Speaker 1: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 1: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 1: written about them Geese, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every
Speaker 1: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 1: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 1: journalist and author Dan Zupansky, Good Evening.
Speaker 2: Long before Brooklyn was known as the world's hippos neighborhood,
Speaker 2: it was the deadliest, the cd dangerous under belly of
Speaker 2: New York City, where mobsters and gangs could commit murder
Speaker 2: and dump dead bodies without getting caught. For more than
Speaker 2: a hunterundred years, the Red Hook section of Brooklyn was
Speaker 2: ground zero for organized crime. Whoever controlled the peers controlled everything,
Speaker 2: from the infamous Irish gang known as the White Hand
Speaker 2: at the turn of the century to the notorious Italian
Speaker 2: Gallo brothers who ran President Street and everything else generations later.
Speaker 2: The blood soaked history of Red Hook is the story
Speaker 2: of American crime at its most powerful, corrupt, and coldly efficient.
Speaker 2: It's all here the brutal mob hits, bullet storms and
Speaker 2: backstabbings of the most colorful cutthroats to ever terrorize the streets,
Speaker 2: a rogue's gallery of killers with nicknames like the Mad Hatter,
Speaker 2: the Executioner, Wild Bill, and peg Lake. The Brooklyn bar
Speaker 2: fight that gave Al Scarface Capone his legendary scars, The
Speaker 2: godfather of America's first Sicilian crime family, whose gruesomely mangled
Speaker 2: hand good scare men half to death. And to bring
Speaker 2: it all home, the author's own eyewitness account of multiple
Speaker 2: shootings growing up as the son of a mafia bodyguard.
Speaker 2: The book that were featuring this evening is Red Hook
Speaker 2: Brooklyn Mafia Ground Zero, with my special guests, authors Frank D.
Speaker 2: Matteo and Michael Benson. Welcome to the program, and thank
Speaker 2: you very much for this interview. Michael Benson and Frank D.
Speaker 3: Matteo.
Speaker 4: Thanks Dan, thanks for having us, Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, and congratulations on this new book,
Speaker 2: Red Hook Brooklyn Mafia Ground Zero.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thanks, thanks a lot. Yeah, it was Frank's idea.
Speaker 4: First book we wrote together was called Carmine the Snake.
Speaker 4: Carmi Persico and publisher wanted to know what we wanted
Speaker 4: to do for an encore and we made a list
Speaker 4: and Frank's idea to do a book called Red Hook,
Speaker 4: which was about the neighborhood rather than about any particular gangster.
Speaker 4: Apparently the idea was ahead of its time because we
Speaker 4: ended up doing albert Anastasia. But we got around to it,
Speaker 4: and the second time I had my elevator pitched down
Speaker 4: and sold it and it's yeah. It's a book that
Speaker 4: takes place in a neighborhood in Brooklyn, a very special
Speaker 4: specific neighbors. It was initially occupied by the Lenape Indians
Speaker 4: and they were then slaughtered by the Dutch, which sort
Speaker 4: of the way RedHook stayed the whole time it was.
Speaker 4: The book has incredible body count for those that like murders.
Speaker 4: And just before the Civil War, Red Hook was a village.
Speaker 4: It was neighbors sharing a town pump, fifteen goats clattering
Speaker 4: over the cobblestones of Dykeman Street on the way to Grayze.
Speaker 4: It had feral dog. They weren't coyotes, but the kinrent
Speaker 4: acted like iotes. Wild dogs never been touched by man,
Speaker 4: and they were all over the place on the southern
Speaker 4: part of Red Hook, and they were there for more
Speaker 4: than one hundred years. It wasn't until Ikea came in
Speaker 4: with their big department store that they finally wiped out
Speaker 4: the very old dog problem. But you know, Frank likes
Speaker 4: to talk about Red Hook like it's the Old West,
Speaker 4: and the fact that there are wild dogs running around
Speaker 4: just seems to make it more atmospheric. Could almost imagine
Speaker 4: a tumbleweed going by, but they didn't have those in
Speaker 4: Red Hook. But red Hook, red Hook was where the
Speaker 4: docks were, so that brought in an organized crime, first
Speaker 4: the Irish and then the Italians.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned the White Hand, so tell us about
Speaker 2: the Black Hand and the White Hand.
