Ok . . I’m not researching for a book/screenplay or anything; just curious. Who has personal stories, memories etc. of Italian American “activities” in their neighborhood, social circles, extended families, friends, etc? All the detail you want to reveal or keep it “generic”. I feel this thread will be moved if there is enough response.
Oops . . I should have added I am not a police officer or with any governmental agency; local, state or federal. Hah!
I have a feeling since you are asking for personal experiences instead of a factual answer it will get moved a lot more quickly than you think.
Welcome to the Dope.
When I was growing up we had an actual, genuine mob boss living a couple of streets over. There was a police car parked in front of his house every night. There was never any indication of any trouble until one night when a car was blown up in the local shopping center.
Decades later I started a new job and discovered that one of my coworkers had grown up in the same neighborhood and was just a couple years younger than I. While we talked about the old neighborhood we started reminiscing about the mob boss. Our manager was flabbergasted about how matter-of-fact we were about the whole thing.
Since the OP is asking for personal experiences, let’s move this over to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
A number of local mobsters moved into my home town over the years, including Raymond Patriarca, Jr. who ran the Providence mob for a few years after his father died. A nephew of one of his crew was in my sister’s class.
Late seventies I worked for a (200+ employee) business run by a mobster. The guy didn’t have a nice side to him. My immediate boss (his brother-in-law), was in constant fear and shook like a banshee even when he wasn’t around. The boss treated me decently, I don’t know if it was because I was stoic during his tirades , or because I was the only non Italian.The former owner (but still owner on paper) would come in once a week to sign paperwork. I found out the (mob controlled) union forced him close to bankruptcy, he did what he had to do.
Hah . . they gave him a buyout . . make your own parachute!
I live in a smallish city in Massachusetts that is officially the safest city in America. It also has a reputation for being a bedroom community for lots of Mafia. I don’t know if those two things are related but I was told that they use nearby Rhode Island for Mafia operations and will not put up with even petty crime at home where their family is so it is unusually safe living close to them.
The only true, confirmed Mafia that I have ever had close associations with (that I know of) were the brothers that renovated my kitchen. I spent every nearly night for months with them. It was only during the middle of renovations that someone asked me “You know who they are right?”. No, I didn’t then but it turned out they were the survivors from the most infamous Mafia killings in recent Boston history, the 1995 Charleston 99 Restaurant massacre. They were always nice to me though and did good work.
No Italian mafia stories, but my parents did live a few houses away from a Mexican drug kingpin for some years. He was eventually arrested and convicted, so the government confiscated his house and (last I saw of it) had a policeman watching it around the clock. I believe the government wants to sell it, but they’re afraid of retribution if they do so.
I also am pretty sure that the Korean Barbecue place I used to go to regularly in Tokyo was a favorite haunt of some yakuza who ran the local pachinko parlor. But, I never turned around to ask them if that was the case.
Man, what a sheltered life I’ve led. Closest to the requested info I can come up with is that about 30 years ago, I briefly dated a young lady whose father reputedly was a local wise guy. Things didn’t progress so I never got to the ‘meet the parents’ stage.
On a visit to NYC back in the late ‘90s, me and my then-girlfriend (a different one) were staying in the Brooklyn apartment of a friend. New Year’s morning, we decided to take a stroll. A couple blocks down the street, we walked past a gigantic Cadillac limo with a tiny, wizened old guy in a suit sitting by himself in the back. Parked behind the limo was a black Chevy Suburban with four or five goons in it. Except for them and us, no one else on the street at all, and it wasn’t at all clear what they were waiting for. Hey, maybe the old guy wasn’t a mobster, he had just stopped to reminisce about the old neighborhood and was concerned about security. Whatever; we kept a’steppin’.
Other than that, I got nothin’.
A key part of situational awareness is knowing when to not be aware of anything. F’rinstance…
What is this “Mob” you talk about? I didn’t see nothin’ and I didn’t hear nothin’, but if I did… Okay, I’ve lived half of my life in Chicago’s western suburbs, and my wife nearly all of hers. There might be neighborhoods where nothing bad happens, ever. Real peaceful. Places where your wife and kids are safe, y’know? Maybe there might be an event if someone gets too flashy or may be about to talk about things he shouldn’t, but the guys take care of that themselves. No need for official involvement. But I suppose you want details.
In the late '60s Greyhound was looking for a property for their new Chicago bus terminal. My father was involved in the search and for some reason got a call from a big newspaper gossip columnist who asked that he take a closer look at an undesirable property that dropdad knew was mob-owned. Implications were made about the wisdom of the choice, but he chose otherwise. And kept a loaded .38 in his desk (snub-nose) and briefcase (Police Special, later a .357) the rest of his career.
Wife had a chance to become a Mafia princess when she dated a guy who took her to parties at the home of Sam “Momo” Giancana, one of those unfortunates I described. And worked in the blood bank of a Mob hospital (MIL: I thought that other one was the Mob hospital. Me: They both are.) when Tony Accardo (“Joe Batters” or “Big Tuna”) came in for his final visit. She griped about how they kept pumping valuable blood into this dying man just to delay his inevitable trip to Hell.
A fellow at work used to swim in Accardo’s pool every summer because they were neighbors. My brother went to school with Accardo’s nephew of grandson whom they called “Little Tuna.” IIRC he joined the Secret Service, which has some sort of message, like how Capone’s brother was a cop. And Capone’s grandkids have a restaurant in town. The food is unimpressive.
But no, no mobsters around here. Just respectable businessmen.
