Frank Costello (inset) secretly owned the Copa, where mobsters relaxed and took in shows by stars like Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
Photo: Gaston; Ralph Morse/The LIFE Premium Collection/Getty Images
[From article]
the US government played a large, if inadvertent, role in the rise of the mob — with the great, failed experiment called Prohibition.
Starting Jan. 16, 1920, Americans were deprived of their liquor, but not for long. Bootlegging became one of the more lucrative rackets in NYC, much of it controlled by “Joe the Boss” Masseria, who — with crew members like Luciano — supplied millions of dollars of hooch to speak-easies.
[. . .]
On any given night “there was someone from each family there,” C. Alexander Hortis reports in his book, “The Mob and the City.” Here, men named Fat Tony, Joe Stretch and Frankie Brown drank with Joe DiMaggio, Ethel Merman, George Raft and every mobster’s favorite singer, Frank Sinatra.
The Copa polished the gangster’s image. No longer a spaghetti-slurping street thug, he was now a dapper, silk-suited man about town who mixed with celebrities, left $100 tips and appeared in the gossip columns.
[. . .]
A few weeks after Castellano was murdered, a parade of wiseguys went into the Ravenite Social Club in Little Italy to pay their respects to John Gotti, the new head of the Gambino crime family. Gotti spent a lot of time at the Ravenite, playing cards and talking about sports.
The feds bugged the place, so Gotti would go to a widow’s apartment two flights up to conduct business. The FBI found out, and planted a bug in her VCR. “They heard him talking about three murders, and that spelled his doom,” Capeci says.
[. . .]
“Its location made it difficult to bug,” says Jerry Capeci, editor of ganglandnews.com. “It was up on a big hill. There was no place around where they could hide and break in. And there was a maid who was always there.”
Eventually, FBI agents posing as TV repairmen managed to plant a bug, and caught Castellano and his associates in action. They discovered something else as well: Castellano was having an affair with the maid.
[. . .]
Now known as the landmark that sparked the gay rights movement, the Stonewall Inn was controlled by “Matty the Horse” Ianniello without incident until June 28, 1969, when the new head of the vice squad — a cop who wasn’t on the take — ordered a raid looking for evidence of mob activity. Stonewall’s customers fought back — and a movement was born.
http://nypost.com/2015/06/13/gotti-guns-gay-bars-inside-nycs-mob-history/
Gotti, guns & gay bars: Inside NYC’s mob history
By Michael Riedel
New York Post
June 13, 2015
[From article]
the US government played a large, if inadvertent, role in the rise of the mob — with the great, failed experiment called Prohibition.
Starting Jan. 16, 1920, Americans were deprived of their liquor, but not for long. Bootlegging became one of the more lucrative rackets in NYC, much of it controlled by “Joe the Boss” Masseria, who — with crew members like Luciano — supplied millions of dollars of hooch to speak-easies.
[. . .]
On any given night “there was someone from each family there,” C. Alexander Hortis reports in his book, “The Mob and the City.” Here, men named Fat Tony, Joe Stretch and Frankie Brown drank with Joe DiMaggio, Ethel Merman, George Raft and every mobster’s favorite singer, Frank Sinatra.
The Copa polished the gangster’s image. No longer a spaghetti-slurping street thug, he was now a dapper, silk-suited man about town who mixed with celebrities, left $100 tips and appeared in the gossip columns.
[. . .]
A few weeks after Castellano was murdered, a parade of wiseguys went into the Ravenite Social Club in Little Italy to pay their respects to John Gotti, the new head of the Gambino crime family. Gotti spent a lot of time at the Ravenite, playing cards and talking about sports.
The feds bugged the place, so Gotti would go to a widow’s apartment two flights up to conduct business. The FBI found out, and planted a bug in her VCR. “They heard him talking about three murders, and that spelled his doom,” Capeci says.
[. . .]
“Its location made it difficult to bug,” says Jerry Capeci, editor of ganglandnews.com. “It was up on a big hill. There was no place around where they could hide and break in. And there was a maid who was always there.”
Eventually, FBI agents posing as TV repairmen managed to plant a bug, and caught Castellano and his associates in action. They discovered something else as well: Castellano was having an affair with the maid.
[. . .]
Now known as the landmark that sparked the gay rights movement, the Stonewall Inn was controlled by “Matty the Horse” Ianniello without incident until June 28, 1969, when the new head of the vice squad — a cop who wasn’t on the take — ordered a raid looking for evidence of mob activity. Stonewall’s customers fought back — and a movement was born.
http://nypost.com/2015/06/13/gotti-guns-gay-bars-inside-nycs-mob-history/
Gotti, guns & gay bars: Inside NYC’s mob history
By Michael Riedel
New York Post
June 13, 2015
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