The Mob and the City

by C. Alexander Hortis

  40. FBI Report on Vincent Papa, March 23, 1978, in FBI FOIA File on Vincent Papa (copy in possession of author); State Commission of Investigation, Narcotics Law Enforcement in New York City (1972), p. 28; Report on Percent of Purity of Heroin Seized in Various Areas, 1949, in Box 46, RG 170 (NARA College Park).

  41. Oral history of Abe D. (May 9, 1980) (COHC); oral history of Mel (July 3, 1980), p. 88, and Al (1980), quoted in Courtwright, Joseph, and Des Jarlais, Addicts Who Survived, p. 98.

  42. Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations: Organized Crime and the Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, Senate, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. (1963), 873 (testimony of Martin Pera).

  43. FBN entry on Marseille Traffickers, No. 294, in Washington Confidential List, December 1, 1934, in Box 175, RG 170 (NARA College Park).

  44. Oral history of Ralph Salerno (December 10, 1982), quoted in Courtwright, Joseph, and Des Jarlais, Addicts Who Survived, p. 201; Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations: Organized Crime and the Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, 872–75 (testimony of Martin Pera).

  45. See generally Name Files of Suspected Narcotics Traffickers, RG 59 (NARA College Park).

  46. Oral history of Ralph Salerno (December 10, 1982), quoted in Courtwright, Joseph, and Des Jarlais, Addicts Who Survived, pp. 201–202.

  47. Frank Lucas with Aliya S. King, Original Gangster: The Real Life Story of One of America's Most Notorious Drug Lords (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2010), pp. 133–53.

  48. New York State Commission of Investigation, Narcotics Law Enforcement, p. 29.

  49. Maurice Helbrant, Narcotic Agent (New York: Arno Press, 1953), p. 93.

  50. Charles Siragusa, The Trail of the Poppy: Behind the Mask of the Mafia (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966), pp. 65–66, 79–80; Mayor's Committee on City Planning, East Harlem Community Study (New York: n.p., 1937), pp. 16–17.

  51. FBN Case Report Identified as SE-199-NY:S:4997-Helmuth Hartmann, et. al., in Box 1, George White Papers, Department of Special Collections, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.

  52. New York Times, December 20, 1946, April 9, 1947, April 11, 1947. In the late 1960s, police dubbed traffickers from the Genovese Family the “Pleasant Avenue Crew.” David Durk and Ira Silverman, The Pleasant Avenue Connection (New York: Harper & Row, 1976).

  53. Roder journal entries for March 27 and 29, April 10, 1946, and March 2, 4–5, 8–10, and 17, 1948, Roder Journals; FBN entries for John Ormento and Salvatore Santoro, International List of Persons Known to Be or Suspected of Being Engaged in the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs, June 26, 1964, in Box 48, Subject Files of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, RG 170 (NARA College Park).

  54. Testimony of John T. Cusack in Joint Legislative Committee on Government Operations Regarding a Meeting at Apalachin, New York, November 14, 1957, in FBI FOIA File on the Apalachin Meeting (copy in possession of author); FBI Report on Ormento, December 26, 1957, in FBI FOIA File on John Ormento (copy in possession of author).

  55. Eric C. Schneider, Smack: Heroin and the American City (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), p. 1; New York State Commission of Investigation, Narcotics Law Enforcement, p. 30; Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations: Organized Crime and the Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, 877(testimony of Martin Pera), 911–916 and Exhibit 3 (joint testimonies of Daniel Casey, George Belk, and Charles Ward).

  56. FBN entries of James Roberts, Harold Jones, and Robert Frierson, in FBN's Suspected Negro Narcotic Traffickers, in Box 175, RG 170 (NARA College Park); William J. Spillard, Needle in a Haystack: The Exciting Adventures of a Federal Narcotic Agent (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1945), pp. 104–105, 122–26; Letter, Re: Vincent Gigante, March 8, 1960, in Federal Bureau of Prisons FOIA File on Vincent Gigante (copy in possession of author).

  57. Oral history of Curtis (1980), quoted in Courtwright, Joseph, and Des Jarlais, Addicts Who Survived, p. 192.

  58. Mayme Johnson and Karen E. Quinones Miller, Harlem Godfather: The Rap on My Husband Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson (Philadelphia: Oshun, 2008), p. 180.

  59. Oral history of Ralph Salerno (December 10, 1982), quoted in Courtwright, Joseph, and Des Jarlais, Addicts Who Survived, pp. 201–202.

  60. Durk and Silverman, Pleasant Avenue Connection, p. 49.

  61. Entries for George Anderson and Herbert Drumgold in FBN's National List of Persons Known to Be or Suspected of Being Engaged in the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs, September 23, 1953, in Box 175, RG 170 (NARA College Park); Johnson, Harlem Godfather, p. 180.

