The Most "Mobbed Up" Hood in NY?! (pre-1980)

What borough, or section of NY would you say had the most Mafia members, from Dons to associates pre-1980?

East New York (Brooklyn)? The Bronx? Lower Manhattan?

I know you "diehard", "orthodox" New Yorkers gonna have a lot to say.

Not really .

I'm just fucking with you .

Welcome to the boards.

LOL..!!

Pre 1980? There's no question and I think we all know the answer!

125th and Lenox?

Brooklyn?! I'm just taking a wild ass guess!

Pre 1980, East Harlem hands down. No area even close.

Tony Salerno, Dominick Cirillo, Angelo Prisco, Danny Leo, Ducks Carallo, Liborio Bellomo, Trigger Coppola, Sammy Santora, Jimmy Alo, Tommy Lucchese, the list is a mile long

How so? People will say East Harlem is not even that big?

It's something in the water! It's not big but there were a 100K Italians living there for years. It's fairly documented who is from there.

Who, people from Baltimore?

Stick to crabcakes, why don't you?

LOL.. He said "stick to crabcakes." Smh.. Wow! That is all we are known for? Sad.. A lot of New Yorkers live in Baltimore.

I´d say Bronx and the Bensonhurst/Dyker Heights/Bath Beach area in Brooklyn.

A lot of wiseguys in East Harlem and Lower East Side (Manhattan) too. (Pre 1980 that is.)

A joke, pal. We like to break balls here, but only in good fun .

My New York friends say South Brooklyn?

We call them Baltimorons.

I know you're playing and I'm laughing...Lol

But it is sad though..

Without a doubt pre 1980 & till this day its the Bensonhurst/Dyker/Bath Beach/Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. ALL families are still represented and at that time you had Spero, Gravano, Persico, Scarpa, Faraci, etc all using the area as their main base of operations.

What is a Baltimoron? New Yorkers who move to Baltimore are "Baltimorons", or the locals?

I have a relative down there who was a lifelong NYer before moving there. Not to Baltimore though but Towson.

The Chesapeake Bay is my favorite place to go boating. I haven't been there in a few years but hopefully this summer i'll get down there and rent a boat for a couple weeks.

I think it's a very vague question but I'll point out tht historically Bensonhurst, BK had a significant presence from all five familys

I'm not too far from Towson, but closer towards the city near Loyola University and John Hopkins.

Almost everyone in Maryland has family, friends and associates in New York, or vice-a-verse. Yankees fans down here are deep!

How could have I framed it?

Definitely...yes.

As a matter of fact, I believe the Little Italy section (Manhattan), South Brooklyn and East Harlem being the areas where the NY Mafia first established a presence in the early 1900s. As Italian population started to move out of these areas, so did the Mafia.

Baltimoron

a. Idiots who have overstayed their welcome in urban (Baltimore) Maryland and have immigrated to other states such as Pennsylvania. Baltimorons often state that they left urban life because of crime and a high cost of living. Once an area such as southern Pennsylvania becomes infected with Baltimorons, the taxes are dramatically increased and the quality of life of the natives is diminished. Once the Baltimorons realize that they have created taxes equal to their home land, the idiots end up moving back to Maryland after they have destroyed the balance of outlying communities.

a. Did you see what that neighbor did? It is okay, he is a baltimoron, he doesn't know any better.
b. Freaking Baltimorons have congested the community. It takes me 20 minutes to cross town now.
c. This used to be a nice area to raise a family till the invasion of the Baltimorons.

Also Michael and Andimo Pappadio who were big in the luchese family but rarely talked about

Brooklyn

I'll give you East Harlem for sure, The former Little Italy as well, but Brooklyn no

South Brooklyn for sure because you're not even talking about one Italian neighborhood, you're talking about a bunch of Italian neighborhoods all clustered together.

Totally agree with East Harlem. It's tough to compete with that list.

Add Benny "Squint" Lombardo, the DiNapoli brothers to the list. I will keep adding when I get counter arguments

harlem, bensonhurst

But during the earlier days didn't many of those Italian families in East Harlem and Little Italy move out to South Brooklyn, Queens and other less dense neighborhoods.

Wasn't the question posed thru/ or till 1980?

Indeed!

why did they call phil lombardo benny?

He had glasses about six inches thick. He squinted constantly I'm told

funny, thanks EHI

Because Im the fuckin Boss!

What is the main Italian section in the Bronx called? Where Vinny Basciano and Patty DeFellipo ran.

They were based out of the East Bronx, Throggs Neck in particular but really throughout the area, Vinny Gourgous lived pretty close to me growing up and thats no bullshit ask PB. Also I wouldnt reffer to the area as "Italian" entirely becouse there's a lot of others especially Irish and German nor would I say that the Bonnanos ran the neighborhood because they didn't, the other crews in the area had allot more say than them and at this point there all but extinct as a crew, of which there was only really in in the BX as oppose to the others with several(Save the Colombo's entirely)

Some claim DeFilippo´s crew was split in half around 2002, one half ended up under Basciano. Any thoughts on that claim?

