I used to get down that way quite a bit for the union. Our local had the funeral directors in NYC, but we also had the gravediggers for most of Jersey. And I'll tell you what, as far back as the late '80s Trenton was a fucking disaster area.

Did Richard kuklinski not run Trenton ???

What happened?

What do you think?

I think I have a fair idea, PB.

I don't know about P.B. thinks ,but i can not get it .My grandparents were as poor as dirt .
But live like kings in there hart...

That's EXACTLY my point, Serp. My grandparents were all Italian immigrants, too. On my father's side they lived in a dirt poor section of East Harlem. And even with said poverty, the crime rate wasn't nearly what it is today .

Right on P.B. The crime rate and the the people with the language barrier , the lack of law enforcement,No god dam electricity half the time,no running water ,come on they pulled it together and look how we did ...

I am no Pulitzer Prize winner or a Governor or President .
But for god s sake my children graduated college ,and it was only four generations.....

Some people would rather live in the past and let bitterness consume them.

You mean I shouldn't cry about a relative of mine who got shit on in Italy 200 years ago?

Silly me, I though it was the American way.

There was plenty of mob activity in the town,actually all of the New York families were there to some extent.The Philly family had many rackets there The DeCavalante's were there with Nicky and Bruno.I think DeCavalante's had some stuff with the Gambino's if not mistaken also..
And of course the west side was there wrapped up in rackets with Philly.

YES

And just a half hour drive from the Cherry Hill Gambinos .

You are the man P.B.

Yes just a half hour drive from the south Jersey Gambinos..

I guess this can go here.
There was a guy with philly his name is Albert Reds Pontani.
Now with out a picture i can not say for sure if this is the guy.
He was or is a made guy with Philly.

He was a Trenton guy ,do not know if he grew up there cos he was down in A.C. with north Jersey guys.(Lucchese and or DeCavalcante and possibly north Jersey Philly guys)He also spent a little time here back in the day .It could have been when Beeps was living over top of a pool hall - gambling room.

I am getting up there in years so things do not come to me like they did ..

I have reason to believe that he is, was a member here.
I was contacted by him here -E-mail - PM ....

Now the reason why i think he was not messing with me is .he knew what the inside of scarf Inc. looked like ,not that all of the cops in the county and further did not.
There was one more thing that he said to me about the way Nicky would order something from a local restaurant(just the way he said it)was like he was telling me the truth.

Now having said that ,can any of you researchers that read this find a picture, I don't know if he has a mug shot or not.(He is a made guy or was)
But the minute i said a few things to him he was in shock.
I never herd from him again,and he never posted after that...

Yeah scarfo used pontani as a link to his son I think , he was a made guy in the scarfo family

Pat Spirito (Philly) was from Trenton. You had Russo from the Gambinos in Trenton. There was a bookmaker named Sam Vasta who was killed in the 90s (not sure who he was with). Pontani's grand daughters are burlesque dancers now (look them up). I think there is still some gambling dens in Trenton but not sure if connected to anyone. Italians are all gone from Trenton...moved to Hamilton and surrounding areas. Not sure if Philly or anyone has rackets down there...at this point not sure what rackets are left other than drugs and prostitution. Tons of black and hispanic gangs there now.

I think the last LCN related gambling spots closed a couple years ago, at least the last one I knew of on Hudson. There are some black run spots who make good money off of all the young black heroin dealers who bet very stupidly I am told. Only LCN activity in Trenton proper is the occasional guy (how legit they are I do not know) reminiscing at the Blue Danube.

The pitbulls were like 5 punk kids. There was a show on id called evil twins or something. Two brothers named post were wannabes and killed there friend andrew whited and didn't even have gas money to dump him in the pine barrens. It was almost comical. Well the main brother is doing life. It was one of the worst shows I've seen that these kids had such disregard for human life. Not just Trenton but it's incredible how distorted people r white black brown yellow or red

Camden sounds like Philadelphia's Answer to East St. Louis ( both are the hellhole across the river). I used to think that here was only one place in America worse that north St. Louis and that was East St. Louis. Now I'll have to consider Camden. (Of course Detroit is always a contender)

Does anyone familiar with the area think that the south Bronx is as crappy as Detroit or Camden or does being part of NYC lift it up a bit?

The South Bronx will never gentrify. It's home to the single poorest zip code in the United States (the area just south of Melrose). The local politicians won't allow it to happen. You just can't displace that kind of poverty.

That being said, yes it's a bad area, and crime is high. But for some reason you don't see the rioting there that you see in other parts of the country when the shit hits the fan (like in Missouri last week).

The funny thing about the rioting is that that area is not all that horrible. There are much worse areas in the St. Louis area. A lot of what is going on here is total BS, but that's a whole other thread...

Is this morrisania? Is that where they had all the building fires 30 or so years ago?

It WAS a whole other thread, until it got closed .

My job requires me to be in Camden very often. I am also close to North Philly. Both are very bad.

Here's one for ya: Some guys who are bad on dope won't even go into to camden to cop. The main reason is the dope is so damn strong and because they know they may not make it out. They would rather go to Kensington.

I worked there full-time in the mid 90s on a construction job and we were REQUIRED to be out of the job by 3:30 pm. Under no circumstances were we allowed there past dusk. Too dangerous. Thats 20 years ago

That was my point, Nicky. I'm a Bronx guy, but I used to get down that way on business a lot in the late '80s and early '90s. Trenton was a cesspool then. I can't even imagine what it looks like now.

It most definitely was ,but there were pockets of good neighborhoods that the locals tried hard to hold on to.
But when the "Cluck U Chickin" opened right in the middle
of one of the last Italian strong holds that was it, my partner and i closed up shop.We were good 6 blocks from that neighborhood
but we did most of our business with there schools ,restaurants ,Little League teams Ect.
I have not been back since the early 90's when we closed...

I know exactly which one you are talking about (South Broad Street?) If you don't mind me asking, what kind of business did u have?

T Shirts silk screening and embroidery ,trophies ECT...
I was the $$$ my partner was the working hustler tough business...
No the shop was not on that street...

But the Chicken place was i think ?

I am in Construction Engineering, utility installation..

Speaking of Reds Pontani.....I read an article i believe from 1988 that said Pontani was made and was controlling Trenton when Scarfo went away.

The article said at the time many law enf sources had him pegged as possibly the next boss b/c was very powerful and violent had control over that city and crimes in Bucks county across the river. Although the sources said that they also thought at the time Martirano in Newark could be the next boss, or Scarfo could have held onto it. Obviously we know how it actually played out, but interesting shit.

Anyone else have any info on this guy? I had never heard of him until I read that article and I've lived in Phi area all my life? I will see if I can find the article