  62. Lucas, Original Gangster, p. 67.

  63. FBI FOIA File on Ellsworth Johnson (copy in possession of author); Johnson, Harlem Godfather, pp. 22–23; John Johnson, Fact Not Fiction in Harlem (Glen Cove, NY: n.p., 1980), pp. 101–106; New York Times, July 12, 1968.

  64. Claude Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land (New York: Signet Books, 1965), pp. 179–80; Welfare Council of New York City, The Menace of Narcotics to the Children of New York: A Plan to Eradicate the Evil, Interim Report (New York: n.p., August 1951), pp. 8–13.

  65. Oral history of Low (1981), quoted in Courtwright, Joseph, and Des Jarlais, Addicts Who Survived, p. 226.

  66. Piri Thomas, Down These Mean Streets (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), pp. 115–16, 200–201.

  67. Oral History of Ralph Salerno (December 10, 1982), quoted in Courtwright, Joseph, and Des Jarlais, Addicts Who Survived, p. 203.

  68. Salvatore Mondello, A Sicilian in East Harlem (Youngstown, NY: Cambria Press, 2005), pp. 63–64.

  69. Oral history of Dom Ambruzzi, quoted in Jeremy Larner, ed., Addict in the Street (New York: Penguin, 1966), pp. 42–44, 50–53.

  70. Oral history of Eddie (1980), quoted in Courtwright, Joseph, and Des Jarlais, Addicts Who Survived, p. 142; Orsi, Madonna of 115th Street, p. 186; Eric C. Schneider, Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings: Youth Gangs in Postwar New York (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 179–80, 230.

  71. Hearings before the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce: Investigation of Organized Crime: Part 14, Senate, 82nd Cong., 1st Sess. (1951), 356 (testimony of Charles Siragusa).

  72. Kathryn Meyer and Terry Parssinen, Webs of Smoke: Smugglers, Warlords, Spies, and the History of the International Drug Trade (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), pp. 284–85; Papers of Harry Anslinger, Special Collections, Pennsylvania State University, College Station, PA.

  73. Louis J. Freeh, My FBI: Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005), pp. 128–29.

  74. Claire Sterling, Octopus: How the Long Reach of the Sicilian Mafia Controls the Global Narcotics Trade (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990) (emphasis added), p. 85.

  75. Gil Reavill, Mafia Summit: J. Edgar Hoover, the Kennedy Brothers, and the Meeting That Unmasked the Mob (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2013), pp. 82–83, 265.

  76. Tim Shawcross and Martin Young, Men of Honour: The Confessions of Tomasso Buscetta (New York: HarperCollins, 1987); Pino Arlacchi, Addio Cosa nostra: La vita di Tommaso Buscetta (Milan, IT: Rizzoli, 1994). The so-called Pizza Connection from Sicily was not established until the mid-1970s. Jacobs, Busting the Mob, pp. 129–66. Recognizing this time lag after the Hotel et des Palmes 1957 gathering, Freeh offers an unconvincing explanation: “Other, equally infamous, meetings in Sicily and New York would be needed to nail things down. Still, this was the meeting that began to lay the framework for what would finally become known as the Pizza Connection.” Freeh, My FBI, p. 129.

  77. Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations: Organized Crime and the Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, Exhibit 3 (joint testimonies of Daniel Casey, George Belk, and Charles Ward).

  78. Government brief in United States v. Reina, Case No. 24321 (2d Cir.
1957), p. 24, in RG 276, United States Courts of Appeal, National Archives and Records Administration, New York, NY (hereafter “NARA New York”).

  79. This chart is based on: United States v. Bentvena, 319 F.2d 916 (2d Cir. 1963); United States v. Reina, 242 F.2d 302 (2d Cir. 1957); Appellate Briefs in United States v. Agueci, Case No. 27466 (2d Cir. 1962) and United States v. Reina, Case No. 24321 (2d Cir. 1957), in RG 276 (NARA New York); Maas, Valachi Papers, pp. 239–42; Gentile, Vita di Capomafia, pp. 151–52; New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 4, 1938.

  80. Valachi detailed this scheme, for which he was never caught, in Maas, Valachi Papers, pp. 239–42.

  81. Robin Moore, The French Connection: The World's Most Crucial Narcotics Investigation (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969); The French Connection (Twentieth Century Fox 1971).

  82. FBN entry for Pasquale Fuca in FBN's Revision of International List Book, at New York, June 24, 1964, in Box 48, RG 170 (NARA College Park); Moore, French Connection, pp. 62–73.

  83. Royal Canadian Mounted Police (hereafter “RCMP”) reports of March 23, 1926, March 12, 1930, and March 25, 1931, cited in Antonio Nicaso, Rocco Perri: The Story of Canada's Most Notorious Bootlegger (Toronto: John Wiley, 2004), pp. 217–20.