Who made this claim? Is it FBI?

Nope.

So it's "street talk"?

Unsourced, no foot notes! Blasphemy!

It's more than possible that there were two crews in the Bronx for a time with one being under Vinny but if so it was mostly composed of Vinnys own guys, the crew didn't ever split in half as far as I'm aware but again I could be wrong, I have a feeling a friend of mine may know better

Who's making this claim? With no sources it's his shouldn't even be discussed.

Just following the protocol set by the experts.

I say harlem and Bensonhurst...but from 1980 on, gotta be BEnsonhurst

You're doing fine, Tony. You don't need me to echo you. But I will just a little bit .

Vinny lived at the end of Revere, right on the corner of Schurz. His beauty parlor was next to S&W Market (which used to be a bar for years and years), across the street from Tommy's pizzeria and the old Casey's.

Like Tony the Kid said, they were East Bronx based but the Bonannos hardly "ran" the neighoborhood. QD lived here forever and Prisco was based out of Westchester Square back then, so you do the math. Or fuck it, I'll do it for you: East Bronx = Genoveseland, with the Luccheses coming in a close second. If you want, call them 1 and 1a, but the Bonannos only made noise here briefly. Late '90s thru the mid 2000's. Their rise and fall here honestly mirrored Vinny B's.

And for the record, Patty D's headquarters was closer to Castle Hill than over here. The stores were all in the Westchester Avenue, Zerega, Castle Hill area. Still the East Bronx, but to be technical that area is sandwiched in between Pelham Bay and Parkchester.

That's $2 for the geography lesson, ChiTown .

Hope you are being sarcastic.

What about Ridgewood in Queens? Aren't there a lot of Sicilians there still? There certainly were when those psychos in the Cafe Giannini crew were operating out there...

Old joke ChiTown! You'll see soon enough

Are any mob guys left in Manhattan? I don't know New York at all but from what I read it's gotten so expensive that only the super wealthy can live there.

Rent control is a beautiful thing!

Definitely, Bensonhurst Brooklyn, then South Ozone Park Queens.

You guys know any big names that operated or still operate out of Belmont in the Bronx?

None. There isn't one club left.

And before you ask, I'm 53 years old, grew up at 187th and Hoffman, own a building there now and still live in Throggs Neck. Patsy still owns Rigoletto, but that place is off limits to any of that stuff.

The restaurants and stores are still Italian, but the population is almost entirely Latino today. Even most of the Albanians, who followed us to Belmont, have moved to the suburbs.

pizzaboy, I bet you've rubbed shoulders with a bunch of mob guys in your lifetime. Not saying you are old by any means but you were around back in the mob's glory days. Any good stories of bumping into guys?

I knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy. And rumor had it that he knew a guy who knew a mob guy. But it's just a rumor .

What about Howard's beach? People seem to be forgetting it

Hb is da shit! Hb is where all the guys who grew up in tenament buildings in ozp and richmond hill moved to so they could raise their kids. Post 80s, its up there with bhurst, bville, and throggsneck. But how the fuck would i know everything i get is from stalking mafia forums like a fucking fairy!

Or like a hairy. See what I did? I made a rhyme.

All in good fun

Isn't Bville like all black now? Its not exactly a great neighborhood

My b i meant the jersey bville....

not completely. italians are still there.mostly blue collar town

Pretty sure he thought i meant brownsville, bk, which is all afro american. Cant speak for joe tho.

I was skinny. I was asking because the luccheses got a crew there. But it can't still be based in Brownsville if the place is all black

It's Howard Beach, JoeSchmo. Howard beach. No possessive. A guy named Howard doesn't own the fucking place .


The Luccheses have a crew in Brownsville? I hate to break it to you, son. But the last of the Italians and Jews left Brownsville during the Nixon administration .

You're thinking of East New York, anyway. And ditto for that crew.

Schmo we've been over this Brownsville topic FIFTY TIMES! It's a square mile of projects! Period! And trust me there's nothing Italian about Brownsville anymore! It's a dump! Your talking fifty years ago! When HUD started all these areas changed!

Exactly.

And there's no Mr Brown! Mr Howard took a heart attack the day HUD was formed! So it's Howard Beach now! He didn't have kids! Ok!

Thank God for Father Lou and SEBCO. That's all I'm saying.

Good old Padre Lou! "I took an oath of celibacy, not poverty"

And he honored one of those .

And don't know! He was a sneaky one!

The man did a world of good for that neighborhood. To dismiss him as a hypocrite because of who his brothers were is beyond ridiculous.

Agree 100%, we've argued this against the masses before!

Haha I got you guys. Forgive my ignorance of NYC, I'm just a dumb fucking mick from Cape Cod. I wouldn't know any better right PB?

You said it, not me .

You know me, I'm just a curious little bugger. I remember one time I asked my dad about Greenwich Village and I pronounced it like the color green. My dad replied if I ever called it that while in NYC I'd get run out of town