Why New York’s Mob Mythology Endures

The dialectic between media and mob is interesting.

"The mob", and, "The mafia" are media terms: no one in the organizations designated called it that, it was "Cosa Nostra" (literally "our thing") internally. Strictly speaking the Mafia solely exists in Sicily.

Likewise for the names of the five families, created by the media after the Joe Valachi hearings; cosa nostra members simply adopted the names for themselves. Internally, different groups under a distinct boss are referred to as "borgata".

Colombo capo Michael Franzese has spoken on the infuence mannerisms and behavior found in The Godfather had an impact on actual guys on the street as they adopted the behaviors and idolized the movies. The Sopranos does a lot to point this out.

It's interesting though that the article leaves out Joe Colombo himself commendeering and editing the script of The Godfather for all references to the word "mafia" and other related offenses which really did happen.

Franzese is also on the record asserting technological change and RICO sentences ended the prominence of the mob.

Anyone ever see a film called Goodfellas? I grew up and live in Ozone Park and around there the mafia was part of your life in a way. The notorious Bergen Hunt and Fish club was right next to my mothers bank on 101 ave. She'd go to the drive through after picking us up after school and many times you could catch John Gotti walking and chatting with an associate closely followed by two large goons. He'd throw a big 4th of July block party right there on 101 in front of Bergen and my parents took us there a few times. hot dogs, hamburgers, rides and fireworks. Their presence also kept away the "competition" giving people the notion that they protected the neighbourhood. The fact was everyone was so scared of them that no one would dare mess around on their turf.

You didn't mention them. I remember eating with my parents at my favourite Italian restaurant as a kid, Cartuccios on 101ave just down the road from Bergen. Well I was being the usual rambunctious child and due to all the people falling off buildings in Manhattan the name John Gotti was in the news a lot. So I must have heard it and for some reason blurted out "John Gotti!". The friggin restaurant goes silent record scratch style. My mother grabbed me and pulls me towards her and firmly whispers in my ear "Don't ever say that name out loud." I was actually given a talking to after we left on how he was a bad man who hurt people and lives near us.

There were always incidents and whispers of mob activity. The woman who owned the pharmacy two blocks from us was found shot in the head in the trunk of a burnt out car. She owed money. My uncles friend, an amateur boxer, drifter, gambler and alcoholic was found bludgeoned, wrapped up in a rug in a dumpster. Supposedly he stole or owed a lot of money and maybe worked for them. The first blockbuster in the area wound up burning down mysteriously while under construction. Twice. And a whole load of other crap I forget.

Not long ago I used to go to the local dive where just down the block above the glass shop was a "club". Now the gentlemen at said club would sometimes stop by and grab a drink. You knew who they were. Older, Italian, wearing nice designer clothes and shades. They'd come in, walk to the end of the bar and people would know to move. They're long gone now. But that place was and still is full of old neighbourhood goons and whatnot. One night I stopped in after work on a Tuesday and there's the bartender and another well dressed gentleman having a private conversation about Ronnie one arm. I felt unwelcome, finished my beer and left. Last year I was hanging out in the yard and and some old crew comes in, real goomba goons. This annoying jackass decides to drunkenly joke around with one of said goons. I knew shit was going down so I go back in and within seconds there were screams and the jackass comes running for his life through the bar covered in blood with two big goons after him. A guy picks up the phone to call the cops and the two other goons grab and start beating him up. I got the fuck outta there.

And just this past weekend I sat in my yard with two friends one of which invited a real neighbourhood character over, think Kramer from Seinfeld but a total degenerate and pill/coke head. Anyway he knows all of the other degenerates and told me that the nice man who lived next door to us was deep in the mob and supposedly a killer. His son was a cop. We just knew him as a nice guy who owned an auto wrecking, glass and radiator shop. He then tells me my other neighbour was also involved with a crew who went away for 15+ years and was handed their auto business. He wound up marrying my cousin. But that guy, you knew he was up to no good. And just a few years back Gotti's grandson was arrested for selling pills out of a tattoo shop just down the street. They're still around but just remnants.