  84. Oral history of Ralph Salerno (December 10, 1982) (COHC).

  85. RCMP entries for Frank Controni, Joseph Controni, and Vito Agueci in Revision of International List Book, at New York, June 24, 1964, in Box 48, RG 170 (NARA College Park).

  86. Welfare Council, Menace of Narcotics, p. 14; Committee on Government Operations, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations: Organized Crime and the Illicit Traffic in Narcotics: Report, Senate, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965), 69; Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations: Organized Crime and the Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, 270–71, 297 (testimony of Valachi).

  87. Gentile, Vita di Capomafia, p. 150.

  88. Maas, Valachi Papers, p. 222.

  89. New York Times, September 26, 1931.

  90. United States v. Bentvena, 319 F.2d 916 (2d Cir. 1963).

  91. Joseph D. Pistone, Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia (New York: Signet, 1989), p. 226.

  92. Bill Bonanno, Bound by Honor, p. 78; New York Times, July 30, 1979, cited in David Amoruso, “The Story of Carmine Galante,” November 24, 2010, available at Gangsters, Inc., http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profiles/blogs/death-in-the-afternoon-the (accessed on July 9, 2013).

  93. FBI Memo, Natale Evola, January 29, 1958, in FBI FOIA File on Natale Evola (copy in possession of author); Joe Bonanno, Man of Honor, p. 142; Bill Bonanno, The Last Testament of Bill Bonanno, p. 70.

  94. Washington Post, March 1, 1930; New York Times, February 20, 1930, March 1, 1930; Jill Jonnes, Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams: A History of America's Romance with Illegal Drugs (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), p. 84.

  95. Jack Kelly, On the Street (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1974), p. 49; Tom Tripodi, Crusade: Undercover against the Mafia and KGB (New York: Brassey's, 1993), p. 25.

  96. Kelly, On the Street, p. 49.

  97. New York Times, June 15, 1951, September 26, 1951; Commission to Investigate Allegations of Police Corruption, Commission Report (New York: n.p., 1972), p. 92 (hereafter “Knapp Commission Report”).

  98. Oral history of Arthur (October 18, 1980), quoted in Courtwright, Joseph, and Des Jarlais, Addicts Who Survived, p. 156; Tripodi, Crusade, p. 161; Peter Maas, Serpico (New York: Viking Press, 1973), p. 156; Knapp Commission Report, p. 94.

  99. Patrick V. Murphy, Commissioner: A View from the Top of American Law Enforcement (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977), p. 245; FBI Report, Vincent Papa, March 23, 1978, in FBI FOIA File on Vincent Papa (copy in possession of author).

  100. Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations: Organized Crime and the Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, 319–20 (testimony of Valachi).

  101. Wiretap conversation of Pussy Russo, quoted in Joseph Volz and Peter J. Bridge, eds., The Mafia Talks (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1969), p. 98.

  102. Tramunti report, October 23, 1973, in FBI FOIA File on Carmine Tramunti (copy in possession of author); Joseph O'Brien and Andris Kurins, Boss of Bosses: The FBI and Paul Castellano (New York: Dell, 1991), p. 153; Nicholas Pileggi, Wise Guy: Life in a Mafia Family (New York: Pocket Books 1985), p. 193.

  103. Bill Bonanno, Last Testament of Bill Bonanno, p. 184.

  104. Roder journal entries for October 21, 1942, February 4, 1944, October 30–31, 1944, Roder Journals; Maas, Valachi Papers, pp. 234–38; Gentile, Vita di Capomafia, pp. 149–50; Musto, American Disease, p. 201.

  105. The table is based on the following sources: (1) Federal Bureau of Prisons’ responses to FOIA requests (copies in possession of author) (hereafter “BOP FOIA”); (2) FBI responses to FOIA requests (copies in possession of author) (hereafter “FBI FOIA”); (3) New York Times articles (hereafter “New York Times”); (4) Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations: Organized Crime and the Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, Senate, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. (1963); and (5) FBN reports for District 2, New York, and the FBN's International List of Persons Known to Be or Suspected of Being Engaged in the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs, in Boxes 48 and 175, RG 170 (NARA College Park). This includes the following FBN lists: February 15, 1940, September 25, 1953, June 30, 1956, and June 26, 1964 (hereafter “FBN”).

  CHAPTER 6: THE MOB NIGHTLIFE

  1. New York Post, September 6, 1946; Toni Carroll Terman, Copacabana Sexcapades and Other Stories (West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing, 2005), pp. 34–35.

  2. Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations: Organized Crime and the Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, Senate, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. (1963), 365 (testimony of Joseph Valachi); George Wolf with Joseph DiMona, Frank Costello: Prime Minister of the Underworld (Great Britain: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., 1975), pp. 181–82; Mickey Podell-Raber with Charles Pignone, The Copa: Jules Podell and the Hottest Club North of Havana (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), pp. 34–42; FBI Memorandum on Frank Costello, November 24, 1944, in FBI Freedom of Information Act File (hereafter “FBI FOIA”) on Frank Costello (copy in possession of author).

