Author: Eric Ferrara
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1614233519
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
The New York City historian and author of The Bowery takes readers on a tour of New York’s infamous underworld in this revealing guide. During the early twentieth century, Sicilian and Southern Italian immigrants poured into New York City looking for a better life. But while they escaped the kind of poverty and persecution they experienced in the old country, they soon discovered that certain criminal enterprises followed them to America. Over the years, the island of Manhattan would become a hotbed of organized crime and underworld intrigue. It’s a version of the city that remains invisible to most visitors—until now. In this revealing tour of New York City’s mafia history, Eric Ferrara gives readers an insider’s look at how the mob lived—and where they died. Ferrara goes inside mafia hangouts from the Copacabana to Milady’s Bar and the Thompson Street Social Club. He vividly recounts infamous episodes in the lives of famous mafia men, like Charlie “Lucky” Luciano and Joey Gallo, as well as more obscure players who will be new to most readers. From the beginnings of Black Hand criminal networks to the reign of an all-powerful organized crime syndicate, Manhattan Mafia Guide offers a fascinating look down New York City’s mean streets.
Manhattan Mafia Guide
Author: Eric Ferrara
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1614233519
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
The New York City historian and author of The Bowery takes readers on a tour of New York’s infamous underworld in this revealing guide. During the early twentieth century, Sicilian and Southern Italian immigrants poured into New York City looking for a better life. But while they escaped the kind of poverty and persecution they experienced in the old country, they soon discovered that certain criminal enterprises followed them to America. Over the years, the island of Manhattan would become a hotbed of organized crime and underworld intrigue. It’s a version of the city that remains invisible to most visitors—until now. In this revealing tour of New York City’s mafia history, Eric Ferrara gives readers an insider’s look at how the mob lived—and where they died. Ferrara goes inside mafia hangouts from the Copacabana to Milady’s Bar and the Thompson Street Social Club. He vividly recounts infamous episodes in the lives of famous mafia men, like Charlie “Lucky” Luciano and Joey Gallo, as well as more obscure players who will be new to most readers. From the beginnings of Black Hand criminal networks to the reign of an all-powerful organized crime syndicate, Manhattan Mafia Guide offers a fascinating look down New York City’s mean streets.
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1614233519
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
The New York City historian and author of The Bowery takes readers on a tour of New York’s infamous underworld in this revealing guide. During the early twentieth century, Sicilian and Southern Italian immigrants poured into New York City looking for a better life. But while they escaped the kind of poverty and persecution they experienced in the old country, they soon discovered that certain criminal enterprises followed them to America. Over the years, the island of Manhattan would become a hotbed of organized crime and underworld intrigue. It’s a version of the city that remains invisible to most visitors—until now. In this revealing tour of New York City’s mafia history, Eric Ferrara gives readers an insider’s look at how the mob lived—and where they died. Ferrara goes inside mafia hangouts from the Copacabana to Milady’s Bar and the Thompson Street Social Club. He vividly recounts infamous episodes in the lives of famous mafia men, like Charlie “Lucky” Luciano and Joey Gallo, as well as more obscure players who will be new to most readers. From the beginnings of Black Hand criminal networks to the reign of an all-powerful organized crime syndicate, Manhattan Mafia Guide offers a fascinating look down New York City’s mean streets.
The Rough Guide to True Crime
Author: Cathy Scott
Publisher: Dorling Kindersley Ltd
ISBN: 185828385X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 819
Book Description
The Rough Guide to True Crime tells the stories of criminal acts ranging from the absurd to the appalling, using a light touch with the former and illuminating the psychology in play behind the crimes. A compilation of crime's greatest hits, preposterous occurrences and heinous acts, the Rough Guide to True Crime will satisfy the armchair voyeur and amateur criminologist alike.
Publisher: Dorling Kindersley Ltd
ISBN: 185828385X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 819
Book Description
The Rough Guide to True Crime tells the stories of criminal acts ranging from the absurd to the appalling, using a light touch with the former and illuminating the psychology in play behind the crimes. A compilation of crime's greatest hits, preposterous occurrences and heinous acts, the Rough Guide to True Crime will satisfy the armchair voyeur and amateur criminologist alike.
