismissed when the key witness could not be located.)
Sol Levine, terrified for his life, testified against the gang. Ten detectives guarded him around the clock, with four posted at close range as he took the stand.
After just one hour and thirty-seven minutes of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict: guilty of first-degree murder.
Ray Burnstein, Harry Keywell, and Irving Milberg were sentenced to life in prison without parole and shipped to Marquette Prison in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Detroit Police Chief of Detectives James E. McCarty declared: "This conviction is the greatest accomplishment in years. Not only does it break the back of the Purple Gang but it serves notice on other mobs that murder doesn't go anymore in Detroit."
He was right.
How Did the Purple Gang Destroy Itself?
The Purple Gang collapsed between 1931 and 1937 through a combination of internal betrayal, the imprisonment of key leaders after the Collingwood Manor Massacre, and the systematic elimination of remaining members by both their own associates and the ascending Italian Mafia.
The Purples did not fall to police or external rivals in any traditional sense. They imploded.
The gang was a loose confederation rather than a disciplined hierarchy, held together by kinship and street loyalty rather than organizational structure. When jealousies, debts, and double-crosses mounted, there was nothing to hold it together.
After the Collingwood convictions gutted the leadership, the remaining members were picked off one by one.
Irving Shapiro was taken for a ride in July 1929 and murdered. On November 26, 1933, the bodies of Abe Axler and Eddie Fletcher (known in the underworld as "the Siamese Twins" for their inseparability) were found in the back seat of a Chrysler at the corner of Telegraph Road and Quarton Road in Bloomfield Hills. Both had been shot multiple times in the face at close range. Their hands were intertwined. The murders were suspected to have been ordered by the Italian Mafia, possibly carried out with the help of Purple Gang insiders. The double homicide at Telegraph and Quarton remains unsolved to this day, one of Oakland County's most notorious cold cases.
The final chapter came on November 24, 1937 (Thanksgiving Day), when Harry Millman, the last Purple Gang member who openly defied Italian mob authority, was shot to death at Boesky's Delicatessen at the corner of 12th Street and Hazelwood in Detroit. His killers were widely believed to be Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss and Harry "Happy" Maione, professional assassins dispatched from Brooklyn's Murder, Incorporated.
Millman's death signaled the definitive end of the Purple Gang as a force in Detroit organized crime.
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What Happened After the Purple Gang Fell?
Joseph Zerilli and the Sicilian organization that became the Detroit Partnership filled the vacuum left by the Purple Gang's collapse. Abe Burnstein, the gang's mastermind, negotiated one of the only peaceful transfers of criminal power in American mob history, ceding all rackets to the Italians in exchange for a Mafia-funded pension.
Abe Burnstein was the smartest of them all.
He saw the writing on the wall. Rather than fight a war he could not win, he negotiated. He ceded the Purple Gang's gambling operations, rackets, and entire criminal empire to the Italian organization. In return, Zerilli's group gave him something extraordinary: a lifetime pension.
Abe Burnstein lived out his days in a luxury suite at the Book-Cadillac Hotel in downtown Detroit (now the Westin Book Cadillac, still standing at 1114 Washington Boulevard). He died peacefully on March 7, 1968, nearly four decades after his gang terrorized the city. The Mafia paid his bills until the end.
Other Burnstein brothers also reportedly received ongoing interests as part of the transition, with Isadore and Joe eventually relocating to California.
By 1935, the Purple Gang's power was broken. Their dominance had lasted barely a decade. But the organization that replaced them, the Detroit Partnership, would control the city's underworld for decades to come.
Where Does the Purple Gang Appear in Pop Culture?
The Purple Gang's legend outlived them. In 1957, Elvis Presley recorded "Jailhouse Rock" with the lyric: "The whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang." Songwriters Leiber and Stoller knew the reference. So did America. A quarter-century after the gang's collapse, the name still carried weight. The song was reprised, lyric intact, in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers.
Hollywood fictionalized their story in Public Hero No. 1 (1935) and The Purple Gang (1959), the latter scrubbing the Jewish identity of the members and giving characters Anglo names. Raymond Chandler referenced them in his novel Farewell, My Lovely. A 1960 episode of The Untouchables provided another fictional account.
The definitive historical works remain Paul R. Kavieff's The Purple Gang: Organized Crime in Detroit 1910-1945 and Gregory A. Fournier's The Elusive Purple Gang: Detroit's Kosher Nostra.
Can You Still Find Purple Gang History in Detroit Today?
While most of the original Purple Gang-era buildings and neighborhoods were demolished during mid-century urban renewal and freeway construction, several key landmarks and locations remain visible in modern-day Detroit and the surrounding Metro Detroit suburbs.
Detroit moved on. Prohibition ended. The auto industry boomed and crashed and boomed again. The blind pigs closed. The neighborhoods that birthed the Purples were largely bulldozed for the Chrysler Freeway (I-375), the Lodge Freeway (M-10), and successive waves of urban renewal.
