Biff Ellison

James T. Ellison
Biff Ellison, circa 1900
Born	c. 1861 Maryland, United States
Died	1920s
Nationality	American
Occupation	Bartender
Conviction(s)	First-degree manslaughter

James T. Ellison born (c. 1861-1920s), better known as Biff Ellison, was a New York City gangster affiliated with the Five Points Gang and later a leader of the Gopher Gang. He was noted for his propensity for physical violence as well as a dapper appearance that led The New York Times to describe him as "looking like a prosperous banker or broker" and contemporary chroniclers as "smooth-faced, high-featured, well-dressed, a Gangland cavalier" and "a fop in matters of dress".

Ellison was closely associated with gangster Jack Sirocco during the wars against the Eastman Gang during the early 1900s. In addition to running protection rackets that reputedly gained him a handsome annual income of somewhere between $2,000 and $3,000, Ellison owned or managed several bars and gambling establishments in New York City, including the gay bar and brothel Columbia Hall (aka Paresis Hall) and an illegal pool hall occupying the basement of Ellison's residence at 231 East 14th Street. His nickname, Biff, was a period synonym for "punch" or "hit", and it was coined in response to a youthful fight in which Ellison, then working as a bartender, knocked unconscious a customer who refused to pay for a beer. He was also known as Young Biff, Fourteenth Street Biff, and Biff Ellison II to distinguish him from Frank "Biff" Ellison (1850 — 1904), a minor Manhattan society figure who had been convicted of assault in 1893 and sent to Sing Sing prison.

Biff Ellison appears as a secondary character in the 1994 novel The Alienist by Caleb Carr. Carr describes the gangster as homosexual and makes him the central figure in a colorful scene at the gay bar Columbia Hall.

After moving from his native Maryland to New York City in the early 1880s, Ellison was employed as a bartender at a variety of establishments, notably Fat Flynn's (Barney Flynn's) and Pickerelle's, where he developed friendships that led to his career in the world of organized crime and Tammany Hall. As one writer observed, "The politicians loved [Ellison], for he was a valuable man around election time, the mere sight of his huge bulk being sufficient to prevent many an honest citizen exercising his right of franchise".

Ellison came to wider public notice in the summer of 1902 after assaulting a police officer, Detective Sergeant Jeremiah Murphy, at Henry Wulfer's Sharkey's, a Fourteenth Street saloon that stood opposite Tammany Hall. The officer was so severely beaten that he was hospitalized for two weeks yet Ellison escaped serious jail time. "The politicians closed the officer's mouth," an observer noted, "and opened Ellison's cell".