Five Families
Author: Selwyn Raab
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429907983
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 810
Book Description
The New York Times bestseller chronicling the history of NYC’s infamous five mafia families is now the basis for the upcoming The HISTORY® Channel documentary series American Godfathers: The Five Families. Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo and Lucchese. For decades these Five Families ruled New York and built the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra) into an underworld empire. Today, the Mafia is an endangered species, battered and beleaguered by aggressive investigators, incompetent leadership, betrayals and generational changes that produced violent and unreliable leaders and recruits. A twenty year assault against the five families in particular blossomed into the most successful law enforcement campaign of the last century. Selwyn Raab's Five Families is the vivid story of the rise and fall of New York's premier dons from Lucky Luciano to Paul Castellano to John Gotti and more. The book also brings the reader right up to the possible resurgence of the Mafia as the FBI and local law enforcement agencies turn their attention to homeland security and away from organized crime.
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429907983
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 810
Book Description
The New York Times bestseller chronicling the history of NYC’s infamous five mafia families is now the basis for the upcoming The HISTORY® Channel documentary series American Godfathers: The Five Families. Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo and Lucchese. For decades these Five Families ruled New York and built the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra) into an underworld empire. Today, the Mafia is an endangered species, battered and beleaguered by aggressive investigators, incompetent leadership, betrayals and generational changes that produced violent and unreliable leaders and recruits. A twenty year assault against the five families in particular blossomed into the most successful law enforcement campaign of the last century. Selwyn Raab's Five Families is the vivid story of the rise and fall of New York's premier dons from Lucky Luciano to Paul Castellano to John Gotti and more. The book also brings the reader right up to the possible resurgence of the Mafia as the FBI and local law enforcement agencies turn their attention to homeland security and away from organized crime.
Rogues' Gallery
Author: John Oller
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1524745669
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 529
Book Description
From the beginnings of big-city police work to the rise of the Mafia, Rogues' Gallery is a colorful and captivating history of crime and punishment in the bustling streets of Old New York. Rogues' Gallery is a sweeping, epic tale of two revolutions, one feeding off the other, that played out on the streets of New York City during an era known as the Gilded Age. For centuries, New York had been a haven of crime. A thief or murderer not caught in the act nearly always got away. But in the early 1870s, an Irish cop by the name of Thomas Byrnes developed new ways to catch criminals. Mug shots and daily lineups helped witnesses point out culprits; the famed rogues' gallery allowed police to track repeat offenders; and the third-degree interrogation method induced recalcitrant crooks to confess. Byrnes worked cases methodically, interviewing witnesses, analyzing crime scenes, and developing theories that helped close the books on previously unsolvable crimes. Yet as policing became ever more specialized and efficient, crime itself began to change. Robberies became bolder and more elaborate, murders grew more ruthless and macabre, and the street gangs of old transformed into hierarchal criminal enterprises, giving birth to organized crime, including the Mafia. As the decades unfolded, corrupt cops and clever criminals at times blurred together, giving way to waves of police reform at the hands of men like Theodore Roosevelt. This is a tale of unforgettable characters: Marm Mandelbaum, a matronly German-immigrant woman who paid off cops and politicians to protect her empire of fencing stolen goods; "Clubber" Williams, a sadistic policeman who wielded a twenty-six-inch club against suspects, whether they were guilty or not; Danny Driscoll, the murderous leader of the Irish Whyos Gang and perhaps the first crime boss of New York; Big Tim Sullivan, the corrupt Tammany Hall politician who shielded the Whyos from the law; the suave Italian Paul Kelly and the thuggish Jewish gang leader Monk Eastman, whose rival crews engaged in brawls and gunfights all over the Lower East Side; and Joe Petrosino, a Sicilian-born detective who brilliantly pursued early Mafioso and Black Hand extortionists until a fateful trip back to his native Italy. Set against the backdrop of New York's Gilded Age, with its extremes of plutocratic wealth, tenement poverty, and rising social unrest, Rogues' Gallery is a fascinating story of the origins of modern policing and organized crime in an eventful era with echoes for our own time.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1524745669
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 529
Book Description
