How old is too old to get involved on the streets? Say a person was never raised street wise at all, but was raised by street wise people and has that in their background and somewhat in their surroundings and has intelligence and could have connections if they wanted...How old is too old?

Remember that scene in Carlito's Way?

Carlito says something like, "You're a gangster now, Dave. They don't teach it in schools, and you can't get a late start."

Well, I hate to quote a fucking movie, but there it is. If you're already 40 years old and you grew up in North Dakota, I'd say you better take that civil service exam. Because you'll get eaten alive otherwise.

What if you're half that age?

no matter how old you keep throwing rocks at the prison they are gonna let you in

The oldest age to begin that life would be around 60 that way you atleast get a good 20 years out of it or 15. But they'll take you in at any age.

if you dont have money by the time your 50, youll never have it. when your in your 20s everything is scores and drugs. 30s is for taking action and shy locking. by your 40s you live off your crew. by the time your 50, either you move up or you propose a guy and move aside into low key legit shit. thats just the 'outline' so to speak. a lot of guys come 'around' in there fortys and fifties. who was it that wasnt even involved until there 30s or 40s? joe massino maybe?lol. if your on the street more than 10 yrs without a button your nuts. if your on the street after your forties your a damn fool.

YES best post ever.When your in your 20s and join a crew u have no rackets the only way to make money is stealing and drugs.After a while of doing that u become more respected and if u save your money u can open a book or shy lock not to mention if u get your button u will most likely have that wonderful no show job.From there if your smart your making money on top of money then u can take it eaasy or if your an idiot try to become a captain (who the fuck needs this stress)

But its also a luck thing too a guy who hooks up with say a manhatten genevese crew will have much more oppurtunity to make money than a guy who hooks up with a staten island colombo crew because the mor succesfull crew u join the more influental people u will come in contact with

I'm pretty sure it was sal vitale, massinos brother in law who didn't get involved in the life til he was in his 30's or 40's. I think there's no age limit to get inlvoled, however I feel like you have 0 chance getting involved unless you grew up around and were on the fringes of the street life. Like pizza boy said you can't be some square from Utah and think you're going to jump right in the mix. You'll get eaten alive.

Some guys are on the streets into their 80's, check out Howie Winter at 83:- http://somerville.patch.com/articles/win...tortion-charges

'Long John' Martorano too was another mobster who probably should have eased into retirement when he came out of the joint in 1999. Instead he pissed alot of people off and got clipped on his way to the doctor's aged 74 in a shooting most on here are more than familiar with I'm sure.

- Yeah, You're right. @ Sit - You don't exactly have to be in your 40s or 30s to join that, some people join old who have the brain and connection which Cosa Nostra needs.

Let me tell you something I can't speak for howie winter but the Martorano's are scum. There are 3 separate Martorano families in S. Phila they put their drug money into property and prey on young hipsters that move into Bella Vista. They bank off the old man's name. The one guy in his 50's recently just caught a beating, but that's not something you read in the paper or a police report. They don't have any clout like the Scarfo Regime. There being made fun of by Rats in court. Lawyers,Councilmen, and any public official is not going to risk their career to help these guys it just isn't worth it for them and its not like their scared of the current administration. Also the African-American Community have their own suppliers and don't need " Long Dong Silver" from 1962 to get them a kilo of dope or coke."

thank you tiger.lol. you get it though. there are no 'hard and fast' rules. just know that most guys start hanging 'around' in the late 20s, early 30s. [today i mean]. back in my day you started a lot younger. it really was a neighborhood thing. there were a lot more gangs back then. you hung out with a lot of tough guys and kids tht dreamed of being made. the bullshitters got 'weeded out' quick. if you couldnt hold your ground people would find out. now, a lot of new made guys are worried about looking 'tough' instead of being tough. and in 10 yrs, there either in a fed prison, witsec, or working a 40 hr work week like the rest of us. there are exceptions. plenty of them. but thats the majority.

to the guy who mentioned which crew, your right to. but there are bums that are with the westside. whos that colombo guy with the car dealerships? john S-------, worth 50 million dollars!if your the son of a union boss, youve got it made i dont care who your with. its all who you know. if your nephew of some skipper with a family, you got a good chance to rise fast and [possibly] make some money. if your the nephew of a baker, you got a good chance to learn how to make the other kind of 'dough'.lol.

sal vitale must be it, he worked until he was in his late 30s, completely legit work. he marries joe massinos sister, hes underboss of the bonannos in 5 yrs.lol. perfect example.

why did it blank out stapuli or how ever you spell it?