Speaker 4: Well that the White Hand was Irish gangs that ran
Speaker 4: the docks during the first part of the twentieth century.
Speaker 4: Compared to the Italians that come in there are pretty civilized.
Speaker 4: But there were an awful lot of murders. Mostly the
Speaker 4: head of the White Hand would get bumped off by
Speaker 4: the guy who wanted to be the head of the
Speaker 4: White Hand, and they just they just ran through leaders
Speaker 4: like crazy. From John Moroney in nineteen twelve to while
Speaker 4: Bill Lovett in nineteen twenty three, peg leg down again
Speaker 4: in nineteen thirty, it's eighteen years of every guy, I mean,
Speaker 4: nobody gets to retire. Everybody dies in the line of duty.
Speaker 4: When you're the head of the White Hand, and it's
Speaker 4: all internal. I mean there was a White Hand versus
Speaker 4: Black Hand war as well, which was also bloody, but
Speaker 4: the White Hand did itself in. They would drink too
Speaker 4: much and go out and shoot. There's one scene where
Speaker 4: there are three guys vying for the leadership of the
Speaker 4: White Hand standing on a dock and they draw straws
Speaker 4: to see who will be the boss, and the guy
Speaker 4: that wins then gets shot by the other two. He
Speaker 4: was the leader for bight nine seconds maybe tops.
Speaker 2: You talk about all the leadership that came and went
Speaker 2: in this Red Hook, over this enjuring this one hundred years,
Speaker 2: and you take us to some of the things that
Speaker 2: the gangs concentrated on, and you talk about the physical
Speaker 2: girl market. Just tell us a little bit about this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they and that I was pretty shocked by this.
Speaker 4: In Red Hook, there was like a store where you
Speaker 4: went to buy girls and they were cheaper than steers,
Speaker 4: cheaper than cheaper than cattle, and you could go and
Speaker 4: it was it was an auction, you know. They put
Speaker 4: them up there on the stage and the girls were
Speaker 4: mostly you know, kidnapped and brought there. Most of the
Speaker 4: ones who were sold in Red Hook were brought in
Speaker 4: from other places, and girls who were kidnapped in Red
Speaker 4: Hook were then taken someplace else to be sold because
Speaker 4: they found it was easier to keep them captive if
Speaker 4: they didn't know where they were. That's that's the kind
Speaker 4: of primitive world we're dealing with.
Speaker 2: Back then, you write about notorious gangsters like al Capone.
Speaker 2: He went to school in Red Hook, back in South Brooklyn,
Speaker 2: and later on his mission was what you write.
Speaker 4: He was a catalyst for change. Yeah, al Capone grew
Speaker 4: up in Brooklyn. He got his he got his famous
Speaker 4: scars on his face in Coney Island and a knife fight.
Speaker 4: He insulted some guy's sister and he kicked the guy
Speaker 4: came up with a knife. He got married in Red Hook.
Speaker 4: He suffered from syphilis, and his son was born with
Speaker 4: congenital syphilis. That he was. He went to Chicago for
Speaker 4: a while because he was, you know, doing things for
Speaker 4: the Chicago boys. But they sent him back to make
Speaker 4: sure that the Irish weren't in charge of the Brooklyn
Speaker 4: docks anymore. So he's, uh, he's in Brooklyn and his
Speaker 4: son is getting an operation on his ear, something to
Speaker 4: do with the congenital syphilis and al Capone's in a
Speaker 4: in a club just on the other side of the
Speaker 4: Guanas Canal from Red Hook. In walks peg leg Don
Speaker 4: again limps in because he's got his nickname because he
Speaker 4: fell in front of a trolley car when he was eight.
Speaker 4: And this is three am on December two, twenty sixth
Speaker 4: now Marry Christmas, and peg Lake comes in, starts saying
Speaker 4: some stuff about Italians, and lights go out. It's gunfire.
Speaker 4: Lights come back on again, places emptied out and peg
Speaker 4: Lake down again. A couple of his friends are dead
Speaker 4: on the floor, and after that the black Hand moved in.
Speaker 3: I think Frankie Yale was with him that night at
Speaker 3: that the Donna's Club when they did that kill him.
Speaker 4: Try it's called the Adona's Club, that's right.
Speaker 5: Yes, I think it was Frankie Yale was dealing with him.