From the beginnings of big-city police work to the rise of the Mafia, Rogues' Gallery is a colorful and captivating history of crime and punishment in the bustling streets of Old New York. Rogues' Gallery is a sweeping, epic tale of two revolutions, one feeding off the other, that played out on the streets of New York City during an era known as the Gilded Age. For centuries, New York had been a haven of crime. A thief or murderer not caught in the act nearly always got away. But in the early 1870s, an Irish cop by the name of Thomas Byrnes developed new ways to catch criminals. Mug shots and daily lineups helped witnesses point out culprits; the famed rogues' gallery allowed police to track repeat offenders; and the third-degree interrogation method induced recalcitrant crooks to confess. Byrnes worked cases methodically, interviewing witnesses, analyzing crime scenes, and developing theories that helped close the books on previously unsolvable crimes. Yet as policing became ever more specialized and efficient, crime itself began to change. Robberies became bolder and more elaborate, murders grew more ruthless and macabre, and the street gangs of old transformed into hierarchal criminal enterprises, giving birth to organized crime, including the Mafia. As the decades unfolded, corrupt cops and clever criminals at times blurred together, giving way to waves of police reform at the hands of men like Theodore Roosevelt. This is a tale of unforgettable characters: Marm Mandelbaum, a matronly German-immigrant woman who paid off cops and politicians to protect her empire of fencing stolen goods; "Clubber" Williams, a sadistic policeman who wielded a twenty-six-inch club against suspects, whether they were guilty or not; Danny Driscoll, the murderous leader of the Irish Whyos Gang and perhaps the first crime boss of New York; Big Tim Sullivan, the corrupt Tammany Hall politician who shielded the Whyos from the law; the suave Italian Paul Kelly and the thuggish Jewish gang leader Monk Eastman, whose rival crews engaged in brawls and gunfights all over the Lower East Side; and Joe Petrosino, a Sicilian-born detective who brilliantly pursued early Mafioso and Black Hand extortionists until a fateful trip back to his native Italy. Set against the backdrop of New York's Gilded Age, with its extremes of plutocratic wealth, tenement poverty, and rising social unrest, Rogues' Gallery is a fascinating story of the origins of modern policing and organized crime in an eventful era with echoes for our own time.
Missing in Manhattan
Author: Mary Higgins Clark
Publisher: Berkley Books
ISBN: 9780425142035
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
Donation.
Publisher: Berkley Books
ISBN: 9780425142035
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
Donation.
New York City Gangland
Author: Arthur Nash
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1439638713
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 136
Book Description
Throughout the United States, there is no single major metropolitan area more closely connected to organized crime than New York City. With the federal prohibition on alcohol in 1920, Gotham's shadowy underworld began evolving from strictly regional and often rag-tag street gangs into a sophisticated worldwide syndicate that was--like the chocolate egg crème--incubated within the confines of its five boroughs. New York City Gangland offers an unparalleled collection of rarely circulated images, many appearing courtesy of exclusive law enforcement sources, in addition to the private albums of notorious racketeering figures such as Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Al "Scarface" Capone, Joe "The Boss" Masseria, "Crazy" Joe Gallo, and John Gotti.
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1439638713
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 136
Book Description
Throughout the United States, there is no single major metropolitan area more closely connected to organized crime than New York City. With the federal prohibition on alcohol in 1920, Gotham's shadowy underworld began evolving from strictly regional and often rag-tag street gangs into a sophisticated worldwide syndicate that was--like the chocolate egg crème--incubated within the confines of its five boroughs. New York City Gangland offers an unparalleled collection of rarely circulated images, many appearing courtesy of exclusive law enforcement sources, in addition to the private albums of notorious racketeering figures such as Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Al "Scarface" Capone, Joe "The Boss" Masseria, "Crazy" Joe Gallo, and John Gotti.
The East Village Mafia
Author: Thomas F. Comiskey
Publisher: Archway Publishing
ISBN: 1480875678
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 77
Book Description
Few New Yorkers are aware that the tenements and storefronts of the East Village, famous for Beat poetry, avant-garde art, and alternative rock music, were a stronghold of mafia racketeering, treachery, and intrigue for almost seventy years. From the 1920s to 1990, mob icons lived in or frequented the East Village, known as part of the Lower East Side until the mid-1960s. In The East Village Mafia, author Thomas F. Comiskey shares the history of this little-known Manhattan mafia enclave that wielded influence on the direction and destiny of organized crime in New York City, telling how: Mafia royalty Lucky Luciano, Joe "the Boss" Masseria, and Joseph Bonanno lived in or frequented the East Village; East Village-bred Mafiosi plotted the assassinations of five Cosa Nostra bosses; Lucky Luciano ordained the East Village to be one of the mafia’s major heroin distribution centers after World War II; A mobster from Avenue A conspired to sell the Vatican millions worth of bogus stocks and bonds, some forged in the East Village; A sit down in Mafia don Joseph Bonanno's favorite Social Club on East Twelfth Street determined control over a New Jersey hotel; and A federal agent from Avenue A and Fifteenth Street became the nemesis of mafia narcotics dealers.
