@ JC

That was a great post on Gerry Catena. He's one of those guys I find MUCH more interesting than the guys we usually hear about.

I find it kind of funny, like you say the Genovese are supposed to be, like, the "sophisticated gentleman"... Lol, To me they have always been the snakiest family, with as many nut jobs as anyone.

Contrast Catena move on the supermarket chain with how Paul Castellano went about it. Paul actually make this seem like amateur hour shit.
Same thing, Catena has his bleach, or what ever. But no Union clout there, so no leverage with the supermarket. Castellano had his meat companies, but meat falls under the jurisdiction of the unions, cause it has to be trucked in. So Pauls move on the supermarkets was much more sophisticated.




Edit; Another example is Ettore Zappi, look at how he puts together his " Matress racket". ....

https://books.google.com/books?id=jgCpxT...ses&f=false

Just much more sophistication.....





I've never really bought into the generally accepted truths that the Genovese are a bunch of white collar gentlemen. The whole family is based on wholesale extortion of NYC, that takes a hell of a lot of fear, more than business acumen....


Also,most of Catena wealth was from coin machines, I'm pretty positive he was partners with the Outfit on a lot of those operations.....