Speaker 4: And Frank Yale gets whacked by a crew that includes
Speaker 4: Frank Costello. So you know, life goes on, Yeah.
Speaker 3: That's how it works.
Speaker 2: You also write about another figure in this story, the
Speaker 2: Mad Hatter, m Berto Anastasia.
Speaker 4: He was a young man in Red Hook. He killed
Speaker 4: His first kills were in Red Hook, and he himself
Speaker 4: was wounded as a young man in red Hook, which,
Speaker 4: interestingly it happened the corner of Henry and Sacket Streets,
Speaker 4: where I lived for two years in the late seventies.
Speaker 4: I lived in red Hook for a couple of years.
Speaker 4: Real estate agents had renamed the uppermost portions of red
Speaker 4: Hook to remove the stigma and get better prices for
Speaker 4: the property. So Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, it's all red
Speaker 4: Hook geographically. And yeah, I lived above Mark's Pharmacy, looking
Speaker 4: right down on the corner across the street from Camerary's Bakery,
Speaker 4: which is featured in the movie Moonstruck.
Speaker 5: What deal was that when you lived down in Theahwood.
Speaker 4: The seventy nine and eighty and they used to tell
Speaker 4: me don't go on the other side of the expressway,
Speaker 4: And now I know it's because you were there. That's right,
Speaker 4: whatever you do, don't go over there by President Street.
Speaker 4: There's tough guys there.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: We had Kami's Bakery right a cross street from where
Speaker 3: you lived, that's right right right right there.
Speaker 5: We had a social club, a time social club right
Speaker 5: next door to.
Speaker 4: That, yeah, right, yeah, and your guys used to parade
Speaker 4: at three in the morning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was up and.
Speaker 4: Down the street, waking everybody up, banging pots.
Speaker 5: We don't sleep, and the press and the precinct was
Speaker 5: right on the corner, right around the corner.
Speaker 4: Yes it was.
Speaker 5: It was a It was a good neighbor when you
Speaker 5: lived there.
Speaker 3: It wasn't bead.
Speaker 4: Oh No, I had a good time.
Speaker 2: You mentioned the President Street Boys, and and also we
Speaker 2: should be talking about the Gallows, the Gallo brothers parents,
Speaker 2: Albert and Mary Gallo, So tell us about the President's
Speaker 2: Street Boys and it's relation to Red Hook. Where is
Speaker 2: the President Street?
Speaker 3: Before the Gallows got involved the gall Of brothers, there
Speaker 3: was always gangs in the neighborhood and there was a
Speaker 3: crew of you know, young guys called the pressure Sreet
Speaker 3: Boys well before the Gallup Blaters came there. So when
Speaker 3: the Gallup Bluter's got there, you know, there was gangs already,
Speaker 3: they just organized them a little better. The three tough
Speaker 3: guys from you know, from Brooklyn that wind up, I
Speaker 3: think they're from Kenningston, originally part of Brooklyn, and they
Speaker 3: went downtown because their family had some property on President Street,
Speaker 3: and they wound up just kept on buying on President
Speaker 3: and wound up building a little fortress down there, and
Speaker 3: three brothers that were very influential came up to the
Speaker 3: ranks with the Joe Pafacci and the crazy guys have
Speaker 3: made a name for themselves.
Speaker 2: Michael, tell us about this what considered crazy Joe Gallo,
Speaker 2: and you say he was there personified, and tell us
Speaker 2: about the Profacci crew as well.
Speaker 4: The thing about Joey was nobody knew just how crazy
Speaker 4: he really was. And as Frank once said, and I
Speaker 4: think he puts his finger on it is, Joey's insanity
Speaker 4: had its own intelligence. He was kind of a split personality,
Speaker 4: but both sides were three dimensional in full, and he
Speaker 4: could switch back and forth. He could be charming, he
Speaker 4: could hang out with celebrities and be one of the
Speaker 4: hip and in crowd, shining like a star. And at
Speaker 4: the other the other end of the spectrum, he could
Speaker 4: be just a tremendous sadist, killer, torture, just a tremendously
Speaker 4: bad guy, a guy who never had any trouble getting
Speaker 4: people to pay their bills.
Speaker 2: You said that crazy Joe made this Profaci very very nervous,
Speaker 2: and so as a result, what you chronicle, what did
Speaker 2: Profacci do with Joey Gallo?