Publisher: Archway Publishing
ISBN: 1480875678
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 77
Book Description
Few New Yorkers are aware that the tenements and storefronts of the East Village, famous for Beat poetry, avant-garde art, and alternative rock music, were a stronghold of mafia racketeering, treachery, and intrigue for almost seventy years. From the 1920s to 1990, mob icons lived in or frequented the East Village, known as part of the Lower East Side until the mid-1960s. In The East Village Mafia, author Thomas F. Comiskey shares the history of this little-known Manhattan mafia enclave that wielded influence on the direction and destiny of organized crime in New York City, telling how: Mafia royalty Lucky Luciano, Joe "the Boss" Masseria, and Joseph Bonanno lived in or frequented the East Village; East Village-bred Mafiosi plotted the assassinations of five Cosa Nostra bosses; Lucky Luciano ordained the East Village to be one of the mafia’s major heroin distribution centers after World War II; A mobster from Avenue A conspired to sell the Vatican millions worth of bogus stocks and bonds, some forged in the East Village; A sit down in Mafia don Joseph Bonanno's favorite Social Club on East Twelfth Street determined control over a New Jersey hotel; and A federal agent from Avenue A and Fifteenth Street became the nemesis of mafia narcotics dealers.
Gangland New York
Author: Anthony M. DeStefano
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493018337
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Book Description
Get a taste of New York’s underworld by seeing where mobsters lived, worked, ate, played, and died. From the Bowery Boys and the Five Points Gang through the rise of the Jewish “Kosher Nostra” and the ascendance of the Italian Mafia, mobsters have played a major role in the city’s history, lurking just around the corner or inside that nondescript building. Bill “the Butcher” Poole, Paul Kelly, Monk Eastman, “Lucky” Luciano, Carlo Gambino, Meyer Lansky, Mickey Spillane, John Gotti—each held sway over New York neighborhoods that nurtured them and gave them power. As families and factions fought for control, the city became a backdrop for crime scenes, the rackets spreading after World War II to docks, airports, food markets, and garment districts. The streets of Brooklyn, swamps of Staten Island, and vacant lots near LaGuardia Airport hosted assassinations and hasty burials for the unlucky. The bloodlettings, arrests, and trials became front-page fodder for tabloids that thrived on covering Mulberry Street. Chinese, Russian, and Greek mobsters rose to prominence and wrought bloody havoc as well. Each of the book’s five sections—one for each borough—traces criminal activities and area exploits from the nineteenth century to now. Everyone knows about Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy, but now you can find Scarpato’s restaurant in Coney Island where Joe Masseria was killed by henchmen of Salvatore Maranzano, who in turn died in a Park Avenue office building at the hands of “Lucky” Luciano a few months later. From the Bronx to Brighton Beach, from New Springville to Ozone Park, here is a comprehensive, on-the-ground guide to mob life in the Rotten Apple.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493018337
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Book Description
Get a taste of New York’s underworld by seeing where mobsters lived, worked, ate, played, and died. From the Bowery Boys and the Five Points Gang through the rise of the Jewish “Kosher Nostra” and the ascendance of the Italian Mafia, mobsters have played a major role in the city’s history, lurking just around the corner or inside that nondescript building. Bill “the Butcher” Poole, Paul Kelly, Monk Eastman, “Lucky” Luciano, Carlo Gambino, Meyer Lansky, Mickey Spillane, John Gotti—each held sway over New York neighborhoods that nurtured them and gave them power. As families and factions fought for control, the city became a backdrop for crime scenes, the rackets spreading after World War II to docks, airports, food markets, and garment districts. The streets of Brooklyn, swamps of Staten Island, and vacant lots near LaGuardia Airport hosted assassinations and hasty burials for the unlucky. The bloodlettings, arrests, and trials became front-page fodder for tabloids that thrived on covering Mulberry Street. Chinese, Russian, and Greek mobsters rose to prominence and wrought bloody havoc as well. Each of the book’s five sections—one for each borough—traces criminal activities and area exploits from the nineteenth century to now. Everyone knows about Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy, but now you can find Scarpato’s restaurant in Coney Island where Joe Masseria was killed by henchmen of Salvatore Maranzano, who in turn died in a Park Avenue office building at the hands of “Lucky” Luciano a few months later. From the Bronx to Brighton Beach, from New Springville to Ozone Park, here is a comprehensive, on-the-ground guide to mob life in the Rotten Apple.