And through the old family business I've had plenty of dealings with them. Once my brother helped me do a delivery in Brooklyn to an obvious gambling parlor. We drop off the equipment and had to pick up a cash payment of $3000. All hundreds. So my mind goes blank and I start counting the money like an asshole in front of this guy standing there with with two goons (I should have known better). For some reason I guess one bill looked funny so I paused to look at it and then the dude blurts out "What, my fuckin money isnt good enough for you" me: "sorry, no I'm just making sure..." he cuts me off: "Do yourself a favor, take the money and get the fuck out" while the two goons glared at us. We did just that.

And of course, going back to Goodfellas, over the years there have been a few homes dug up around the neighbourhood by the FBI looking for Burk's Lufthansa money. And a bunch of bodies found buried in "The Hole". I still pass by Roberts Lounge on my way to my favourite Halal cart. It's a Jamaican Restaurant now and I wonder if they know there were upward of a dozen bodies buried in and around that building at one point.

I wish I could gather up more stories and write a better post but work.

I grew up in Salt Lake. It's not a very "mob" town. But my parents put me in a private elementary school, and there was this one kid who went there who arrived every day in a chauffered limo. Rumor was that his dad was the mob boss of Salt Lake. To us, though, he was just another kid - never beat up anybody, never threatened anybody, not treated any different from anyone else. Come to think of it, he may have kept to himself more than most, but I wasn't very socially cued in, so I can't be sure.

Eventually his dad went on the run. There were occasional reports that he'd been seen in a casino in Vegas for a few years, then nothing.

So even places that aren't mob territory still had some mob presence.

"If some nativist in this country had warned in 1900 that mass Italian immigration would bring us vendetta-obsessed crime clans, capable of getting their tentacles on the public life (and budgets) of major American cities while also corrupting the American labor movement for most of the coming century, he would have been dismissed, correctly, as a bigot."

It's an incredible page of history, the amount of power and influence organized crime welded for much of the middle years (1950s-1980s) across the US.

With the amount of power they had, the lasting mythology seems, what is that phrase, apropos? I can't speak to the same level as MisterTea (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25429901) but coming from a city with a history of heavy mob activity, Philadelphia to be specific, you hear the same kinds of stories from family and very infrequently, you still encounter groups of 2-3 guys at a bar or restaurant where you think, let's give them a wide berth.

I might as well tell my two stories.

A relative who works in finance took some clients out to a restaurant in South Philly in the 80s. The 80s were a violent time in the Philly mob and also the FBI was starting to make major inroads in their fight. So 4 guys not from the neighborhood, in suits, at a restaurant in South Philly. And this relative, he noticed a guy at the end of the bar, eyeing them hard and so he asked the bar tender, "hey, is that who I think it is?" And the bar tender: "I dunno, who do you think it is?" Relative: "Well, I think I know who it is. Just tell him we're not the feds, we're just a bunch of bankers out to dinner." The guy at the end of the bar was the leader of the mob at the time (his name escapes me) but he nodded to them and bought them a bottle of wine. You hear a story like this and you understand the mythology, it's almost like it was a pleasant time. But that was just a veneer.

My one personal story on this topic speaks more to the mythology. A few years back, I was went to a 76ers game with some out-of-town (from the mid-west but not Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland, like far mid-west) co-workers. The 76ers play in South Philly and so I took them out down there after the game. I don't know how we got on the subject but one of my co-workers asked, "This is South Philly, you know the show the Sopranos? how real is that?" I said something like "First off, that's the North Jersey mob, so you don't really have to worry about them down here because this is the Philly Mob's turf. That being said, I think they're allies because they both work in Atlantic City and..." and then tried to explain how the different crime families interact, and how they have apparently fallen on hard times. Anyway, there's nothing really special about my story however I did take from it that, the American mafia experience can be a very regional thing. I had never realized that there are parts of the country that didn't have this shared history of organized crime. I just kind of assumed the entire country was under their control for 30-40 years. That's some mythology.

Best mob movie: Casino.

Excellent and enlightening