Speaker 4: Perfacci. Profacci was a successful businessman. He was he had
Speaker 4: an oil olive oil empire, and he was one of
Speaker 4: the ran one of the five families of New York.
Speaker 4: Joey made him nervous. He thought that Joey might be
Speaker 4: on drugs, so he kidnapped him and held him in
Speaker 4: a room to get him to see if he would
Speaker 4: withdraw from whatever, goofballs or whatever he thought he was
Speaker 4: on and said there weren't any drugs, there was nothing
Speaker 4: to withdraw from. But by the time they let Joey go,
Speaker 4: he hated Profacci's guts. I mean he just hold me
Speaker 4: captive for three days to find out if I'm using drugs.
Speaker 4: That's yeah, just check my arms. So and that that
Speaker 4: that started a war. After that, Joey didn't want to
Speaker 4: be part of the Profaccis. Want to be his own thing,
Speaker 4: want to be his own boss, want his brother Larry
Speaker 4: to be the boss. He would just be the the
Speaker 4: X factor, the the right hand man who did most
Speaker 4: of the moving and shaking. Frank's dad got his start
Speaker 4: in the in the life being Larry Gello's bodyguard, which
Speaker 4: tell us about that Frank.
Speaker 3: Well, my father was a bouncer in the early late
Speaker 3: fifties for Tony Bender. Larry and Joey would try and
Speaker 3: when they were trying to break away from joe Brafacci
Speaker 3: to we're getting some help from the Genervesi family, and
Speaker 3: they would go up to the bar to go see
Speaker 3: you know, to see him. So what happened was my
Speaker 3: father was bouncing there and he wound up meeting the
Speaker 3: Galla brothers. They took a liking to my father, and
Speaker 3: he wound up coming back to Brooklyn and wound up
Speaker 3: being a bodyguard for Larry sixty one to sixty eight.
Speaker 3: They were very, very very close until Larry's death.
Speaker 4: How old were you when you saw your first murder, Frank.
Speaker 3: I was six. I was six. I was on the
Speaker 3: corner of Fourth d Avenue and Union Street, coming out
Speaker 3: of that apartment building. Me and my mother were visiting someone.
Speaker 3: A couple of guys on the corner got to an
Speaker 3: argument and one shot the other. You know, Like I
Speaker 3: always say, I tell the story, it wasn't that dramatic,
Speaker 3: you know. It was it was bang bang guy from
Speaker 3: the floor, you know, and I wished away.
Speaker 4: I mean, I I got you out of there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my god, idea because the shots being fired. But
Speaker 3: I found out who the guy was later on that
Speaker 3: we knew the guy, you know, from a closer street.
Speaker 3: I didn't know who it was, and it happened so fast,
Speaker 3: but you know, the next day that find out who
Speaker 3: it was, and then I know the story afterwards. But
Speaker 3: it was I always said, it wasn't that. It wasn't
Speaker 3: that scary or frightening. You know. I just didn't get
Speaker 3: affected by it at all.
Speaker 4: It'd be a better story if you were traumatized. But
Speaker 4: if that's okay, well, yeah, that's not the only time
Speaker 4: they were shooting in your vicinity. Twice snipers cut down
Speaker 4: somebody was standing near you on President Street, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean MBO got shot at. We got
Speaker 3: during the war in the seventies, we got shot at.
Speaker 3: I lost a beautiful nineteen sixty six Cadillac. They put
Speaker 3: it about half a dozen bullet holes for us. Thank god,
Speaker 3: will they shoot well? But yeah, we got shot at.
Speaker 3: Guys got shot at next to me, you know, down
Speaker 3: the block for me, or on the same block as us.
Speaker 3: I was on the corner with the with Punchy Leano
Speaker 3: Frank Leana when they shot him in the neck. Sniper
Speaker 3: from down the block. So you know, that was a
Speaker 3: little scary and tell you true, you know, because you
Speaker 3: don't know where the bullets were coming from. You had
Speaker 3: a duck on the floor and scatter. But you don't
Speaker 3: get scared, you know, you get the more frustrated mad
Speaker 3: than scared.
Speaker 5: But it's it's an experience.
Speaker 4: Well, that's why I think mafia books are different from
Speaker 4: other true crime books is it's more like armies at
Speaker 4: war than it is like, you know, murderers and victims. Well,
Speaker 4: we shoot Juli, you shoot back. That's the way. That's
Speaker 4: the way it goes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because it's it's a mentality.
