Over in the GF Trilogy thread, Cristina posted a question about The Corleone's and Father Carmelo's relation ship with them. Her question brought to mind a true story about Joe Profaci, the olive oil king and mafia Don, and his relationship with the church.

Back in the early 70's , there was big news of a robbery of hundreds of thousand of dollars in diamonds that adorned the modonna and child of a local catholic church in brooklyn. The Monsigner was interviewed on tv and he proclaimed that the thieves would realize their error, succomb to christian charity, and return the jewels intact.


Well the diamonds were returned to the church steps in a few days and the priest was seen to give thanks to God for his intervention and asked all to pray for the souls of the repentant thieves.

The church was REGINA PACIS on 65th street in brooklyn , the church of the Profaci mob family, who donated millions to its construction. It turns out that Joe Profaci, the leader of one of the infamous' five families' of NY, adorns the celestial ceiling.


Don Cardi

Interesting. I wonder who "persuaded" the thieves to return the stuff.

Yes. And I wonder "WHAT" persuaded the church to have his image painted, along with the saints and the angels, on the celestial ceiling?


Don Cardi

Where you ever inside, DC?

I was at a wedding there about five years ago. It's HUGE inside, and absolutely gorgeous.

Actually I was baptized there. It was my parish when I was born. I also was married in that church. A beautiful church.


Don Cardi

Just to show you that the Mob can be Equal Opportunity Benefactors:
In the early Sixties, Rabbi Samuel Schrage formed the original Jewish Defense League in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Unlike the later, violent JDL under Meier Kahane, the original was a kind of "Neighborhood Watch," with members driving around the neighborhood and reporting suspicious activities to the police, and giving unescorted females rides home from subway stops.
Schrage wanted cooperation and members from the Italian side of the community. He approached Crazy Joe Gallo, who agreed at once. He called a meeting of neighborhood Italians in the street, introduced Schrage, and said, "You better listen to him--he's the Jewish Father Flanagan."
(I will bet that SC remembers this story.)

i hate to sound like an excited child on christmas morning but...

have any of you fellas ever met a known mafia member?!

Turnbull, while I don't remember the Crazy Joe / JDL event happening because I was too young and was probably getting baptized in Profaci's parish , I remember reading about it in a book that I read and also remember that story being confirmed to me by one of the people that I know from President street.

Yes, the Mafia is an equal opportunity employer.


Don Cardi

I refuse to answer on the grounds of self incrimination. I plead the 5th!


Don Cardi

Yeah, thats killing me by the way. Anytime any reference to that is brought up, it torments me to an unimaginable degree.

PM!

Yes.

Back in the 1970's, before gambling in Atlantic City, I knew Pat, and Sal, and Joe, and Blackie, who ran these poker games I used to play in.

Pat was an older man, and a real gentleman. Quiet, but well spoken when he did speak, well dressed, manicured finger nails....

Sal was a a lot rougher around the edges - all dem, dese, and dose with his heavy Brooklyn accent - and I remember he had a giant tank of tropical fish in his club....

Joe didn't really run the game that I played in that he was associated with. The game was in someones's apartment, and he was like Vito in his early days after knocking off Fanucci. He used to drop around every now and then just to let the players know that they were under his protection, and do a little loansharking there when necessary. Actually, all of these guys were happy to give a player a friendly loan at 6% a week interest....

Blackie had to be one of the dumbest guys I ever met in my life. Here he was was running a card game, and he had to have a helper because he could barely count.

Interestingly, BTW, if you read The Godfather Returns, you may remember a reference at the very beginning of the book to Two Tom's Restaurant in Brooklyn.

It's a real place, and the son of the owner used to play in Blackie's game. I went back there a few yeara ago, and the guy now owns the place, and he remembered me and Blackie.

And there's one more who must remain nameless.

(Nice avatar, BTW, Bada Bing )

Plaw, those poker games that you plyed in back then, did they happen to be in south Brooklyn?


Don Cardi

Blackie's game was on 7th Avenue in Park Slope, Pat's game was on 86th St around Bay Pkway, Sal's game was on Brighton Beach Avenue, and Joe's game was in the city on E. 58th St.

Some of the football Giants used to play in that one, BTW - you probably remember linebacker Tommy Joe Crutcher and halfback Tucker Fredrickson, and I also played there with the actor, Tony LoBianco.

I am very familiar with Blackie's game. And I also remember Pat's game on 86th and Bay Pkwy, or as it was reffered to from time to time as "Patty's" game. Wasn't Patty's game in an upstairs place under the Elevated train tracks, right off Bay Pkwy?

See my PM to you.


Don Cardi

Yeah, that's the guy...."Patty"

His game was on the north side of 86th St, just east of Bay Parkway, above a storefront. A laundromat, maybe?

I even remember the name of one of his dealers - "Debart" or something like that, and a fat old Jewish lady whose name I don't remember (Miriam, perhaps?) who was the kitchen girl.

Small world, huh? But how could you know about Patty's? I'm talking 1972 or so. You were barely out of diapers then.

As far as the game in the Slope goes, that was a few years later, around 1977-78. And now I'm thinking the guy used to be called "Blackout", not "Blackie". His "helper" was a younger guy - kinda skeevy and clearly not Italian - with blonde hair, who was naturally called "Whitey."

