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.