Speaker 3: It's not just you know, it's really a mentality that
Speaker 3: this is a business and everything goes when in it murder, beatings, robbing, stealing,
Speaker 3: whatever you want to call it. And it's they actually
Speaker 3: believe it's structured that way, and it's right.
Speaker 4: There's a big chunk of the book about juvenile delinquency
Speaker 4: in Red Hook and how the street corner truants of
Speaker 4: yesterday become the big boyhoods of today. A dis proportionate
Speaker 4: number of juvenile delinquents in Brooklyn lived in Red Hook
Speaker 4: from most of the twentieth century schools were a war zone.
Speaker 4: And you asked earlier about the geographic nature of Red
Speaker 4: Hook and where President Street was. President Street was right
Speaker 4: on the docks, just north of the Battery Tunnel and Redhooks,
Speaker 4: I think stays the way it is because when Robert
Speaker 4: Moses cut up Brooklyn, he kind of isolated. It's now
Speaker 4: an island. It's very difficult to get in and out
Speaker 4: of Battery Tunnel, Brooklyn, Queen's Expressway going on as Canal,
Speaker 4: Buttermilk Channel and the Lower New York Bay all border it,
Speaker 4: and they are all things that drivers and pedestrians have
Speaker 4: difficulty getting across. So there's a little bit of a
Speaker 4: fortress feel with a motor around it to Red Hook,
Speaker 4: which was not impregnable obviously since the shooters got in
Speaker 4: there and then did their damage.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the Gallows and the Profacis where the
Speaker 2: Profacis were assigning the brothers to one of the biggest
Speaker 2: hits in mob history, and that's the hit on albert Anastasia.
Speaker 2: So tell us where they're at at that time. You
Speaker 2: say that Prafaci is afraid of Joey Gallo, but they're
Speaker 2: employing them to do like as you write one of
Speaker 2: the most the biggest hits in mob history.
Speaker 3: Afraid of him, worried about him. These guys worry about
Speaker 3: every guy around them because when you're on top, everybody
Speaker 3: wants your spot. So Joey being out of the box,
Speaker 3: you do worry about him a little more. But they're
Speaker 3: very Joey and very useful to Perfacci. So these guys
Speaker 3: are greedy, they don't They use you as much as
Speaker 3: they can. So when they had to do the hit
Speaker 3: on abananis Asia, the way I get the story by
Speaker 3: sitting with these guys is that Pafacci gave Joey, Larry, Joe, Jelly,
Speaker 3: and Carmen Persaco the hit the goal to co kill
Speaker 3: Albert because those they were young, they were making their
Speaker 3: bones at the time, and they get the assignment. And
Speaker 3: that's why Larry, Joey and Calmen persaal got their buttons
Speaker 3: right after that explained as that Patch wasn't really crazy
Speaker 3: about Joey, and right after that hit he got Joey
Speaker 3: got straightened out. I mean, it's so obvious that he
Speaker 3: heard his button and that in those days, that's how
Speaker 3: he had had to earn it. So that's why I
Speaker 3: you know fully believed it, and then sitting with the
Speaker 3: guys who to the guys that did the killing.
Speaker 5: They never came out said it, but they make them.
Speaker 3: Yeah what they call little what's the world? And she
Speaker 3: went those.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you would hate them, yeah.
Speaker 3: And or someone else would say that guy did that,
Speaker 3: you know so I mean, and you.
Speaker 5: Don't go around you can't in this life.
Speaker 3: You can't go around saying that you did something like
Speaker 3: that and not do you'll be laughing stock. Or you're good,
Speaker 3: get yourself in trouble.
Speaker 4: So tell that to the Irishman exactly exactly.
Speaker 5: So it was a big hit for them and that's
Speaker 5: how they got straightened out.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about how your father, Rick de Matteo comes
Speaker 2: into the picture after all of this violence in Red Hook.
Speaker 3: Well, my father came to picture clothes. They were on
Speaker 3: the breakaway with Joe Bafacci. They needed more bodies. My
Speaker 3: father being an xboxer and and a tough guy at
Speaker 3: the time, they recruited more guys and you wind up,
Speaker 3: you know, being with Larry and being his bodyguard. And
Speaker 3: then during the war they wind up fathers one of
Speaker 3: the shooters on the on a commons hit when they
Speaker 3: shot him with an event, and when they had a
Speaker 3: vanda and went to go kill Carmine, he was on that.