The Mob and the City
Author: C. Alexander Hortis
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616149248
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
Forget what you think you know about the Mafia. After reading this book, even life-long mob aficionados will have a new perspective on organized crime. Informative, authoritative, and eye-opening, this is the first full-length book devoted exclusively to uncovering the hidden history of how the Mafia came to dominate organized crime in New York City during the 1930s through 1950s. Based on exhaustive research of archives and secret files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, author and attorney C. Alexander Hortis draws on the deepest collection of primary sources, many newly discovered, of any history of the modern mob. Shattering myths, Hortis reveals how Cosa Nostra actually obtained power at the inception. The author goes beyond conventional who-shot-who mob stories, providing answers to fresh questions such as: * Why did the Sicilian gangs come out on top of the criminal underworld? * Can economics explain how the Mafia families operated? * What was the Mafia's real role in the drug trade? * Why was Cosa Nostra involved in gay bars in New York since the 1930s? Drawing on an unprecedented array of primary sources, The Mob and the City is the most thorough and authentic history of the Mafia's rise to power in the early-to-mid twentieth century.
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616149248
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
Forget what you think you know about the Mafia. After reading this book, even life-long mob aficionados will have a new perspective on organized crime. Informative, authoritative, and eye-opening, this is the first full-length book devoted exclusively to uncovering the hidden history of how the Mafia came to dominate organized crime in New York City during the 1930s through 1950s. Based on exhaustive research of archives and secret files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, author and attorney C. Alexander Hortis draws on the deepest collection of primary sources, many newly discovered, of any history of the modern mob. Shattering myths, Hortis reveals how Cosa Nostra actually obtained power at the inception. The author goes beyond conventional who-shot-who mob stories, providing answers to fresh questions such as: * Why did the Sicilian gangs come out on top of the criminal underworld? * Can economics explain how the Mafia families operated? * What was the Mafia's real role in the drug trade? * Why was Cosa Nostra involved in gay bars in New York since the 1930s? Drawing on an unprecedented array of primary sources, The Mob and the City is the most thorough and authentic history of the Mafia's rise to power in the early-to-mid twentieth century.
The President Street Boys
Author: Frank DiMatteo
Publisher: Kensington Books
ISBN: 1496705483
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
“When Mom got out of jail, it was great having her home.” Mondo the Dwarf. Frankie Shots. Jospeh “Little Lolly Pop” Carna. Larry “Big Lolly Pop” Carna. Salvatore “Sally Boy” Marinelli. Johnny Tarzan. Louie Pizza. Sally D, Bobby B, Roy Roy, and Punchy. They were THE PRESIDENT STREET BOYS of Brooklyn, New York. Frank Dimatteo was born into a family of mob hitmen. His father and godfather were shooters and bodyguards for infamous Mafia legends, the Gallo brothers. His uncle was a capo in the Genovese crime family and bodyguard to Frank Costello. Needless to say, DiMatteo saw and heard things that a boy shouldn’t see or hear. He knew everybody in the neighborhood. And they knew him. . .and his family. And does he have some wild stories to tell. . . From the old-school Mafia dons and infamous “five families” who called all the shots, to the new-breed “independents” of the ballsy Gallo gang who didn’t answer to nobody, Dimatteo pulls no punches in describing what it’s really like growing up in the mob. Getting his cheeks pinched by Crazy Joe Gallo until tears came down his face. Dropping out of school and hanging gangster-style with the boys on President Street. Watching the Gallos wage an all-out war against wiseguys with more power, more money, more guns. And finally, revealing the shocking deathbed confessions that will blow the lid off the sordid deeds, stunning betrayals, and all-too-secret history of the American Mafia. Originally self-published as Lion in the Basement Raves For THE PRESIDENT STREET BOYS: Growing Up Mafia “Frankie D was born and raised in this life—and he’s still alive and still free. They don’t come any sharper then Frankie D. A real gangster story. Read this book!” —Nicky “Slick” DiPietro, New York City “I know Frankie D from when i was a kid living