From there, he socialized with Manhattan's elite while ruling the underworld. Enjoying a life of luxury, he purchased a nine-room apartment on the 18th floor of the Majestic Apartments, a high rise building overlooking Central Park at 72nd Street. Todt Hill, Staten IslandĪ doorman watches over the entrance to the Majestic Apartments, which overlooks Central Park.įor two decades, from the 1930's to the 1950's, mobster Frank Costello ruled the slot machines from New York to New Orleans, bringing in millions of dollars for the Luciano crime family. It's now home to The Waylon, a country western bar. Cummiskey was himself murdered while drinking at the bar in 1976, to make way for the mafia's control of the lucrative Jacob Javits Convention Center.ĭuring the 1990's, under new ownership, the Sunbrite became Druid's Bar, where Theater District patrons could sip their cocktails and still see bullet holes in the brick wall of the back room. It's where local killer Ed "The Butcher" Cummiskey chopped up his victims. The Sunbrite Bar, on 10th Ave., was a favorite hangout for the Westies. But a new generation of Irish-American gangsters, known as the Westies, formed an alliance with Italian Americans they had met in jail, and they started acting as contract killers for the mafia. By the 1980s, the Irish-American community was moving on, and the area was starting to diversify.
Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, on the western edge of Midtown, got its name from its crowded tenements. Sunbrite Bar, Hell's Kitchen, ManhattanĪ jukebox in the back room of The Waylon in Hell's Kitchen. "Pandemonium engulfed the area, sending hysterical spectators, many of them women clutching small children, spilling uptown toward 61st Street," one news report said. The group was looking to give elements of organized crime a more public-friendly façade.īut it would seem that those efforts were not appreciated by everyone: At the next rally, on June 28, 1971, Colombo was shot three times at point-blank range, leaving him paralyzed, as thousands of horrified spectators looked on. In 1970, Joe Colombo, the boss of the Colombo crime family, organized the first "Italian Unity Day rally" here through his newly-formed Italian-American Civil Rights League. But the circle itself, anchored by the statue of Christopher Columbus by Italian sculptor Gaetano Russo, has remained unchanged since it was built in 1892. The skyline around Columbus Circle has changed dramatically over the years, with several of Manhattan's tallest skyscrapers going up nearby. Mafia boss Joe Colombo was shot in Columbus Circle during an Italian Unity Day rally he organized. The original site is now home to Da Gennaro, an Italian restaurant.
Umbertos eventually moved up to 132 Mulberry St., where it's still serving clams. In the next day's paper, the New York Times reported that Gallo was the "third gangland murder victim in 24 hours." Gallo was portrayed by Sebastian Maniscalco in Martin Scorsese's film The Irishman, and he's the subject of Bob Dylan's song "Joey." In the early hours of April 7, 1972, Colombo family rebel and 1960's media celebrity Joe ("Crazy Joe") Gallo was gunned down while celebrating his 43rd birthday at the restaurant. This was once the location of Umbertos Clam House – the site of one of the city's most notorious wise guy assassinations. The corner of Hester and Mulberry streets is in the heart of what's still known as Manhattan's Little Italy, though most of the Italians and Italian-Americans are long gone. The original location of Umbertos Clam House is now home to an Italian restaurant. The stories – the larger-than-life, the disturbing, the braggadocious – are worth holding onto, because they are part of the history of this city. Every neighborhood has layers of that history, buried beneath the newest construction project or the renamed, gentrified neighborhood. New York's past has been shaped by the ebb and flow of new immigrants arriving and mixing with, then replacing, the ones who came before. It's part of the lore of living here, as common as discussing real-estate prices.įor this project, I set out to see what has become of some of the most notorious settings for wise guy activity in the city. I've been hearing stories about the five New York crime families of La Cosa Nostra ( Gambino, Genovese, Colombo, Bonanno, Lucchese) for as long as I can remember. Many of America's most infamous gangsters were creatures of New York.
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