Based in the Irish neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, the Gopher Gang grew to control most of Manhattan with their territory covering Fourth to Forty-Second Street and Seventh to Eleventh Avenue.

The committee met semi-regularly at their headquarters known as Battle Row, a saloon owned by Mallet Murphy, to discuss robberies and divide profits from Manhattan bordellos and illegal gambling operations.

Although most police rarely patrolled Hell's Kitchen, and only then in large groups, Curran often stole officers' uniforms and, after taking them back to his girlfriend for alterations, would wear the stolen clothes around the neighborhood.

[5] The Battle Row Ladies Social and Athletic Club, as they were officially called, acted as reserve members of several hundred women for the Gophers in territorial disputes against rival gangs and as strikebreakers during the next decade.

[1][4] The 2002 film Gangs of New York directed by Martin Scorsese provided a fictionalized history of the Civil War-era origin of the competing Irish immigrant crime crews which dominated Five Points.