There are elements to this piece that will upset people that will potentially generate debate, there are pictures of death of those the very piece is about, i have to put this so as not offend people who find this kind of writing upsetting, or shocking please read wat your own discretion! ( if there are spelling mistakes sue me im a human being)
The New York mafia, undoubtedly very bad people, they were cruel, vicious, sadistic and unscrupulous, whatever they wanted they got regardless. They maimed people, injured, killed and murdered all who stood in their way, they infiltrated businesses, governments, banks, unions, politics you name it, their illegal exploits were there somewhere, yet even though all these factors summed up exactly who these bad people were, and what they did, they gained respect from their given communities, they weren’t vilified rather looked at as saviour’s of their neighbourhoods, despite the fact they were exploiting and piliging the very people who looked up to them; their names commanded respect, they became legends, some thrived on popularity such as John Gotti whereas others chose to stay hidden away, out of sight from the FBI some such as Carlo Gambino becoming so illusive, that I know of no wire taps of him or photos circulating of secret meeting’s etc. Yet here we have a man running and who masterminded multi billion dollar crime syndicate! Everybody knew him, knew the name, knew how he got where he was, yet never a charge filed against him? Personally for me I love the stories, I’ve read the books, seen the movies and watched the Documentaries, so to stroll around their heartland, to walk where they walked and to see so many places in New York City, where they hung out or places where a high profile mob “hit” took place was pretty surreal, in a weird kinda way! Here’s a short overview to the New York Mafia and me!
The Names We’ve Come to Know!
Bosses, Under Bosses, the Consigliere, Caporegimes & Soldiers these were the ranks and how the Mafia built it’s foundation, the names of peple within the mafia aren’t names we should be familiar with? Yet here we are where many people today know names of at least one old New York mafia member! names familiar to me (and maybe you) are as follows: Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Carlo Gambino, Anthony “Ducks” Corallo, Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, John Gotti, Paul Castellano (whacked at Sparks Steakhouse NYC), Carmine Galante (Whacked at Joe & Mary’s Italian Restaurant), Vito Genovese, Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, Frank Costello, Joe Masseria (whacked on Coney Island), Albert Anastatia (whacked Park Central Hotel NYC), Carmine Persico, Joseph Columbo, Joseph “Bananas” Bonnano,
Lets not forget the under bosses, the Consigliere, Caporegimes & Soldiers to mention but a few Frank Decicco (whacked Dyker Heights, Brooklyn), “Crazy Joe N Gallo (whacked at Umbertos Clam House Little Italy), Angelo “Quack Quack” Ruggiero, Joseph Armone, Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, Aniello Dellacroce, Tommy Bilotti (whaked Sparks Steakhouse NYC) and Michael Franzese (Columbo) to name but few, some looked like gangsters some just everyday folk hiding a very dark secret, some couldn’t keep theirmouths shut and compromised their respected families, often paying the ultimate price of either life in prison or a mob hit killing erasing their existance forever. The faces below are the many bosses, under bosses and various other mafia hard men, which from their pictures would you of been afraid of?
Why New York City?
Simply is was easy! so much occuring in such a small congested space, hundreds of billions of dollars moving through the city, it was easy picking for a creative established crime syndicate, simply charging local Italian migrants protection money basically destroying their livelihoods to the point of ruining them. It paid short term but the mafia wanted more! More money, more power, more influence but more than that they wanted the fear from all who stood in their way, which to a degree over the years they achieved as they had law enforcement in their pockets as well as judges, lawyers and government officials etc. The mafia families weren’t stupid not by a long shot, they structured their families like a well oiled business, even set up a “commission” where all the five family bosses, under bosses etc. would speak and make collective rules from anything such as territory, who’s peddling what, and ultimately authorising and approving hits on higher ranking members, such as the killing of Carmine Galante at Joe & Mary’s Italian Restaurant, not a random hit, but a discussed and approved hit sanctioned by the bosses.
