The Mob and the City
Page 27
4. Port of New York Authority, Outlook for Waterborne Commerce through the Port of New York (New York: n.p., 1948), pp. 53–55, 74.
5. Report of the Engineer-in-Chief, on the Improvement of Water Front (New York: n.p., April 26, 1871), p. 3; Michael Woodiwiss, Organized Crime and American Power: A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), p. 159.
6. Report of the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Affairs of the City of New York on the Dept. of Docks (Albany, NY: n.p., January 31, 1922), p. 11.
7. New York Department of Docks, Report of the Dept. of Docks, 1872 & 1873 (New York: n.p., 1874), pp. 15–16.
8. Report of the Executive Committee to the New York City Council of Political Reform on the Operations of the Dept. of Docks (New York: n.p., 1875), pp. 11–12.
9. Report and Proceedings of the Senate Committee Appointed to Investigate the Police Dept. of the City of New York (Albany, NY: n.p., 1895), p. 42.
10. Letter to F. H. La Guardia from Commissioner of Docks, April 27, 1934, in Box 121, in Subject Files, Papers of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia (hereafter “La Guardia Papers”) in New York City Municipal Archives, New York, NY (hereafter “NYMA”); Letter from John McKenzie to the Board of Commissioners, May 24, 1934, in Box 121 of La Guardia Papers (NYMA). Unless indicated otherwise, dollar figures have been adjusted to current value using the inflation calculator at: http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm (accessed May 19, 2013).
11. Waterfront Investigation: Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Senate, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., 72–73, 462 (1953); Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology (New York: Collier Books, 1961), pp. 175–209.
12. Letter from Am. Hawaiian Steamship Co. to Pacific Consolidators, March 2, 1934, in Box 121 in La Guardia Papers (NYMA).
13. Waterfront Investigation: New York, Interim Report of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Senate, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., 6–9 (1953).
14. Oral history with Sam Madell, quoted in Jeff Kisseloff, ed., You Must Remember This: An Oral History of Manhattan from the 1890s to World War II (New York: Schocken Books, 1989), p. 522; Special Report of the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor (New York: 1970), pp. 4–5, 8.
15. Public Hearings (No. 5) Conducted by the New York State Crime Commission Pursuant to the Governor's Executive Orders (New York: n.p., 1953) (testimony of Joseph Ryan), pp. 3607–10; Charles P. Larrowe, Shape-up and Hiring Hall; a Comparison of Hiring Methods and Labor Relations on the New York and Seattle Water Fronts (London: Cambridge University Press, 1955), p. 43; Mayor's Committee on Unemployment, Report on Dock Employment in New York City and Recommendations for its Regularization (New York: n.p., 1916), p. 27.
16. Waterfront Investigation, 489–90 (1953); Public Hearings (No. 5), pp. 3611–45, 3704 (1953).
17. Mayor's Committee on Unemployment, Report on Dock Employment in New York City and Recommendations for its Regularization (New York: n.p., 1916), p. 10; Elizabeth Ogg, Longshoremen and Their Homes (New York: Greenwich House, 1939), pp. 28–29; Charles B. Barnes, The Longshoremen (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1915), pp. 4–8.
18. Oral history with Frank Barbaro, quoted in Myrna Frommer and Harvey Frommer, It Happened in Brooklyn: An Oral History of Growing Up in the Borough in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993), pp. 228–29; Deirdre Marie Capone, Uncle Al Capone: The Untold Story from Inside His Family (New York: Recap, 2011), p. 28.
19. My thanks to Rick Warner for citations clarifying Paul Kelly's gang affiliations. New York Herald, March 29, 1908; Herbert Asbury, The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927), p. 273; New York Sun, September 15, 1910; New York Times, May 13 and October 22, 1919, March 14, 1920, and April 5, 1936; Richard J. Butler, Dock Walloper: The Story of “Big Dick” Butler (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1933), pp. 200, 221; Joseph Ryan, “Highlights of My Labor Career” (unpublished manuscript), quoted in Maud Russell, Men Along the Shore (New York: Brussel and Brussel, 1966), pp. 112–19; David Critchley, The Origin of Organized Crime in America: The New York City Mafia, 1891–1931 (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 19–20.
20. Public Hearings (No. 5), pp. 3608–62 (1953) (testimony of Joseph Ryan); Waterfront Investigation: New York–New Jersey: Report of Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Senate, 83d Cong., 1st Sess. (1953).
