Hello everybody.I'm a new member,i'm italian and i'm interested about the italian mafia in USA.Here in italy the only ways to know about the american mafia are books and some news articles on internet.Now finally i found this forum where i can read and know a lot of interesting things.
Now i have two questions:

- i would to know the difference between made men and associates
- the made men and the associates are all and only italians?how is possible that families continue to recruit italian men?where they get all these italians today that the immigration phenomena is over?
- currently in the territory of new york there is a neighborhood populated mostly by the mafia where there are social club and italian bar as i watch in various film(donnie brasco,goodfellas,a bronx tale,sopranos)?or this is just a thing of past?

i hope i've been clear,i'm sorry for my not good english.Please answer!!!

Hello Frank, welcome to the forums. You will find here answers to almost every questions.

As for the difference between a made men and associates is simple, made men has to be italian. Nowadays your father has to be italian, in the past you had to have both parents ot Italian heritage. Associates are in all kind, they make money for the made men. And those can be Russians, Jews, and any other criminal looking for money. They wont be full mafia members. And for the other questions, ask the locals here who actually live in those kind of neighborhouds.

Welcome again
and please check my thread about the mafia families in the USA included with charts up to date.

Frank, welcome to the boards. And do not apologize for your english. It is fine.

While there are still some scattered Social clubs around NYC, for the most part it is a thing of the past. What you see in movies like Donnie Brasco is what is known as Little Italy in Manhattan. At one time Little Italy was pretty big in both how the mob occcupied it and also in the size of the area.

However over the years most of the mobsters that once ran and occupied Little Italy have died or have gone to prison. The reason that the area itself has gotten smaller is because many of the old Italians that used to live there have passed on and their children and grandchildren sold off what was left to them. The area itself is more of a Chinatown than a Little Italy.

As for associates and made men, well for the most part it is probably not that different than in Italy. An associate is just that. He is associated with the Mob or a Made Man. He is an earner without any real power. An associate does NOT have to be Italian. As for being a full blooded Sicilian to be a made man, well that used to be the case but over the years and the modernization of The Mafia, that requirement fell by the wayside for the most part.


I hope that I have answered some of your questions. Please enjoy these boards, have fun, and do not be afraid to ask for help or to ask more questions.

I look forward to your sharing, with us, the knowledge that you may have about the Italian Mafia in Napoli and in Italy.

If you really want to learn about the Mafia here in the USA, it's origins and it's rise and fall, I highly recommend a book title THE FIVE FAMILIES by Selwyn Raab

thank you for the answer Don Cardi!i'm just reading the book of Sawyn Raab and i love it,it's very complete.
i understood the story of little italy....now it's just a tourist attraction.
what you can tell me about the other italian community like bensonhurst bronx staten island?are these places of aggregation of made men like in the past?(with all my respect to the honest italian american community)

Complete Idiots guide to the Mafia, from Jerry Capeci is also a great book to understand the mafia. The Five Families may be a bit to overwhelming at first. Both books are legendary.

In the Bronx, Arthur Avenue is still overwhelmingly Italian.

In Brooklyn, Bensonhurst is still Italian and Carroll Gardens is also overwhelmingly Italian with a heavy mob influence (Frank "Punchy" Illiano and Albert "Kid Blast" Gallo seem to run the neighborhood like a fiefdom for the Genovese Family).

In Staten Island, Todt Hill is a residential community where many Italian-Americans and mobsters have historically lived.

In Queens, Whitestone (specifically Malba) is heavily Italian.

I think that Bensonhurst is Italian in name only these days. Obviously a fair few Italians left, but perhaps not enough to call it an Italian neighbourhood and apparently even Carroll Gardens is dominated by 'new young families' who moved in the 2000's.

The areas in metro NYC are Howard Beach, Queen's (at least 50-60% Italian).
Lots of neighbourhoods in the South Shore of Staten Island are Italian.
Dyker Heights, Brookly is quietly a pretty heavily Italian 'hood, if the internet doesn't lie...around 70% Italian.
Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, obviously still has a solid amount of Italians.
Morris Park in the Bronx is meant to be quite Italian, makes sense as its near to Arthur Avenue.
Of course, there are quite a few others, and you find that Italian 'neighbourhoods' don't exist too much, as a neighbourhood is a lot of people (sometimes nearly 100,000 people, but there are Italian 'streets' or 'blocks' within neighbourhoods. So the death of the Italian neighbourhood is maybe not as bad as it seems.

Of course, I am not from New York, I can only dream...so I am probably not the best source.

E ciao Frank, i miei genitori sono di napoli (che grande citta), ma sono nato a Londra. Spero che ti piace il tuo tempo qui!

I live in the Bronx, and Arthur Ave is not "overwhelmingly" Italian, there are tons of Mexicans/ some blacks and college students who have moved into the area. There are still Italian restaurants there though... I was there a few months ago.

Don't want to bother you, but you don't get the chance to ask someone who actually lives in New York too often. I mean, are there are actually still significantly Italian neighbourhoods in the city? Do Italians still live in the same area together and is the culture still alive at all?

Ciao, Frank! Your English is a lot better than my Italian.

There are still some significantly Italian neighborhoods in the five boroughs of New York, like Bensonhurst and the others mentioned. But the important thing is that those neighborhoods are not almost exclusively Italian, as they were only a generation ago. What's happened is that Southern Italians used to be very insular in their neighborhoods, always suspicious of outsiders. In that environment, Mafia activity could flourish and be kept quiet. Now Italian Americans are fully assimilated. College, not the Mob, is the career of choice for smart young Italian Americans. The Mafia gets the John and Junior Gotti's, and the Gaspipe Casso's.

