Capeci is reporting that Petey Red DiChiara and the Genovese has consumed the Bonanno's old grip on the newspaper business. He also says the Petey Red operates out of a club on the Lower East Side.

Is this believable? I thought all the old LES social clubs were shuttered.

Just curious because you hardly expect to see a story that says: "Lower East Side mobsters take over newspaper business". At least not in 2014.

I thought I posted about this here. But it was on one of the other sites. Anyway, here's what I had to say about it:

They're overstating the activity at Petey Red's club. The place was closed for years. And now that he's been home awhile, I agree that he probably uses it to meet with old and trusted friends. But that's only because he's such a dinosaur. Christ, imagine getting called down there from North Jersey or Long Island just because Petey didn't get the memo that the neighborhood wasn't Italian anymore?

That club used to be open all day, every day. But today it looks like they selectively opens the doors when Petey has business to attend to. And now that this article came out, I GUARANTEE that they'll shutter it again.

Thanks pizza! Always with great info. Can I ask what neighborhood is Pete from? I saw another article online that said during supervised release, he was allowed to take exercise walks under the FDR expressway. So I'm guessing he is down by the old fish market area.

Petey is determined to be the last Italian American in Knickerbocker Village .

"Take over the newspaper business" is a stretch but there have been some cases in recent years involving the mob and the Newspaper & Mail Deliverers Union. Back in 2009 the union offices were actually raided in an investigation into ongoing corruption and mob ties. Besides getting relatives no show jobs (DiChiara and Colombo underboss Benjamin Castellazo did this most recently) the DiChiara crew was "bootlegging" newspapers by using non-union drivers to distribute stolen newspapers and magazines from which they got kickbacks. That's been a mob racket for decades.

Traditionally, the Bonannos were involved with the New York Post while the Luccheses were involved with the New York Times and New York Daily News.

A good article about some of this came out in 2001 -

http://www.villagevoice.com/2001-03-06/news/the-newspaper-racket/

Hey PB, my Aunt still lives there so there may be two Italians left, but in its day it was a great place. My cousin works for the Post with Vinny Bionics (Both grew up in Knickerbocker Village). He told me Bionics who was going away a couple of years ago had an "accident" so he could go on workers comp before he got sentenced. Hes a Bonanno guy and I don't know if he's still at the Post. My uncle and father worked for the papers, my uncle his whole life and my father on and off for years and their most interesting friend was Doug LaChance. You guys should read up on him, he was a real character and very powerful.

Well, there's a small world for you. I've posted about this here a few times, so I won't bore you with the details. But my grandfather was a typesetter for the Daily News from the '30s through the '70s. But he wasn't an active printer for half that time because he ended up being pretty heavy with the typographers (Local 6). Some of my very best memories from childhood are going to see him back in the '60s at the old News building.

I'm very familiar with LaChance. He was in distribution, of course. And he came into power long after my grandfather was gone. But he was well known throughout the industry. Big personality, love him or hate him kind of guy .

And no argument about Knickerbocker. It was a nice place to live back then. God bless your aunt for hanging in there. She must be pretty fluent in both Chinese and Spanish .

As a kid my dad would take me into the press room to see old friends and the guys would always make me those newspaper hats. It holds great memories. My grandfather was with the News and the Times since the about the same time but he was a teamster. I bet my grandfather and uncle and dad knew your grandfather. Those old timers had some great stories. Not to long ago I was walking in the neighborhood past San Giuseppe's and there were signs in Chinese hanging from it. The place is a different world now. My Aunt is older now and splits here time between Monroe Street and Long Beach.

Good thread. I love reading about historical LES Italian neighborhoods. I also thought Knickerbocker was Bonnano area but I guess there were westside guys on the eastside.

Thanks