This thread brings back forgotten memories. Mid-eighties and I was thousands of dollars deep into two loansters. Two points a week vig (interest). My family got me out of that one.
Though the loan guys were never threatening, I had co-workers so much deeper in debt their paychecks only covered the interest. Kind of like getting caught in a whirlpool. But otherwise they were decent guys, I even had dinner once at one of the guy’s home in Queens.
My ex-FIL looks much more like a Godfather figure than Robert De Niro ever did. We are talking about a fit but pronounced physique, always perfect grooming, lots of wealth and a constant stream of luxury vehicles especially BMW 750IL’s (basically as close a you can come to a personal limousine). He is still in the importing business and there has been constant speculation that he is a Don but it isn’t true although he knows the real ones quite well, being an old-school Boston Italian himself.
The only time I had a problem with it was when I was going through a divorce with his daughter. He never made a threat but she did at one point. She claimed she was going to have ‘friends’ put a hit on me and nobody would ever find me. That obviously never came to pass but I did have to move and buy a place with outside security. That threat was over in a few months after the dust settled. I go to all their family events now with no fear whatsoever. Italian mafia types are very protective of family and they don’t do anything to hurt their children or grandchildren (my daughters in this case and they would be devastated if something happened to me so I know now my ex-wife’s family won’t do anything to hurt me).
My Irish and Italian neighborhood in the Bronx had a few wise guys around, but they mostly kept low profile. Not all of them, though.
Louie Lump-Lump, a low level mobster who shot and killed a guy over an insult to a singer at Rao’s Restaurant in Manhattan, lived in my brother’s building. My brother said he was a pretty obnoxious guy.
Lilo Brancato wasn’t actually a mobster but he played one on the Sopranos. He went to jail for a burglary in my brother’s neighborhood in which an off-duty cop was killed.
When he was 16 or so another one of my brothers was hanging out with a couple friends at night but left because my mother had told him to be home by midnight. Shortly after he left, his friends got into a dispute with a passing motorist, and were both shot dead. According to rumor the motorist himself was whacked a few months later because one of the kid’s family had mob connections.
Like many Italian Americans I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy…
…and you hear stories.
Examples;
In the early 80’s a friend worked for the teamsters and every year after the electronics show at McCormick place his basement would be filled floor to ceiling and wall to wall with stuff that “fell off the truck” and every weeks a few big ugly guys would show up and take a load away. Took months to get rid of it all.
A friend’s older brother hung out with the sons of a fairly well known Chicago figure who eventually got whacked. These guys were crazy. I saw them beat a guy at a party with a chair unconscious just to do it, and then laugh about it. They never worked but always drove Ferraris and had huge boats docked at one of the harbors in Chicago we would go out on 4th of July weekend.
In the early 70’s there were whispers of an uncle who ran the local numbers.
There was a great uncle who had a farm. He would occasionally have weekend parties and the farmhouse would be filled with very colorful people. Tables of guys in the back yard drinking beer and wine playing cards in fancy shoes, suit pants and t-shits, the women in the kitchen cooking…
There was always one or two tables of men my father would keep us clear of. Who knows, maybe there were just jerks but it sure looked like a scene from a movie
In the 50’s my Grandfather had a barbershop in a very Italian neighborhood in the city. Apparently Grandma was always complaining because he sublet the back room to a Chinese man and if the stories are to be believed they were smoking opium back there and it stunk up the place. Rumor has it that one day he was approached by some gentlemen who wanted the back room as it perfectly fit their needs and not wanting to cause trouble Grandpa simply pulled up stakes, walked away from the lease and the business, and started anew in the suburbs.
I’ve heard stories from my Father that in those days the family would occasionally be eating in a restaurant and if a certain person or people came in to eat they paid and promptly left even if dinner was left uneaten on the table.
Some of this I saw, of course some is wild speculation.
I worked as a waiter in a Rhode Island restaurant owned by the Rossi family, who are associates of the Patriarca family (I think), in the early 2000’s.
My job interview consisted of a well-connected neighbour of mine introducing me (“He’s a good Canadian kid, don’t know his ass from his elbow though”), and the Rossi family members taking turns each telling me that they would kick my ass if I screwed up, with big grins on their faces. They all thought it was a hilarious joke, and I just stood and took the ribbing.
The next portion of my introduction was being told who didn’t have to pay their tabs. “Uncle John” and “Little John” (creative names, guys) were the two main guys who didn’t get tabs. They were the card-carrying mafiosi. The restaurant had a dance club in the back, real east coast Italian stuff, playing disco and filled with big hair, big collars, and big chains. Keep in mind this was about 2004, so it seemed like a time capsule to me from the Goodfellas era. Uncle John was in the club one night, music pumping away, and I mistook his drink order of “Dewars and water” for just “water.” When I brought a bottle of water back to his table, instead of his desired drink, it was overhand thrown at the bartender by Uncle John, and my working night ended instantly.
Another night, we had to physically throw out a middle-aged woman from the bar, who had had too much to drink and wasn’t taking no for an answer. I remember Little John seeing us throw her out, and then thinking aloud to himself “I wonder if she wants to buy some coke?!” as he trotted out to join her. The juxtaposition between his intentions and the look of innocent wonder on his face as he trotted out still gives me the giggles.
My general impressions about the place were that the owners didn’t give much of a crap about the actual operation of the restaurant, and that the performers that came in to provide live music in the dance club area were always super jumpy, and would have run through a wall if I’d asked.
Weird times, I was just a clueless university student.
Capones grandkids have a restaurant? details?
Anyone from Elmwood Park, IL out there? hah!