Another guy who used to play in Blackout's game was the guy who owned the pizza joint right across the street, just off the corner of 7th Avenue and 9th Street, so he was called "Joe Pizza."

He was an absolutely terrible player - he had no clue - and I always wanted to play him head-to-head. He always said he would, and finally early one morning the game broke up and he and I were the only ones left, so he agreed to a "freeze-out" game between just the two of us.

It's like when you get down to the final two players in a tournament on TV. We each put up $100 or $200 (big money in those days) - I don't remember for sure - and agreed to play until one of us lost the whole amount.

I cleaned him out like 1-2-3. The guy never folded a hand and I had a hot streak right from the start, and it was all over in about half an hour maybe, which, in retrospect, was probably a mistake on my part.

He immediately got up, saying something like "You're too good for me, I've had it."

Had I let him win a few pots and given him the idea that he had a chance to beat me, I might be in the pizza business today.

Another thing I remember about Blackout was that he also occasionally quoted someone a line on some game or another.

So one Saturday morning (we'd been playing since the night before) there was a college game I liked for some reason (Strange what you remember. I'm pretty sure that one of the teams was Arizona or Arizona State, and that they were favored. Don't remember the other team, though). I didn't bet on college games very often, and I guess I'd never been playing there that late on a Saturday morning, so asking Blackout what line he could get on a game had never come up.

I called my regular bookie, and he quoted me a line of like 13 points or so on the favorite, which I thought was kind of high, since that's who I wanted to bet on.

I figured maybe I could do a half a point or a point better with Blackout, so I asked him what line he could get on the game.

He makes a phone call, and comes back and tells me that the other team is favored by the same 12 or 13 points.

So I now have what Puzo called in the scene describing Carlo's bookmaking operation, "that dream of all gamblers, a 'middle'." And a huge one, besides. Gamblers go their whole lives, sometimes, and never even see a middle at all, much less one of about 24 points.

Now I was no big bettor in those days, $25 or $50 on a game maybe, but I immediately called my regular bookie and bet $500 on the underdog, and then bet another $500 with Blackout on the Arizona team, who he should have had as the favorite.

So if the Arizona wins the game by less than the spread, or loses the game by less than what they should have been favored by, I win $1000. The worst I can do I lose the $50 vig.

So, as I said, the spread was like 13 or so, and the game was on TV from the West Coast, starting at around 4:00 PM.

I go home to watch the game and - I'll never forget this - Arizona is winning the whole way by a touchdown or so, and in the last couple of minutes the other team is driving.

I'm figuring on how I'm gonna spend the $1000, when Arizona intercepts a pass around their own twenty, and the sonuvabitch runs it back for a TD, the Arizona team wins by 14, and my $1000 win becomes a $50 loss.

The only saving grace was that the way I worked with my regular guy was that we had a settlement figure of $500, meaning that we didn't pay each other unless one of us owed the other $500 or more.

Sometimes we never saw each other for weeks or months at a time.

At the time, I was a few hundred ahead of my regular guy, so the $550 loss put me a few hundred behind, but I didn't have to pay him anything yet, and meanwhile, I collected the $500 from Blackout the following Tuesday.

And the best part is that he didn't even know he'd been middled. Or, if he did, he never said anything to me.

That's how dumb the guy was. He must've booked my bet himself and not even realized that he had quoted me the line backwards.

He had two brothers, one of them a big shot. I used to stay with his brother's son. Are you familiar with RO-SALS restaurant that was on Avenue X.

Mariam. She had an Ice Cream Parlor/Luncheonette on Avenue U, where I hung out. And guess who was always in there? Patty. He had a newsstand across the street. I believe that he had a piece of the Ice Cream parlor also. Even though it was only 1972, I was old enough to know what was going on and who was who. If you read the PM I sent you then you'll understand how and why I knew these guys and of the games.

DeeBee the dealer. And Patty always had a guy with him, whom they called Hoppy.


Don Cardi

Now how many times did you frequent "Motherlodes" for a few drinks?


Don Cardi

Strangely enough, I don't know the place. I was never much of a drinker, though.

Don't know RO-SALS, though. And the only "Hoppy" I know is Hopalong Cassidy.

Yes, I forgot, you're more the restaurant type! Garlic bread, mussels, etc. LOL!

Of course I know that you remember Montes down in redhook. But are you familiar with a restauarant that was on Avenue X and McDonald Avenue called RO-SALS?


Don Cardi

Been to Monte's many times.

Monte's "Venetian Room," actually. I used to go there a lot when I first got married and we lived in the Slope. That's how I found Blackout's poker game.

Monte's didn't take credit cards, but they used to issue their own. I still have one lying around somewhere.

Cardi - I heard the same story but with Carlo Gambino, did Gambino have a similiar event or did whoever tell me just get Profaci and Gambino confused?

Whoever told you probably mixed up the Profaci story and the jewels with the theft of the poor box money at Our Lady Of Grace Church, Carlo Gambino's parish.

It was very similar in the sense that in Gambino's parish, someone stole the poorbox money. The next day word was out out on the street that every cent of the stolen money should be returned within 48 ours.


Several days later the rumor going around the neighborhood was that some drug addict stole the money. He was found by some "people" and wound up in the intensive care unit in Coney Island Hospital.

But every cent of the money was anonymously returned to the church.


Don Cardi

hehe i go to mass there on sunday