Honestly, the Italian culture is alive and well in many places in the city but there aren't any real significant italian neighborhoods like the old days today. I am not saying there aren't Italians living around NYC cause there are, but those traditional Italian neighborhoods mentioned have had different influxes of groups in the past 20 yrs of so everyone from Asian, Hispanic, and Blacks. Every year less and less Italian, there are a number of Italians I saw on City Island when I last visited. NYC does have TONS of Italian restaurants (not necessarily run by Italians all the time which is sad I think.)

hello frank, I am Italian, and Naples, I joined this forum, several months ago, to answer your questions:

the difference between an associate and a made ,it that associate is not part of the family and can work for different families, the important is he can make more money, the associates may be Italian, but also black, Hispanic or other, if he is Italian by his father side ( first was required to be Italian by both parties) and makes a lot of money can be admitted into the family and become a made man, this means that if somebody want to kill him had to ask permission from the boss of his family, and other privileges.
Yes, the American Mafia can recruit italian members , in fact the gambino tried to restore the ''old bridge'' with the Sicilian Mafia, the bridge was interrupted after the bloody Mafia war of the 80s, the 2008 operation ''old bridge''didn't allow this happen.
As for the Italian neighborhoods still exist, but there are no longer the only mono-racial neighborhoods, Little Italy is about to be swallowed up by Chinatown, and it becomes increasingly difficult to find new recruits.
Spero ti esserti stato utile, se ti seve qualcos'altro mandami un messaggio privato, e bello vedere che non sono l'unico italiano in questo forum.


i'm italian,and prime minister silvio berlusconi, is not speaking in my name (furio fron naples)

I am also from NYC. While Carroll Gardens does have young families moving into the neighborhood, there are an overwhelming number of Italian businesses that are there and have been there forever, a number of VERY old-school social clubs and patron saints in front of numerous buildings and brownstones.

Arthur Avenue has suffered much the same fate of Little Italy (its is just less touristy and has been encroached upon by non-Chinese ethnicities).

I cannot vouch for Staten Island other than Todt Hill and have spent little time in Bensonhurst so I welcome the corrections.

In Queens, Malba (Whitestone), Ozone Park and Howard Beach (which I missed) are also very Italian.

thank you to all those responded.
i understand this: all the old neighboroods in nyc were dipended by the immigration phenomena that there was in the first 50years of 900'.Now immigration doesn't exists and the sons and the grandsons of the old immigrates joined completely the american community without the need to join togheter in the neighboorods. Over the years this thing will increase more and more until the disappereance of the old italian neighborood.
At the same time the mafia too disappear because the families will not have men to recruit in the disapperead neighborood.
The mafia of today is just the rest of the now far past.
IS this right or i said a bullshit?

Ciao, Frank look at your Private Message.

From my understanding, the mafia will not so much disappear, although maybe the quality and quantity of prospective new recruits will decline.
Firstly, there are certainly still large areas on the east coast of America in which Italians live, if not together, then at least in close proximity. After all, there are still almost 500,000 people born in Italy who live in America. And this means there are at least a similar number who are very Italian directly from the influence of their immigrants parents.

Secondly, very many of the next generation of mafiosi are born into the life. Just like 'Ndrangheta, you only have the trust and much easier entry into the organization if you are part of a family with a good name Many are sons or nephews of gangsters, so there is no need for them to have come from the neighbourhood. What this means is that there is a smaller group to select from, so you will have more idiots probably, but it does mean that the mafia will not disappear, at least not for a hundred years.

But yes, of course, the assimilation of Italians into America is one of the biggest, if not the biggest problems facing La Cosa Nostra. If you don't have identity and the culture, you don't have the sense of unity with other Italians. Money and having a good time becomes more important and so the young generation will easily abandon their friends to avoid jail or to make some quick money. The erosion of omerta amongst the gangster and just as importantly the neighbourhood is another result of this.

Frank, here is a link to an interesting article on this subject by Selwyn Raab, the author of the definitive "The Five Families":

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/opinio...1TDNWCdAygiqr0g

While the enclave'ish neighborhoods don't exist like they used to, the whole metro area (incl Nassau County and a lot of counties in northern NJ) are overwhelmingly Italian-American compared to anywhere else in the country. I'm exaggerating here but Staten Island as a whole has to be like 40-50% Italian-American.

There's never going to be a shortage of recruits. A shortage of quality recruits maybe. A shortage of recruits who don't understand those old cagey ways that every mob fan knows and loves, yes. But a shortage of recruits? never. as long as they fit the mold, have the ability to intimidate, run scams and take what they want from people there will always be some sort of 'mafia'even if it's on a street gang level which it probably will be. making book, loaning money and running prescription pill rings seem like the most common ways to make money for these new guys. one thing im curious about is the future of labor racketeering and whether or not the mob will have any influence what so ever over the unions in the next 25 years or so

i just wanted to say that after almost 6 months of doing nothing but reading on this board i have finanlly decided to start posting. i do read anything mafia related and of course im fascinated with the mob movies and tv shows. its great to see people that post often and post well on the boards welcome people. i always enjoy dapper don's post and his website as well. hopefully i can give insight and learn even more. my friends think i know alot about the us italian mafia, but thats because they know nothing. lol. once again thank you and look forward to talking and learning.

Welcome Phatmatress - I look forward to reading your posts.

Thank you! Its good to know that people read my posts and look at my blog. I look forward to reading your contributions/opinions on the forum as well. Best.

Yeah Dapper Don is doing a great job with his post and blog, keeps us updated.