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Re: Social clubs!
[Re: Yogi Barrabbas]
#389379
04/29/07 01:10 PM
04/29/07 01:10 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 18,238 The Ravenite Social Club
Don Cardi
Caporegime
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Caporegime
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 18,238
The Ravenite Social Club
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Good question Yogi. I have often wondered about that myself. One would venture to think that after all the convictions that were brought about through wiretapping and bugging these places, that 'the boys' would have abandoned these kinds of hangouts. However on a recent trip into Brooklyn I drove through one of the old neighborhoods that have always been home to these 'mobbed up' social clubs and I was surprised to find that many of these clubs are still in existance with the usual crowd sitting at tables outside the clubs drinking their espressos and shooting the breeze. Well no one ever said that these guys were the sharpest tools in the shed.
Don Cardi Five - ten years from now, they're gonna wish there was American Cosa Nostra. Five - ten years from now, they're gonna miss John Gotti.
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Re: Social clubs!
[Re: olivant]
#389451
04/29/07 08:15 PM
04/29/07 08:15 PM
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,541 AZ
Turnbull
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,541
AZ
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I never understood the logic behind the social clubs as a gathering place for Wiseguys. It was like saying "Hey FBI guys, over here." In addition to the reasons DC and PB gave, the demise of "social clubs" is a sociological phenomenon: The social club was the local Mob guy's "court": where he presided over neighborhood affairs and dispensed "justice." He didn't just conduct Mob business at his social club: he established a restful, safe, "exclusive" place where neighborhood geezers (most often not Mob-types) could sit, sip espresso, play cards, gossip, and generally pay fealty to the local Mob guy. If someone in the neighborhood had a beef against someone else, they brought it to the "court," and the Mob guy would rule. Now, I'm not waxing rhapsodic about the so-called "good old days" of Mob life. The local Mob boss didn't operate the social club as a free public service. It was a great place for him to win loyalty, respect, silence--favors--from the local populace. This was especially important in the days when Italian-Americans (especially Sicilians) were the most prejudiced-against white minority in America. For them, the social club was like a touch of home. And the Mob guy could keep his eye on the young people of the neighborhood, looking for recruits. Today, Italian-Americans are among the most upwardly mobile groups in America. They no longer have a connection to the old country, and don't need the "protection" of a Mob boss. Ambitious Italian-Americans go to college, not to the Mob social club. The Mob is left to the John and Junior Gotti's. The reason that law enforcement was stimulated to successfully tap Gotti's Ravenite and Bergin Hunt and Fish club was that they were hangouts exclusively for Mob guys, not the general populace. The cops couldn't miss.
Ntra la porta tua lu sangu � sparsu, E nun me mporta si ce muoru accisu... E s'iddu muoru e vaju mparadisu Si nun ce truovo a ttia, mancu ce trasu.
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Re: Social clubs!
[Re: Turnbull]
#389456
04/29/07 10:13 PM
04/29/07 10:13 PM
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Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 89 birmingham, uk
GottiMafia
Button
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Button
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 89
birmingham, uk
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good topic and great responses as usual i love this forum lol
5-10 years from now, they're gonna miss John Gotti.
laugh now, cry later
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