Yeah, and look what happened there .

Generally speaking, unless you have an in in your family (like Vitale did), you're not hooking up with a crew in your middle age. If you're fifty years old and no one ever heard of you, who are you going to get to trust you?

Look at this Jack Garcia guy. The guy was in his 50s, no one ever heard of him, and no red flags went up when that guy brought him around The Bronx?

Now granted, fooling Greg DePalma wasn't like slipping one past Patrick Roy in his prime. But still. The guy should have been vetted. Just as anyone that age who didn't grow up in the neighborhood should be vetted.

But then again, maybe that's one of the reasons why the mob is in the shape that it's in.

right. for all that talk about massino being smart, he did a lot of dumb shit. louie haha or tony spero should have run that family. a boss needs to be a gangster not a bizman. just my 2 cents tho.

Why do u think guys are starting later in the the life today as oppose to years ago?Do u think in your day guys actually needed to do it to survive and today the kids live at home with their parents then in their late 20s they try the life out and if it doesnt work out they dont care because they can just live at home?

Well in Howie's neck of the woods the next generation of Martoranos is not doing the Martarano name any favours either. That's something Howie would know about. Even John Martorano calls his son a bum. Earlier this year caught purse snatching in Charlestown.

James and Johnny were pretty scary back in the day though. What about George? Sounds like he needs a Philadelphia lawyer to but can't get one in Philly? No wonder he's serving his 29th year

Maybe he should hire John Berkery.

when a guy 'gets on' with a crew, hes one of two things.hes either'hungry' or hes 'scared'. if hes 'hungry', hes a 'wanna-be'. he wants the button from day 1. hes already into some shit like drugs. these guys will usually get 'on' younger and burn out faster to. they can be total pussys, and some can be real dangerous. some guys turn into the real deal. most end up burn out inside, with whats left of there crew fucking them over at every chance. the guys who come for protection are actually a lot more common than you think. a guy is a week or two behind on a loan and he gets his ass beat. he goes to a made guy.the made guy says, hes with me, you cant touch him anymore. in exchange the other guy and his 'guy' agree not to touch him and now the young guy's 'friend' is responsible for makeing him pay. usually these legit guys are made to pay some money [not always] and usually are 'groomed' into knockaround guys if they arent already. [although a true knockaround guy doesnt get his ass beat by anyone, made or not]. they usually find out that between the average cost of life, plus there 'dues',is alot of money and they start getting into 'the street' themselves. most guys end up being 'wanna-bes'.a lot of guys are working class, college drop outs who take there shot at a 'legitamtate' life. when i was younger, yes we were a lot poorer, but cosa nostra its self was a lot stronger then too. you had half a dozen hang-outs within 2 blocks of my house. you walk down 18th avenue,and you would see wiseguys from every family. its a lot different now though, half my block is italian, the other half is either mexican or chinese. [or russian]. when i was 16 some of my friends took the bus up to sunset park and robbed this small restaurant. one of them left a print somewhere, was arrested, a day later the charges were dropped. today? it would be in the daily news and the guy would be sentenced to life plus twenty or some stupid shit. in my day kids and women had shy books,if they had a 'guy' behind them, it was respected and they made money. i hung around a kid who had enough shy loans to keep 3 of us busy with pickups. these kids today cant even calculate interest points. the general nieghborhood aditude is gone. ratting is so fucking comon, it is a joke. i hate to use the movie as an example, but you know that scene in the bronx tale where calorgero denies he saw sonny kill the guy in front of the whole street? and the camera pans around and you see the whole crowd nodding in approval and saying 'what a good kid' and 'thatta boy'? thats whats missing. you dont learn those things out in nassau county or in princes bay.

i hope i answered your question.