21. Public Hearings (No. 5), pp. 1593–94 (1953) (testimony of Constantino Scannavino); Public Hearings (No. 5), pp. 1508–29 (1953) (testimony of Vincent Mannino).
22. Joseph Bonanno with Sergio Lalli, A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), p. 169; Public Hearings (No. 5), pp. 1527–28 (1953) (testimony of Mannino); New York Times, September 18, 1930, October 3, 1941, October 7, 1941, December 19, 1952, and March 2, 1963.
23. FBI Report, The Criminal Commission, December 19, 1962, in Records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Record Group 65, National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, MD (hereafter “NARA College Park”). Thanks to the Mary Ferrell website for making this and other FBI files on the Mafia available online at http://www.maryferrell.org. FBI Report, Activities of Top Hoodlums in the New York Field Division, September 14, 1959, in FBI Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) File on Top Hoodlum Program (copy in possession of author); Public Hearings (No. 5), pp. 3152–63 (1953); New York Times, December 14, 1952, October 26, 1957.
24. Bonanno, Man of Honor, pp. 156, 170–71; Public Hearings (No. 5), pp. 1690–98 (testimony of Umberto Anastasio); New York Times, April 29, 1923, October 26, 1957; Gen. Investigative Intelligence File, Albert Anastasia, February 25, 1954, in FBI FOIA File on Albert Anastasia (copy in possession of author).
25. New York Times, December 24, 1919, August 10, 1924, October 11, 1968; James B. Jacobs, Coleen Friel, and Robert Radick, Gotham Unbound: How New York City Was Liberated from the Grip of Organized Crime (New York: New York University Press, 1999), pp. 33–41.
26. Public Hearings (No. 5), pp. 2091–2112 (1953) (testimony of Michael Clemente); FBI Memorandum, La Cosa Nostra, New York Waterfront, January 21, 1964, in RG 65 (NARA College Park); New York Times, January 22, 1953.
27. United States Census Bureau, 1920 Federal Population Census, Dist. 920, Alessandro Di Brizzi, New York, NY.
28. Public Hearings (No. 5), pp. 1910–39 (1953) (testimony of Alex Di Brizzi); Waterfront Investigation, pp. 438–39 (1953) (testimony of Joseph Ryan); FBI New York Office Report, Activities of Top Hoodlums in the United States, October 15, 1959, in RG 65 (NARA College Park).
29. New York Department of Planning, “Total and Foreign-Born Population New York City, 1890–2000,” http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/census/1790–2000nyctotal.foreignbirth.pdf (accessed May 19, 2013).
30. Report of the New York City Commission on Congestion of Population (New York: n.p., 1911), p. 85.
31. Oral history with Joseph Verdiccio, quoted in Oral History of Manhattan, p. 343.
32. Arthur Train, Courts, Criminals, and the Camorra (New York: Charles Scribner's, 1912), p. 241.
33. Joseph Valachi, “The Real Thing: The Exposé and Inside Doings of Cosa Nostra,” p. 6 (unpublished autobiography), in Boxes 1 & 2, Joseph Valachi Personal Papers, in John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, MA (hereafter “JFK Library”).
34. Bonanno, Man of Honor, p. 79.
35. John Manca and Vincent Cosgrove, Tin For Sale: My Career in Organized Crime and the NYPD (New York: William Morrow, 1991), pp. 34–36.
36. Arcangelo Dimico, Alessia Isopi, and Ola Olsson, “Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons” (working paper, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden, May 2012), http://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/29193/1/gupea_2077_29193_1.pdf (accessed May 19, 2013); Paolo Buonanno et al., “On the Historical and Geographic Origins of the Sicilian Mafia” (working paper, University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy, February 2012), http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2009
808 (accessed May 19, 2013); Salvatore Lupo, History of the Sicilian Mafia, trans. Antony Shugaar (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), p. 216; John Dickie, Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 38–39, 201–202.
37. I am indebted to Joshua B. Freeman's Working Class New York: Life and Labor since World War II (New York: New Press, 2000), pp. 2–22, and to Howard Kimeldorf's Reds or Rackets: The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 67–70, for highlighting the importance of small manufacturers and shippers in New York.
38. These statistics are calculated from data in United State Department of Commerce, Census of Manufacturers, 1954, Vol. III, Area Statistics, Industry Statistics for Geographic Divisions, States, Standard Metropolitan Areas, Counties and Cities (Washington, DC: GPO, 1955), in the charts at 104–4, 131–5, 131–30, 134–3, and 137–3.
39. Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York (New York: Scribner, 1890), p. 69; Governor's Advisory Commission, Cloak, Suit, and Skirt Industry, New York City: Report of an Investigation (Albany, NY: n.p., 1925), pp. 1–2.
40. Commission on Congestion of Population, p. 149.
41. Oral history with Abe Feinglass on June 9, 1981, in Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, WI; Dr. Michael Porter, The Competitive Advantage of Nations (New York: Free Press, 1990).
42. Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, pp. 437, 723–24; New York State Department of Labor, Report of the Industrial Commissioner to the Hotel and Restaurant Wage Board (Albany, NY: n.p., 1935), pp. 18–20.
43. United States Department of Agriculture, The Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Markets of New York City (Washington, DC: GPO, 1940), pp. 6–7.
44. Report of the Executive Committee to the New York City Council of Political Reform on the Operations of the Dept. of Docks (New York: n.p., 1875), p. 13; Commission on Congestion of Population, p. 11.
45. Police Department of the City of New York, Our Grave Traffic Problem; Suggestions for Relief (1924), p. 6; Report to the Honorable James J. Walker, Mayor, on Highway Traffic Conditions and Proposed Traffic Relief Measures for the City of New York (New York: n.p., 1929), p. 24.
46. Police Department of the City of New York, Our Grave Traffic Problem, p. 7.
47. Investigation of Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field. Hearings before the Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, Senate, 85th Cong., 2d. Sess., 6751–52 (1958) (testimony of John Montesano).
48. Oral history of Frank DiTrapani, quoted in An Oral History of Manhattan, p. 125.
49. Max Block, Max the Butcher: An Autobiography of Violence and Intrigue (Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, 1982), pp. 88–94, 106.
50. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935); Andrew W. Cohen, “The Era of Big Gonif Was Over,” reposted by Eric Rauchway, The Edge of the American West (blog), May 27, 2008, http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/edgeofthewest/2008/05/27/the-era-of-big-gonif-was-over/ (accessed May 19, 2013).
51. Stephen H. Norwood, Strike-Breaking and Intimidation: Mercenaries and Masculinity in Twentieth-Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), pp. 171–93.
52. Bonanno, Man of Honor, p. 79.
53. New York Times, August 10, 1933; Robert F. Himmelberg, The Origins of the National Recovery Administration: Business, Government, and the Trade Association Issue, 1921–1933 (New York: Fordham University Press, 1993), pp. 1–4.
54. Benjamin Schlesinger, “Stabilizing an Industry,” quoted in Out of the Sweatshop: The Struggle for Industrial Democracy, ed. Leon Stein (New York: Quadrangle, 1977), p. 219; International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, Industry Planning through Collective Bargaining (New York: n.p., 1941), p. 10.
55. Bonanno, Man of Honor, pp. 152–53.
56. Grand Jury Association of New York County, Criminal Receivers in the United States (1928); Investigation of So-Called “Rackets.” Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Committee on Commerce, Senate, 73d Cong., 2d. Sess., 16–17 (1934); Samuel Marx, Broadway Gangsters and Their Rackets (Girard, KS: H. J. Publishers, 1929), p. 13; Timothy J. Gilfoyle, A Pickpocket's Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006 ), pp. 60–61, 318–20.
57. Jenna Weissman Joselit, Our Gang: Jewish Crime and the New York Jewish Community, 1900–1940 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), pp. 36–39; Fire Department of the City of New York, Incendiarism in Greater New York (December 1912), pp. 14–16.
58. Thomas M. Pitkin and Francesco Cordasco, Black Hand: A Chapter in Ethnic Crime (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1977); Joselit, Our Gang, pp. 39–40.
59. Oral history of Peter Rofrano, quoted in An Oral History of Manhattan, p. 364.
60. Jeffrey Scott McIllwain, Organizing Crime in Chinatown: Race and Racketeering in New York City, 1890–1910 (London: McFarland, 2004), pp. 130–34.
61. Crime Commission of New York State, Report to the Commission of the Sub-Commission on Police (Albany, NY: n.p., 1927), p. 23; NYPD, Annual Report for the Year 1930 (New York: n.p., 1931), p. 8.
62. Special Committee Appointed to Investigate the Police Department of the City of New York, Investigation of the Police Dept. of the City of New York, Proceedings from March 9 to June 5, 1894 (Albany, NY: n.p., 1895), pp. 25, 42.