New York City had everything going for it, massive garment district businesses, the mafia saw this and infiltrated it and the unions, controlling huge portions of it, raking millions of dollars, they infiltrated the construction boom that was occuring in Manhattan everywhere the eye could see, skyscrapers were being approved for construction another opportunity for them to infiltrate and exstort the businesses through undercutting and using fear, those that chose not to take the mafia deal, would have massive problems with the unions (controlled by the mafia) or start to see increased so called accidents occuring, foremen thrown off building, shootings and abductions anyway possible to force the hand and take what they wanted and get the deal, they infiltrated gas station supplies contracts, garbage collection contracts, sanitation contracts, they infiltrated everywhere the dollars rolled in not in the thousands but millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, the families got richer the bosses became more powerful, New York City was under mafia control, and believe me they enjoyed the period, lavish lifestyles (not all of them), fast cars, expensive suits, jewellery, huge houses, boats, you name it they had it. New York City was a playground to these guys and oh how they enjoyed it to the max.
Little Italy New York, Mafia Heartlands
My love for New York is unprecedented it is my favourite city in the world, walking the streets, where almost every corner holds a story, from a movie scene, to a famous speech, to the spot where Marilyn Monroe’s dress blew up, to the infamous Dakota building the place where John Lennon was shot and killed, so many famous and infamous places, within what is a relatively small city compared to others globally, there really is everything to see if you look for it! For me my first venture was downtown to Little Italy, which was the epi centre of the New York Mafia hangouts, haunts and hits (the three H’s) Mulberry Avenue the main artery through Little Italy, what we see today is a mixture of shops selling New York City gifts and restaurants/bars, but back in the days of the mafia at their heights it was very different, still would of been the restaurants, but the tat selling shops would of been deli’s, grocery stores, cannoli makers etc. it was a hotbed of trade from immigrant Italian fighting to survive as well as the Mafia!
Umberto’s Clam House Now De Gennaro’s
As I began to stroll down Mulberry Ave. Little Italy I saw a restaurant in front of me first location I wanted to see. The restaurant is called De Gennaro’s, I wandered in took a seat by the window, ordered a beer and began to try and picture of what happened exactly where a was? but to continue on before I digress, this restaurant hasn’t always been De Gennaro’s, it was once called Umberto’s Clam House, a popular haunt of the mafia, bosses, under bosses and soldiers alike. It rose to notoriety on April 07th 1972 when the mobster “Crazy” Joe N Gallo was gunned down, the story goes like this (taken from The Mob Museum).
On an April night in 1972, Joe N Gallo and his party, were out celebrating his 43rd birthday, they had first attended a performance by comedian Don Rickles at the Copacabana nightclub on East 60th Street, then drove in a black 1971 Cadillac down to Lower Manhattan, entering Umberto’s at 129 Mulberry Street after 4 a.m. Among those with Gallo were his new wife and her 10-year-old daughter. While the group enjoyed a second helping of shrimp, scungilli and clams, gunmen entered the restaurant firing around 20 bullets, wounding Gallo’s bodyguard and striking Crazy Joe in the left elbow, left buttock and back, according New York newspaper reports. Dressed in a pinstripe suit, Gallo managed to stumble outside and then collapsed in the middle of Hester Street near his Cadillac that bore stickers advertising “Americans of Italian Descent,” according to an April 8, 1972, story in the New York Times. The civil rights group Americans of Italian Descent was a rival to one founded by Mob boss Joseph Colombo. The killers were never identified, though many suspect a Colombo crew was responsible. Less than a year earlier, Joseph Colombo was critically injured in an Italian Unity Day shooting at Columbus Circle that some believe Gallo engineered. The gunman who wounded Colombo, a black man named Jerome Johnson, was shot dead immediately after he shot Colombo. Paralyzed, Colombo held on for seven years before dying at age 54 of cardiac arrest, thought to have been brought on by the lingering effects of the shooting.
This was an oddly interesting place to visit due to the grizzly nature of its notoriety but nevertheless equally important as it is etched in mafia history as a major and prominant mob hit.
Mulberry Avenue Cigar Shop
As I ventured further down Mulberry Ave. I came across a small Cigar Shop, quite bright, kind of standing right out, seemed curious so I researched the store to see of it had any links to the Mafia back in the day? Low and behold prior to becoming what we see now it was infact, the Andrea Doria Social Club, a regular frequented haunt of the mafia, including John Gotti and his wise guys along with names such as, Genovese Matty the horse Iannniello, there was a mob hit back in 1978 at the Andrea Doria Social Club, Salvatore Briguglio, a New Jersey Teamsters official was shot dead.