But the river remains. The same half-mile of water that made Detroit the rum-running capital of America still separates two nations. The Ambassador Bridge, opened in November 1929 (the same year as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre), still carries traffic between Windsor and Detroit. The Gordie Howe International Bridge is set to join it.
Here is what you can still find:
The Westin Book Cadillac Hotel (1114 Washington Boulevard, downtown Detroit) is where Abe Burnstein lived out his final decades on a Mafia-funded pension. It was meticulously restored and reopened in 2008 and remains one of downtown Detroit's most iconic buildings.
The stretch of Collingwood Avenue near 12th Street (now Rosa Parks Boulevard) is where three men died on September 16, 1931, believing they were attending a peace conference.
The intersection of Telegraph Road and Quarton Road in Bloomfield Hills is where the bullet-riddled bodies of Abe Axler and Eddie Fletcher were found in November 1933.
The area around Gratiot Avenue, Brush Street, and Russell Street on Detroit's east side encompasses what was once Little Jerusalem and Paradise Valley. The old neighborhood is mostly gone, replaced by the Brewster-Douglass housing projects (themselves now demolished) and the I-375 corridor, but the surrounding streets still echo with layers of Detroit history.
And Eastern Market, where the young Purples once rolled drunks and shoplifted from vendors, is now one of the largest and oldest year-round public markets in the United States, a Saturday morning institution for Detroiters and a cornerstone of the city's food culture.
The history is still here if you know where to look. And the neighborhoods that grew up around these stories are some of the most dynamic, evolving communities in Metro Detroit.
Today, Eastern Market is the largest historic public market district in the United States and one of Detroit's most vibrant community landmarks
Key Takeaways
- The Purple Gang was a predominantly Jewish organized crime syndicate of roughly 50 members that dominated Detroit's underworld from approximately 1927 to 1932, making them the only Jewish gang to completely control the rackets of a major American city.
- Michigan banned alcohol in 1918, two years before national Prohibition, giving Detroit's criminal underworld a critical head start. The Detroit River's half-mile width made the Windsor-Detroit corridor the conduit for an estimated 75 percent of all alcohol smuggled into the United States.
- The Purples were primarily hijackers, not smugglers, stealing liquor from other gangs and diluting it for triple profit. This model was so effective that Al Capone chose partnership over war.
- The Collingwood Manor Massacre of September 16, 1931, led to the conviction of three top Purple Gang members and is widely recognized as the event that broke the gang's power.
- Abe Burnstein's invitation to the 1929 Atlantic City Conference, the first major organized crime summit in American history, placed Detroit's Purple Gang alongside the most powerful criminal organizations in the country.
- The Purple Gang's suspected connection to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929 has never been proven but remains one of the most persistent theories in American crime history.
- Abe Burnstein negotiated one of the only peaceful transfers of criminal power in mob history, ceding all operations to the Italian Mafia in exchange for a lifetime pension. He died peacefully in 1968 at the Book-Cadillac Hotel in downtown Detroit.
Explore Metro Detroit's Most Historic Neighborhoods
The Purple Gang's story is just one chapter in what makes Detroit one of the most fascinating cities in America. From the old east side streets where the Burnstein brothers grew up to the tree-lined avenues of Bloomfield Hills where Axler and Fletcher met their end, the communities across Metro Detroit carry layer after layer of history.
If you are thinking about buying or selling a home in Metro Detroit, or if you are simply curious about what neighborhood might be the right fit, The Perna Team has helped more than 8,000 families navigate these communities over the past 24 years. Wondering what your current home is worth in today's market? Get a free home valuation here. Or start exploring homes for sale across Metro Detroit and see what is available in the neighborhoods that interest you.
Have questions about a specific area? Call The Perna Team at (248) 886-4450 or reach out anytime. This is what we do.
People Also Ask
Who were the leaders of Detroit's Purple Gang?
The Purple Gang was led primarily by the four Burnstein brothers: Abraham (Abe), Raymond (Ray), Joseph (Joe), and Isadore (Izzy). Abe served as the behind-the-scenes strategist and business manager, while Ray was more directly involved in street-level operations. Other core members included Harry and Phil Keywell, Eddie Fletcher, Abe Axler, Irving Milberg, Irving Shapiro, and Harry Fleisher.
Was the Purple Gang involved in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre?
The Purple Gang is widely suspected of helping set up the St. Valentine's Day Massacre on February 14, 1929, in Chicago. The prevailing theory holds that Abe Burnstein lured Bugs Moran's men to a garage with the promise of discounted hijacked whiskey, and that Harry and Phil Keywell served as lookouts. However, no Purple Gang member was ever charged, and the connection has never been definitively proven.
How did the Purple Gang get its name?
