I think anyone who grew up in Brooklyn in that time has a few stories. I'll share a few:
My father was in the jukebox business. When I was a young kid, he would sometimes take me to work with him. My "job" was to help him collect the coins from the jukeboxes and pinball machines, and separate the nickels, dimes and quarters so he could roll them. During the summer of 1961 (I was 10 years old) he took me with him one day in early August and one of his "stops" was a bar on Utica Avenue. I remember it clearly because the bar's tv was on showing a Yankee game and the bartender asked me if I liked baseball (while he was cleaning up). I replied that I did and we talked about Mantle and Maris chasing Babe Ruth's record (of 60 home runs).
A few weeks later my father showed me the newspaper featuring a front page picture of Larry Gallo (the Gallo Brothers) after recovering from an attempted strangling (Turnbull remembers this picture) and explained that the attack was carried out in the same bar in which we were in a few weeks earlier (the Sahara Lounge). (This was re-enacted in Part II when Frankie Pentangeli was almost choked).
By virtue of my dad being in the business he had known many wiseguys. He told of a time when he was with some of them and they were drinking in Ben Maksik's nightclub (where Marine Park golf course is now - on Flatbush Avenue). A few of them had their goomars with them and apparently one of them pissed off one of the wiseguys. The wiseguy took the gal's salad bowl and dumped it on her head. My father said it was one of the funniest (albeit one of the most demeaning) things he ever saw (the salad and dressing dripping down from her face) BUT NOBODY dared to laugh - the guy who did it was VERY high up in the Family. I never really knew exactly who it was but I have some suspicions.
Here's a picture (below) of my dad (second from left) with some of his mob cronies - the guy on the left, who is embracing my dad, was Albert Anastasia's son-in-law. (The picture is of low quality - it is a screen capture from an old family home movie - my sister had an engagement party and some of these guys volunteered their services as bartenders):