  3. Stephen Fox, Blood and Power: Organized Crime in Twentieth-Century America (New York: William Morrow, 1989), pp. 78–87.

  4. Vincent Teresa with Thomas C. Renner, My Life in the Mafia (New York: Doubleday, 1973), p. 118.

  5. United States Constitution, Amendment XXI; State Board of Equalization of California v. Young's Market Co., 299 U.S. 59 (1936).

  6. New York State Liquor Authority, ABC News 8, no. 8 (March 1941), p. 20.

  7. Commission to Investigate Allegations of Police Corruption and the City's Anti-Corruption Procedures, Commission Report (New York: n.p., 1972), p. 133 (hereafter “Knapp Commission Report”).

  8. Eddie Condon, We Called It Music: A Generation of Jazz (New York: Da Capo Press, 1992), pp. 123–25; FBI Memorandum, Owen Vincent Madden, May 15, 1953, in FBI FOIA file on Owen Vincent Madden (copy in possession of author); Marion Moore Day and Francis “Doll” Thomas, quoted in Jeff Kisseloff, You Must Remember This: An Oral History of Manhattan from the 1890s to World War II (New York: Schocken Books, 1989), pp. 292, 310; Teddy Wilson, Teddy Wilson Talks Jazz (New York: Continuum, 1996), p. 16; Arnold Shaw, 52nd Street: The Street of Jazz (New York: Da Capo Press, 1971), p. 66.

  9. George Shearing with Alyn Shipton, Lullaby of Birdland (New York: Continuum, 2004), p. 84; Shaw, 52nd Street, p. 66; Ralph Blumenthal, Stork Club: America's Most Famous Nightspot and the Lost World of Café Society (New York: Little, Brown, 2000), pp. 78–79; FBI Report, Francisca Castiglia, alias Frank Costello, January 8, 1959, reproduced in Charlie Carr, ed., New York Police Files on the Mafia (New York: Hosehead Productions, 2012), p. 54; Michael Franzese and Dara Matera, Quitting the Mob: How the “Yuppie Don” Left the Mafia and Li
ved to Tell His Story (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), p. 18.

  10. Pops Foster with Tom Stoddard, The Autobiography of Pops Foster: New Orleans Jazzman (San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2005), p. 170; Mezz Mezzrow, Really the Blues (New York: Citadel, 2001), p. 274; Louis Armstrong, quoted in Terry Teachout, Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009), pp. 162–65, 194–95, 206–11.

  11. FBI Airtel, May 9, 1962, Michelino Clemente, in Records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Record Group 65 (hereafter “NARA College Park”); Adrian Humphreys, The Weasel: A Double Life in the Mob (New York: Wiley, 2011), pp. 48–49; Terman, Copacabana Sexcapades, p. 11.

  12. FBI Report, Anti-Racketeering, January 9, 1962, and FBI Report, Frank Bongiorno, November 30, 1961, both in RG 65 (NARA College Park); George Raft, quoted in Lewis Yablonsky, George Raft (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974), pp. 29, 129.

  13. FBI Memorandum, Francis Sinatra, September 29, 1950, in FBI FOIA file on Frank Sinatra (copy in possession of author); FBI Report, Frank Sinatra, July 20, 1973, in FBI FOIA file on Angelo DeCarlo (copy in possession of author); FBI Memorandum Re: Santo Trafficante Jr., March 9, 1967, in RG 65 (NARA College Park).

  14. J. Randy Taraborrelli, Sinatra: Behind the Legend (New York: Carol, 1997), pp. 64, 88–89, 271–72, 392, citing American Mercury 72, no. 332 (August 1951): 29–36; Hearings before the House Select Committee on Crime: Organized Crime in Sports, House of Representatives, 92nd Cong., 2d. Sess. (1973), 731–55, 818–35, 1105–27 (testimonies of Joseph Barboza and Charles Carson).

  15. Teresa, My Life in the Mafia, p. 123; George Jacobs and William Stadiem, Mr. S: My Life with Frank Sinatra (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), p. 82; Tina Sinatra, My Father's Daughter: A Memoir (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), p. 73.

  16. Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate Commerce: Legalizing Transportation of Prize-Fight Films, Senate, 67th Cong., 1st Sess. (1939); State of New York, Report of the Joint Legislative Committee on Professional Boxing (Albany, NY: n.p., 1963), pp. 11–13; Fox, Blood and Power, pp. 351–57; Professional Boxing: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly of the Committee on the Judiciary: Part 3, Senate, 87th Cong., 1st Sess. (1961), 1297–98 (testimony of Tommy Loughran) (“Senate Boxing Hearings”).