in South Brooklyn. It was hard reading about my father, Gennaro “Chitoz” Basciano, but I knew it was the truth. Frankie’s book is dead on the money—I couldn’t put it down.” —Eddie Basciano, somewhere in Florida “It’s been forty years since I’ve been with Frankie D doing our thing on President Street. This book was like a flashback, Frankie D nails it from beginning to the end. Bravo, from one of the President Street Boys.” —Anthony “Goombadiel” DeLuca, Brooklyn, New York “As a neighborhood kid I grew up around President Street and know firsthand the lure of ‘the life’ as a police officer and as a kid that escaped the lure. I can tell you the blind loyalty that the crews had for their bosses—unbounded, limitless, and dangerous. As the Prince of President Street, Frank Dimatteo, is representative of a lost generation of Italian Americans. If any of this crew had been given a fair shot at the beginning they would have been geniuses in their chosen field.” —Joseph "Giggy" Gagliardo, Retired DEA Agent, New York City “The President Street Boys takes me back as if it was a time machine. Its authenticity is compelling reading for those interested in what things were really like in those mob heydays; not some author’s formulation without an inkling of what was going on behind the scenes. I loved the book because I was there, and know for sure readers will love it too.” —Sonny Girard, author of Blood of Our Fathers and Sins of Our Sons
Publisher: Kensington Books
ISBN: 1496705483
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
“When Mom got out of jail, it was great having her home.” Mondo the Dwarf. Frankie Shots. Jospeh “Little Lolly Pop” Carna. Larry “Big Lolly Pop” Carna. Salvatore “Sally Boy” Marinelli. Johnny Tarzan. Louie Pizza. Sally D, Bobby B, Roy Roy, and Punchy. They were THE PRESIDENT STREET BOYS of Brooklyn, New York. Frank Dimatteo was born into a family of mob hitmen. His father and godfather were shooters and bodyguards for infamous Mafia legends, the Gallo brothers. His uncle was a capo in the Genovese crime family and bodyguard to Frank Costello. Needless to say, DiMatteo saw and heard things that a boy shouldn’t see or hear. He knew everybody in the neighborhood. And they knew him. . .and his family. And does he have some wild stories to tell. . . From the old-school Mafia dons and infamous “five families” who called all the shots, to the new-breed “independents” of the ballsy Gallo gang who didn’t answer to nobody, Dimatteo pulls no punches in describing what it’s really like growing up in the mob. Getting his cheeks pinched by Crazy Joe Gallo until tears came down his face. Dropping out of school and hanging gangster-style with the boys on President Street. Watching the Gallos wage an all-out war against wiseguys with more power, more money, more guns. And finally, revealing the shocking deathbed confessions that will blow the lid off the sordid deeds, stunning betrayals, and all-too-secret history of the American Mafia. Originally self-published as Lion in the Basement Raves For THE PRESIDENT STREET BOYS: Growing Up Mafia “Frankie D was born and raised in this life—and he’s still alive and still free. They don’t come any sharper then Frankie D. A real gangster story. Read this book!” —Nicky “Slick” DiPietro, New York City “I know Frankie D from when i was a kid living in South Brooklyn. It was hard reading about my father, Gennaro “Chitoz” Basciano, but I knew it was the truth. Frankie’s book is dead on the money—I couldn’t put it down.” —Eddie Basciano, somewhere in Florida “It’s been forty years since I’ve been with Frankie D doing our thing on President Street. This book was like a flashback, Frankie D nails it from beginning to the end. Bravo, from one of the President Street Boys.” —Anthony “Goombadiel” DeLuca, Brooklyn, New York “As a neighborhood kid I grew up around President Street and know firsthand the lure of ‘the life’ as a police officer and as a kid that escaped the lure. I can tell you the blind loyalty that the crews had for their bosses—unbounded, limitless, and dangerous. As the Prince of President Street, Frank Dimatteo, is representative of a lost generation of Italian Americans. If any of this crew had been given a fair shot at the beginning they would have been geniuses in their chosen field.” —Joseph "Giggy" Gagliardo, Retired DEA Agent, New York City “The President Street Boys takes me back as if it was a time machine. Its authenticity is compelling reading for those interested in what things were really like in those mob heydays; not some author’s formulation without an inkling of what was going on behind the scenes. I loved the book because I was there, and know for sure readers will love it too.” —Sonny Girard, author of Blood of Our Fathers and Sins of Our Sons