The most widely cited origin involves two Hastings Street shopkeepers who described the young delinquents as "rotten, purple like the color of bad meat." Other theories include a connection to the purple dye used during the Cleaners and Dyers War, a member's purple sweater, ties to a taxi company called the Purple Line, an early leader named Samuel "Sammie Purple" Cohen, and the possibility that it was simply a journalistic invention that stuck.
Why was Detroit such a major center for bootlegging during Prohibition?
Detroit's geography made it the ideal bootlegging hub. The Detroit River is barely half a mile wide at its narrowest point, separating the dry United States from Windsor, Ontario, where Canadian distilleries legally produced whiskey. Michigan also went dry in 1918, two years before national Prohibition, giving local criminal networks extra time to establish smuggling routes. By 1929, rum-running was Detroit's second-largest industry at an estimated $215 million per year.
What was the Collingwood Manor Massacre?
The Collingwood Manor Massacre occurred on September 16, 1931, when three men affiliated with the Purple Gang (Hymie Paul, Joe Sutker, and Joe Lebowitz) were lured to Apartment 211 at 1740 Collingwood Avenue in Detroit for a fake "peace conference" and shot to death. The subsequent trial and conviction of Ray Burnstein, Harry Keywell, and Irving Milberg for first-degree murder is widely considered the event that broke the Purple Gang's power.
How many people did the Purple Gang kill?
The Purple Gang is alleged to have been responsible for more than 500 murders during the Prohibition-era bootleg wars, according to several historical accounts. However, historians note this figure is likely exaggerated and impossible to verify. What is well documented is that the gang committed numerous high-profile killings, including the Milaflores Apartments massacre of 1927 and the Collingwood Manor Massacre of 1931.
What happened to Abe Burnstein after the Purple Gang ended?
Abe Burnstein negotiated a remarkable deal with Joseph Zerilli's Italian Mafia organization, ceding all Purple Gang rackets and gambling operations in exchange for a lifetime pension funded by the Mafia. Burnstein lived out his remaining years in a luxury suite at the Book-Cadillac Hotel in downtown Detroit (now the Westin Book Cadillac) and died peacefully on March 7, 1968, at approximately 76 years of age.
Where was Little Jerusalem in Detroit?
Little Jerusalem was a neighborhood on Detroit's lower east side bordered by Gratiot Avenue, Brush Street, Willis Avenue, and Russell Street. Also known as the Hastings Street neighborhood or part of Paradise Valley, it was home to thousands of Jewish immigrants from Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Germany in the early 1900s. Much of the area was later demolished during construction of the Chrysler Freeway (I-375) and other urban renewal projects.
How did the Italian Mafia take over from the Purple Gang in Detroit?
As the Purple Gang destroyed itself through internal violence and the imprisonment of key leaders, Joseph Zerilli and the Sicilian organization (later known as the Detroit Partnership) steadily filled the vacuum. Abe Burnstein, recognizing the inevitable, negotiated a peaceful transfer of all criminal operations to the Italians rather than fighting a losing war. This remains one of the only peaceful inter-gang transfers of power in American organized crime history.
Is the Purple Gang mentioned in any famous songs or movies?
Yes. Elvis Presley's 1957 hit "Jailhouse Rock" includes the lyric "The whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang," written by Leiber and Stoller as a direct reference to the real gang. The line was reprised in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. Hollywood produced two fictionalized films (Public Hero No. 1 in 1935 and The Purple Gang in 1959), and Raymond Chandler referenced the gang in his novel Farewell, My Lovely.
How many speakeasies were in Detroit during Prohibition?
The Detroit News estimated in 1928 that there were between 16,000 and 25,000 speakeasies (also called "blind pigs") operating in the Detroit area. This staggering number reflected both the enormous demand for alcohol and the ease of smuggling from nearby Canada. Detroit earned the nickname "Whiskeytown" during this period.
What was the Cleaners and Dyers War in Detroit?
The Cleaners and Dyers War (1925 to 1928) was an extortion campaign in which the Purple Gang, led by Abe Burnstein, forced Detroit's independently owned laundry businesses to join a gang-controlled trade association called the Wholesale Cleaners and Dyers Association. Businesses that refused were subjected to bombings, arsons, beatings, and murder. Nine Purple Gang members were tried for extortion in 1928, but all were acquitted.
Where were the Purple Gang's key locations in Metro Detroit?
The Purple Gang operated across Detroit and the surrounding suburbs. Key locations include the Hastings Street neighborhood (Little Jerusalem) where they grew up, the Milaflores Apartments at 106 East Alexandrine Avenue (site of the 1927 machine-gun massacre), 1740 Collingwood Avenue (site of the 1931 Collingwood Manor Massacre), the Book-Cadillac Hotel downtown (Abe Burnstein's final residence), and the intersection of Telegraph and Quarton Roads in Bloomfield Hills (where Axler and Fletcher were found murdered in 1933).
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