63. Commission to Investigate Allegations of Police Corruption and the City's Anti-Corruption Procedures, Commission Report (New York: 1972), p. 125.
64. The Transit Problems of New York City (New York: n.p., 1919), p. 20; Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (New York: Vintage, 1975), pp. 71–86.
65. Raymond D. Horton, Municipal Labor Relations in New York City (New York: Praeger, 1973), p. 17.
66. Report of the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Affairs of the City of New York on the Dept. of Docks (New York: n.p., 1922), p. 5; State of New York, Report and Summary of the Evidence of the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Affairs of the City of New York (Albany, NY: n.p., 1922), p. 74; New York City Commissioner of Accounts, Investigating City Government in the La Guardia Administration (New York: n.p., 1937), p. 36.
67. The first use of the term fragile to describe an industry susceptible to racketeering was in Ronald Goldstock et. al., Corruption and Racketeering in the New York City Construction Industry: The Final Report of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force (New York: New York University Press, 1990), of which Dr. James B. Jacobs was the principal draftsman. As the Final Report explained, “The power of so many people in the construction process to impose delay costs on a construction project is what we mean by ‘fragility.’” See page 59.
68. Report of the Executive Committee to the New York City Council of Political Reform on the Operations of the Dept. of Docks (New York: n.p., 1875), p. 11; New York City Commissioner of Accounts, The Pushcart Problem in New York City (New York: n.p., 1917), pp. 3–4.
69. Valachi, “The Real Thing,” p. 6-1 (JFK Library).
70. New York Times, October 15, 1935, October 24, 1935, October 31, 1936, March 3, 1937; Thomas E. Dewey, Twenty against the Underworld (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974), pp. 278–86.
71. Nicholas Pileggi, Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), pp. 48–49.
72. State of New York, Report of the Joint Legislative Committee on Taxicab Operation and Fares (1936), p. 13; James V. Maresca, My Flag Is Down: The Diary of a New York Taxi Driver (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1948), p. 146.
73. New York Times, October 31, 1959.
74. Letter from M. J. Cashall to D. J. Tobin, March 29, 1934, in Box 20, Records of the Int'l Brotherhood of Teamsters, 1904–52 (WHS); David Witwer, Corruption and Reform in the Teamsters Union (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003), pp. 114, 264 n. 38.
75. New York State Food Investigating Commission, Report of the Committee on Terminals and Transportation
(New York: n.p., 1913), p. 29.
76. State of New York, Report of the Attorney General in the Matter of the Milk Investigation (Albany, NY: n.p., 1910), p. 12; New York Times, February 6, 1930, March 29, 1930, September 6, 1930, and March 3, 1940.
77. Block, Max the Butcher, pp. 79, 94–95.
78. Investigation of Improper Activities, pp. 11517–46 (1958); New York Times, June 25, 1996.
79. United States Department of Agriculture, Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Markets, p. 6; Charles E. Artman, Food Costs and City Consumers (New York: n.p., 1926), p. 15.
80. Dash, First Family, pp. 150, 245–62.
81. Report on Rackets, October 29, 1937, in Box 134 of La Guardia Papers (NYMA); New York Times, May 14, 1937.
CHAPTER 2: PROHIBITION AND THE RISE OF THE SICILIANS
1. This conversation is verbatim from the testimonies of police detectives Giuseppe Caravetta and Emil Panevino in People against Pietro Lagatutta and Giuseppe Masseria, Case No. 1714 (N.Y. Ct. Spec. Sess. 1913), Microfilm 1714, Trial Transcripts of the County of New York, 1883–1927, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY (hereafter “JJC”). Thanks to David Critchley for pointing me toward these microfilms.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.; testimony of Giuseppe Masseria and Pietro Lagatutta in People against Lagatutta and Masseria (JJC).
4. Richard Warner and Mike Tona discovered the birth certificate of Giuseppe Masseria, January 17, 1886, Utliziale dello Stato Civile del commune di Menfi, IT, cited in Richard N. Warner, “On the Trail of Giuseppe ‘Joe the Boss’ Masseria,” Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement (February 2011): 56–58; New York Times, April 16, 1931.
5. Unless stated otherwise, in this book all dollar figures are cited in their original amounts and then converted to 2013 dollars using http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.
6. Testimony of John Simpson and William Kinsler in People against Lagatutta and Masseria (JJC).