On May 20th, 1985, John Gotti, the Don and (boss) of the Gambino crime family, stopped by this cigar shop for one last smoke before turning himself in to the Feds that afternoon. Gotti is one of the most infamous mobsters, whose ability to dodge criminal charges, including three high-profile trials that ended with an acquittal, earned him the name of “The Teflon Don” – nothing would stick to him. It wasn’t until 1992 that Gotti was convicted of five murders, conspiracy to commit murder, racketeering, obstruction of justice, illegal gambling, extortion, tax evasion, and loansharking.
He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. He served only 10 years of that sentence because he died in prison of throat cancer in 2002.
The Ravenite Social Club
As I walked further down Mulberry Avenue, I hit my last place I wanted to visit in this particular area, the one I’d been looking forward to seeing! On first approaching the boutique clothing store, to an untrained eye, there wouldn’t even be a second glance unless your shopping for Indie based designer clothing, but I knew that this store aptly named “Decendent of Thieves” was exactly what I wanted to see, as this store was once the infamous Ravenite Social Club, headquarters of the Gambino crime family, frequentented by the likes of Carlo Gambino, Aniello Dellacroce, John Gotti, and a whole plethora of wiseguys as this was their main hangout and meeting spot.
I wandered in and was greeted by an employee, asking if i needed help with anything? What I wanted was a full tour of the building every door, wall, stairwell everything so I could immerse myself in the old Ravenite, knowing this wouldn’t happen I simply said I’m just browsing. It felt odd being in there as obviously it no longer resembles what the club would of looked like, after all its a shop! Laid out like a shop, in no way the sort of place John Gotti would orchestrate crimes and run his $500 million dollar a year criminal family, I noticed the floor though and remembered that I’d read this was still the original flooring, I tried to imagine the people who had stood where I was standing? Gotti, Gambino, Dellacroce etc. my mind raced, then I briefly closed my eyes and tried to picture it full of wise guys, and the conversations that were had? The amounts of money counted in there? The adulation from the street guys when a hit had been done? Trying to imagine it sends you into a daze, my particular daze was quickly disturbed by an impatient store assistant asking me if im buying anything today? I advised I was browsing, after another quick pretend look around I knew my time was up at this once iconic spot, so a headed out for the last, knowing I couldn’t really go back in under the watch of the eagle eyed assistant, walking out across that floor where once the Cosa Nostra once walked, was crazy but the fact it’s still there in some kind of guise will continue it’s notoriety as the years move on, if you walk past this place and you know what it was you cannot help for the briefest closing your eyes and thinking back to pictures you’ve seen footage youv’e watched, you just can’t help it!
Whacked But Where?
Part of being in the mafia is inevitably they run the risk of being whacked (killed) this is the ultimate price they pay for their chosen pathway. The mafia killed and rubbed out hundreds of lives, some innocent but many rivals from other families, groups etc. but it wasn’t only lessor members of the families that were ‘whacked’ bosses, under bosses and very high ranking members were taken out, quite a few in New York City, so I thought I’d walk the gory trail to some of the places where infamous hits occured, many look different now than they did back then, but each one still represents an important part of mafia folklore, so why not take the walk and see them.
Crazy Joe N Gallo, Umbertos Clam House
Crazy Joe N Gallo shot and killed at Umberto’s Clam House on the corner of Mulberry Avenue & Hester Street , the restaurant eventually closed it’s doors in 1996 and moved further up the street, it is now called De Gennaro’s Restaurant, I have written about Joe N Gallo’s hit further up so won’t repeat myself here, I went in to De Gennaro’s and had a beer and pondered the event that unfold exactly where I was at that moment.
Salvatore Maranzano, New York Central
Salvatore Maranzano (taken from wiki) By September 1931, Maranzano realized Luciano was a threat, and hired Mad Dog Coll, an Irish gangster, to kill him. However, Tommy Lucchese alerted Luciano that he was marked for death. On September 10, Maranzano ordered Luciano and Genovese to come to his office at the New York Central Building (now the Helmsley Building), at 230 Park Avenue in Manhattan. Convinced that Maranzano planned to murder them, Luciano decided to act first. He sent to Maranzano’s office four Jewish gangsters whose faces were unknown to Maranzano’s people. They had been secured with the aid of Lansky, Siegel and Gambino. Disguised as government agents, two of the gangsters disarmed Maranzano’s bodyguards. The other two, aided by Lucchese, who was there to point Maranzano out, stabbed the boss multiple times before shooting him. This assassination was the first of what would later be called the “Night of the Sicilian Vespers” Although there would have been few objections had Luciano declared himself capo di tutti capi, he abolished the title, believing the position created trouble among the families and would make himself a target for another ambitious challenger. Luciano subsequently created The Commission to serve as the governing body for organized crime. Maranzano is buried in Saint John Cemetery, Queens New York, incidently near Luciano’s grave. There wasn’t a great deal to see when I walked up to the building as it happened inside, nethertheless it was still an important POI within mafia history.