Speaker 3: So he had to leave for a few months because
Speaker 3: Carma lived up through that that hit. So he went
Speaker 3: away to California for about four or five months and
Speaker 3: lived in clid Clear And it was just very instrumental
Speaker 3: of being with Larry until Larry died and then he
Speaker 3: wound up being with Albert Galla.
Speaker 2: Now tell us about your childhood and Red Hook and
Speaker 2: how you became involved with this crew as well.
Speaker 3: My father was Larry Gallow's bodyguard. My uncle is Joe
Speaker 3: Chappani which is Jenny Veci. That was that was with
Speaker 3: Joe Adonis and and Frank Costello and Lucky and Lucky Luciano.
Speaker 3: So I mean, and my godfather Bobby bo Giovanni which
Speaker 3: is Bobby Davio, was straight up murderer hit me in
Speaker 3: the for the crew. So yeah, being brought up on
Speaker 3: these guys, you you pick up the trade to pick
Speaker 3: up their mannerisms even if they're you know, not even purposely.
Speaker 3: And then when you grow up, you know, some guys,
Speaker 3: parents keep guys away from things, and some other parents
Speaker 3: bring guys in if they see things that they that
Speaker 3: they notice, things they like about something. I wand up
Speaker 3: being when I was old enough to start driving, I
Speaker 3: want to driving my father around.
Speaker 4: You're like thirteen, right, thirteen years old?
Speaker 3: Yeah, thirteen years old drive my father around. Then I
Speaker 3: started driving Joe Chepperound and Bobby and my and my
Speaker 3: godfather Bobby.
Speaker 5: That's why I started. You started by driving doing flunky stuff.
Speaker 3: You go to the stores, you want to make errands,
Speaker 3: and then you start picking up money, and then you start,
Speaker 3: you know, doing stuff that that's not legal. And then
Speaker 3: being around that life, especially downtown Brooklyn, you get to
Speaker 3: know people. People come to you, they know you with
Speaker 3: Joey Gallo or they know you're without, but they come
Speaker 3: to you with things. They come to you with scores,
Speaker 3: They come to you with the things that do and
Speaker 3: try to fence things from you and try to to you.
Speaker 3: So you just give them hom deeper, deeper into this life,
Speaker 3: you know, and being a younger guy, and then when
Speaker 3: being on these older guys and then you read things
Speaker 3: about them and then you see their mannerisms and then
Speaker 3: you see them in action. Either you're gonna run away
Speaker 3: or you're gonna You're gonna jump in fully. I wind
Speaker 3: up jumping fully because I was very close to my father.
Speaker 3: I just took the whole ride.
Speaker 2: Let's just this as an opportunity to stop to hear
Speaker 2: these messages. Now, let's talk about this ongoing. What you
Speaker 2: mentioned was Carmine Persico and his name was the Snake
Speaker 2: later on, and you can tell us why he earned
Speaker 2: that nickname the Snake. Tell us Michael about Carmine Persico.
Speaker 4: Well, Carmi Persco is a really smart guy. He was
Speaker 4: the leader of a gang from the time he was
Speaker 4: a kid. He ran with the with the guard Field Boys.
Speaker 4: Not a poor kid. He didn't need to be a gangster.
Speaker 4: Now Dad had a white collar job. He was a
Speaker 4: court reporter. Carmine wanted to be a hood and his
Speaker 4: brothers followed him. He was involved in a gang rumble
Speaker 4: in Prospect Park in which a kid was shot and killed.
Speaker 4: That was probably the incident that led to the movie
Speaker 4: West Side Story, which is interesting because then later on
Speaker 4: in life, when he pretends to be friends with the
Speaker 4: present street boys but turns on them by trying to
Speaker 4: kill Larry Gallo and earns the name of the Snake.
Speaker 4: That scene appears in the Godfather so there's some life
Speaker 4: to have. Things that you did show up in two
Speaker 4: major motion pictures like that. It was a trendsetter. He
Speaker 4: pretended to be with the in the Street Boys right
Speaker 4: up until the time that there was an attempted hit
Speaker 4: on Larry Galo's life, which left him with a permanent
Speaker 4: scar around his neck and a voice that sounded like
Speaker 4: he was gargling with rocks. And you can't ignore the
Speaker 4: fact that Larry went on to die of throat cancer.
