Garry Barry – Character in Divide the Dawn
“You see that guy over there? That’s Garry fookin’ Barry. Don’t ever trust’em. He’s a fookin’ psychopath, that one. Trouble, nothin’ but. If he comes up on ya, just play dumb.”~Cinders Connolly
Garry Barry (b. 1888) In the year he came into being there was a great blizzard in New York. On duty in Irishtown, Patrolman William Brosnan found the baby in the wreckage of a fallen tenement. Twenty years later, Barry was beaten to death by the White Hand gang outside a saloon. Newspapers reported on the public trouncing and quoted doctors that he was expected to die of massive head injuries. In 1919, after another great snow storm, he again reappears, hiding out off Flatbush avenue. Barry was the former leader of the Red Onion gang that paid tribute to Christie Maroney. He is known for being indolent and unsound, believing he should be leader of the White Hand gang, even though he has but a single follower. When the White Hand took power after 1912, Dinny Meehan considered him for a dockboss position. But Barry obstinately challenged Meehan to a fist fight for leadership of the gang. Meehan then battered Barry, knocking him out within a minute and leaving him out of the gang’s inner circle.
What you need to know before starting DIVIDE THE DAWN: A fringe gang member, Barry was present at the Donnybrook in Red Hook, when the White Hand took back power on the docks of Brooklyn.
In 1916 Barry went to the Black Hand with an offer to assassinate Meehan, if they supported him being the new leader. Barry was seen by Liam Garrity in a saloon with a knife looking for an opportunity to murder Meehan on the night of Black Tom’s Explosion. In retaliation, Meehan sent Whitehanders after Barry and viciously beat him in front of an entire neighborhood, leaving him for dead. Refusing to go away, he now has grotesque facial scars where he was crudely sown up. In 1919, Barry was found by Patrolman Daniel Culkin and Amadeusz Wisniewski who, at the behest of Waterfront Assembly Director Jonathan G. Wolcott, gave Barry an envelope full of money to burn down Meehan’s home and take over the gang with their assistance.