Albert Anastasia, Park Sheraton Hotel
Albert Anastatia was without doubt one of the most ruthless and feared crime figures in American history; his reputation earned him the nicknames The Earthquake, The One-Man Army, Mad Hatter and Lord High Executioner. He was brutal, unforgiving, ruthless, if you crossed him you were done, he also founded the murder inc organization, as i casually walked up to the hotel through the hustle and bustle of New York City, to where he was murdered, I started to think of the fear that surrounded him? Was the barber who cut his hair frightened for his life? Cut his hair wrong “bang” your dead, what was it like to see him walking towards you? If you knew who he was do you move out of the way to allow him to pass or treat him like any other random person on the street? Guess I’ll never know! So stepping back 68 years to the morning of October 25, 1957, Albert Anastasia entered the barber shop of the Park Sheraton Hotel, at 56th Street and 7th Avenue in midtown Manhattan, Anastasia’s driver parked the car in the underground parking garage and then went for a walk outside, this left Anastasia unprotected. As Anastasia relaxed in the barber’s chair, two men with scarves covering their faces rushed in, shoved the barber out of the way, and fired at Anastasia. After the first volley of bullets, Anastasia reportedly lunged at his killers. However, the stunned Anastasia had actually attacked the gunmen’s reflections in the wall mirror of the barber shop. The gunmen continued firing until Anastasia finally fell dead on the floor. An abrupt and violent end to Anastasia who himself inflicted on many the very same fateful end.
Paul Castellano, Sparks Steak House
It was quite surreal for me when I walked up to Sparks Steak House on 46th street, between 2nd Ave & 3rd Ave, it was a cold morning not unlike the evening big Paul Castellano & Tommy Bilotti were whacked December 16th 1985 exactly 39 years to the day I strolled there, had alot changed? no not really, the doorways where the gunman stood were still there, the lampost where big Paul lay lay bleeding as his life slipped away still there! What’s changed has the fear! no longer is there a fear of the mafia taking a hit no longer was this unprecedented family war going on, all we have now is history nothing more just the ability to say “this happened here” and “can you believe what the mafia did here” that is all we have nothing more, but it happened, so when I stood right next to that lampost i envisioned big Paul Castellano dying, such a momontous point in mafia folklore, set up by John Gotti I stood where he fell, i crossed the road exactly where Tommy Bilotti lay dead, time moves on but the stage stays the same, frozen in time almost identicle as the day the killing occured, a few cosmetic differences but nothing more, was i glad i stood at that place? yes i was, i stood in a place etched in mafia folklore and wether you liked Paul Castellano or hated him, regardless I paused briefly to pay a moments respect to a life lost.
Whats Left of the Original Famlies?
The original familie are dead, buried and gone but their legacy remains albeit in the shadows but its not gone away! I wanted to visit the various cemeteries to stand in front of Carlo Gambino, Lucky Luciano etc to say I was there, various factors stopped me one being location and logistics, secondly i’ve heard you can get into a bit of strife if your caught around the grave by surviving family members? unsure the validity of this but it was enough to make me think, i’d love to visit the resting places of the very people i’m writing about.
So as I’m writing this I haven’t visited the graves, but i find it somewhat odd that these king pis against each other all their living lives lay together peacefully without predjudice, just laying quietly their personal stories buried with them, where they are now we will never know, yet they their memory lives on their memory lives on gangsters, yes but admired for so many reasons, my introduction to the mafia was a personal journey of discovery, for those who like to challenge I in no way admire the ways they coducted their business, but I admire the aura they were and the fact that a hoodlum criminal can leave such an impression so many years after their demise. Carlo lays with his family, John rest’s with his boy, all the rest of these notorious gangsters now lay peacefully with those they love those close to them that their lifetime of rest is with those who they are content with.
Life Through Ordinary Eyes 