Speaker 4: So Carmi might have killed him slowly with that incident,
Speaker 4: and from then on he was a target. Carmine the
Speaker 4: Snake was a target of the President street Boys tried
Speaker 4: to blow him up, as Frank mentioned, tried to shoot him.
Speaker 4: He was on the sidewalk spitting out a bullet. He
Speaker 4: earned the nickname the Immortal. You know, he was still
Speaker 4: alive when we started writing about him a few years ago.
Speaker 2: Tell us more about Carmine Persico and this hunt for
Speaker 2: Carmine and this vendetta against him by the President of
Speaker 2: Street Boys.
Speaker 4: That's you, Frank.
Speaker 3: Well, after Limby got strangled at the Sahara was open
Speaker 3: hit on anybody, the Pafaccico. So what happened was the
Speaker 3: guys just laid out for Carmine because you know, Joey
Speaker 3: and Larry and Albert were very close with the Carmine.
Speaker 3: Carmine broke away at the end because other big boys
Speaker 3: got in his ear and says, you were making the
Speaker 3: win this battle, this war. You go stay with the
Speaker 3: perfacci and be a smart move. Forget about liking him,
Speaker 3: don't liking them or liking your friends, and not like
Speaker 3: your friends. This is the world you got to be in.
Speaker 3: And Carmin made the right movie still with the big boys,
Speaker 3: and that's what happened. So anyway, everybody was upset about
Speaker 3: that because you know, when your friend betrays you like that,
Speaker 3: it's a little more upsetting than a stranger come and
Speaker 3: doing it. So there's there was a hit on Carmine
Speaker 3: from the beginning, so they just planned it. And the
Speaker 3: first time they did it, they went to go kill
Speaker 3: Carmine and you know, they try to blow him up,
Speaker 3: and then what happened was the momb went down and
Speaker 3: staid up. They messed up and he lived though it.
Speaker 3: You know, he got hurt real bad, but he lived
Speaker 3: through it. And then the second time, you know, and
Speaker 3: then it was months and months and months they tried
Speaker 3: to get close to him, and Tomain was being smart and.
Speaker 5: Laying low, having a lot of guys around him.
Speaker 3: And then the second time they pulled up in a
Speaker 3: in a in a van and tried to kill him
Speaker 3: with the shooter, back door windows, and I mean they
Speaker 3: hit him a few times, but I mean he lived
Speaker 3: again hit. I forget who's in the car when him
Speaker 3: got hit too, but and.
Speaker 5: He just he lived through that one too.
Speaker 3: And right after that Joey uh got a sentenced and
Speaker 3: went to jail, and everything calmed down a little bit.
Speaker 3: Right after that, when I think it was sixty two
Speaker 3: or sixty three, when Joey went to jail, everything pretty
Speaker 3: much stopped it. I mean they tried to kill Joey
Speaker 3: between it, before he went to jail, they tried to
Speaker 3: hit Joey and they missed. And then Joey again. They
Speaker 3: thought they had Joey gould Uglage driving somebody was driving
Speaker 3: Joey's car and it went to hit him, but they
Speaker 3: missed that too. I mean, every lot of a lot
Speaker 3: of guys were missed. I mean that's why the joke
Speaker 3: with the with the with the guy that couldn't shoot
Speaker 3: straight over here because it was more Missus than hits.
Speaker 4: Well, there was a lot of drinking and shooting going on,
Speaker 4: wasn't there.
Speaker 5: You know, you know, you know, I tell you to shoot.
Speaker 5: A lot of drinking afterwards.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, okay, yeah, well winners drink after work. Losers
Speaker 4: drink before work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: I don't know how to say it, but I saw
Speaker 3: a few things and nah, but then again, these guys
Speaker 3: a little potheads. The guy should smoke pot like I
Speaker 3: smoked cigars.
Speaker 2: You have a scene with Joey when he pays a visit.
Speaker 2: He approaches a judge at a restaurant to tell us
Speaker 2: about this incredible scene.