Yeah it did answer some but where would one begin? Like, if you know people who do drugs, then they probably know someone who deals right? What I mean is, if you're totally unconnected, how would one get connected, without seeming too hard up? You don't want to come off like a wanna be and be sticking your head up some connected guy's ass, don't get you nowhere. But what do you do?

I'm asking cause I wanna write a book on this stuff. My father's helping me with some of it; He grew up in Bensonhurst back in the 60s, 70s, saw a lot of things and knew (casually, not personally) guys like Jimmy Emma and Papa Bear, and his grandfather was one of the biggest bookies and loan sharks in the neighborhood in the '30s and '40s, part of an arson ring too, and held the respect of Bensonhurst's Capo, some guy named Jack the Barber, something like that. But my great grandpa's name oddly ain't in any mob book I ever read.

If its in your blood,than its in your blood...if not...tryin to get in it,the result is goin to be catastrophic or suicidal

You don't want to come on too strong; that's for damn sure. That's an easy way to get someone to think you're setting them up (even if you're not). The most successful street guys carry around what I like to call a bit of "healthy paranoia." If they don't know you, they're not gonna sit down with you without an introduction from a mutual friend. And if you have absolutely no ties at all---to the neighborhood or otherwise---you're not going to have an easy time of it.

The truth is, years ago you'd probably put yourself in danger by hanging around where no one knew who you are just because you want to be a wiseguy. Like I posted earlier, if you're from fucking Montana or some such place, and no one ever heard of you, you're better off taking a civil service exam .

Did you grow up in New York, Willie? Or was that just your Dad and his family?

What are you talking about here? Never heard of such a thing.

I'm not a Philly guy, nor do I really follow them outside of the Bruno-Scarfo legacy. But I live in Florida part time and I've eaten at the nephew's restaurant in Fort Lauderdale a bunch of times. I think he's a nephew, anyway. I know he's related.

It's a fun place. The food is mediocre (although it's good for Florida), but the place is so full of itself with the Sinatra music and the mob movies constantly playing that you can't not have a good time. It's like being at the Feast. I'd never go to such a place up here. Too embarrassing. But down there, on vacation, it's strangely a lot of fun .

http://www.cafemartorano.com/

Jimmy Kimmell had him on his show a year or so ago. He does the rounds. Hes a big dude if I remember correctly. Looks like a jersey shore guy.

Yeah, that's him.

i am familiar with some of the guys you talk about. i grew up around the same time feel free to send me a message if you like.

The truth is, years ago you'd probably put yourself in danger by hanging around where no one knew who you are just because you want to be a wiseguy.
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Like when donnie brasco was standing outside the social club and the boss and his son come strut by and he sizes donnie up with that mean stare? That's how IMA felt when he was with the luchesse's you know just being an associate
What's he say "Stand there and look tough or something"

Honestly? Well, yeah.

I hate to reference a friggin' movie to make a point, but I've seen that same look all my life. When they don't know you, you'll sometimes get that stare if you're in one of their places.

You could always become Amish. If I was gonna muscle in on a turf I'd pick the one with bales of hay and carts that didn't have bullet proof windows. I also like the idea of waging a turf war on guys whose religion says they can't touch you or fight back n any way whatsoever. Even the rebel Amish would probably only go as far as trading a few blows as to them thats probably the Catholic equivalent of detonating a bomb.

I see em advertising their crews on the Discovery Channel. They got busted for dealing blow they scored off the Pagans. So my advice would be wade in, kick some Amish butt and work your way to the top of the Amish mob in construction rackets, hale blazing and horse trading before retiring at the top, growing your beard a little longer and using your Pagan connections to rob a Harley and get in on the OMC scene.

From this point on you may get to hear some wiseguy bitching about how rancid your breath reeks now and again. If he likes you, maybe a grunt or two.

How do you think I feel PB ? Those Luchesse Guys wanna have a sitdown with me in the BK