When the Mafia ruled Times Square
The latest television series featuring Mob figures continues this fall with the second season of HBO’s The Deuce, focusing on…
New York
Joe Gallo’s ‘Crazy’ celebrity status
Though Joseph Gallo was only in his early 40s when he was gunned down, his status in American popular culture…
Eighty years ago, Ciro ‘The Artichoke King’ Terranova ‘died of a broken heart’
Eighty years ago last month, one of Mob history’s oddball characters crossed into the great gangland netherworld. Ciro “The Artichoke…
Don’t dare call him ‘Three Finger Brown’
The 1960s marked the end of an era for some of America’s underworld leaders. The forward-thinking, Prohibition-era architects of New…
The hit that could have sunk Las Vegas
On May 2, 1957, Frank Costello thought he had problems, but he had no idea. He was appealing a five-year…
El Chapo’s lawyers complain about strict rules at New York prison
The lawyers defending accused Sinaloa Cartel drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman are claiming that on its last day in…
Florida Mafia boss Santo Trafficante Jr. died 30 years ago March 17
At 7:25 p.m. on January 3, 1953, Florida Mafia boss Santo Trafficante Jr. had just finished dinner with his wife…
Seventy years ago, Luciano’s Havana sojourn was cut short
Written February 2017 In 1946, Charles “Lucky” Luciano was persona non grata in America. Though he was granted a pardon…
Fat Herbie’s rise and fall
Second of two parts. Part One looks at Herbie Blitzstein’s murder twenty years ago. Herbert “Fat Herbie” Blitzstein was born…
Too early for obituaries
The recent indictments of 46 bosses, capos and members of several marquee New York organized crime families suggests that the…