Speaker 4: Michael, Oh yeah, it's it was right, Frank. You may
Speaker 4: remember the name of the place. It's It was on
Speaker 4: President's Street. But the black hole fellows, Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 4: think yesterday. Yeah. And the judge and who was presiding
Speaker 4: over Joey's cases, sitting there having having lunch, and Joey
Speaker 4: walks in, of course, makes everybody very nervous. Joey's comes
Speaker 4: at him in a very civilized way. Judge, I like you, You're
Speaker 4: a strong man. You do what you think, And I
Speaker 4: think Joey was being sincere hit some demand, the judge said,
Speaker 4: gave him the legit way to go about getting that done,
Speaker 4: and Joey said, well, thank you and walked out and
Speaker 4: apparently got what he wanted out of the deal. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm sure that everybody needed to use the men's room
Speaker 4: the second that Joey was gone, because that must have
Speaker 4: just been terrifying.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, Joey was Joey. They they call him crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy.
Speaker 3: Joey was smart as a whistle. I mean he was
Speaker 3: smart Joey when he you know, they put they portrayed Joey,
Speaker 3: you know on movies and just shows, and I showed
Speaker 3: just a wild, no gleaming, crazy man when you sat
Speaker 3: down with joe joe wasn't like that. Joey sat down
Speaker 3: and spoke to you in a sentences, I mean, very
Speaker 3: strong demeanor. We looked at you, you turn your face,
Speaker 3: but but spoke really well, you know, crazy as far
Speaker 3: as his belief were crazy, just like thousands of other
Speaker 3: guys that were crazy. I mean crazy is when guys
Speaker 3: chopped people up for no reason, called them crazy, you know.
Speaker 3: Joey was that was his business. That's how he got
Speaker 3: brought up and that's what he believed in, you know,
Speaker 3: within that circle. But he spoke, you.
Speaker 5: Know, as normal as anyone anybody else.
Speaker 4: Well, later in life he gets along really well with
Speaker 4: show business figures and literary figures. He's kind of moving
Speaker 4: with the with the illuminati in Manhattan for a while.
Speaker 5: Close to Jerry.
Speaker 3: O're back at the end, Yeah, close, because we wound up,
Speaker 3: we wound up having a few parties with with Jerry
Speaker 3: and his wife. In fact, Jerry's wife Martha. It was
Speaker 3: Martha she to Bobby Bobby ELO's wing shower. That's how
Speaker 3: close we all got, you know. So he was it
Speaker 3: was well, like listen, they were like Joey too, because
Speaker 3: Joey was a gangster at first. But then when they
Speaker 3: got a little frindly and frontier, you know, people started
Speaker 3: liking each other, you know, and then Joey's mannerisms were
Speaker 3: were impressive. You know, I mean it's it's he's got
Speaker 3: manierisms that if it's something that you don't have, you want,
Speaker 3: you know, you're trying to emulate. Now.
Speaker 5: They were very very you know, trend setters.
Speaker 4: When Joey testified before Congress, he did it with sunglasses
Speaker 4: and a cigarette hanging off his lower He was a trendsetter.
Speaker 3: Joey was always a trend setter.
Speaker 4: He was ready for his magazine cover.
Speaker 5: It was Larry was low key, you know, but Joey
Speaker 5: was out there.
Speaker 2: That's as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
Speaker 2: Now you talked about Joey and court and with the
Speaker 2: sunglasses and his arrogance. But he gets ten years and
Speaker 2: like you say, it was relatively calm on President Street
Speaker 2: and in Red Hook while he was gone. But Joey
Speaker 2: gets released from prison and then the action starts, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: Well, joe When Joey goes away, A lot of things happen.
Speaker 3: Whenin that time when Joey got it, goes away and
Speaker 3: he gets convicted, Tobefacci dies is on the boss. I
Speaker 3: think it's uh Magadino. He wants to getting into himself
Speaker 3: in trouble, having a heart attack and dying. And they
Speaker 3: put the Joe Colombo in charge of that family. So
Speaker 3: everything there was a lot of things going on. So
Speaker 3: things were calming down, and that's why I was coming
Speaker 3: down because the structure was breaking on deb on their end.
Speaker 3: None a time go looking shoot people because things were happening.
Speaker 3: So what happened was right after they appointed joe Colombo
Speaker 3: as boss, they tried to sell it, sell everything. Joey
Speaker 3: was in jail, Larry was in the street running the
Speaker 3: gallow crew, and Larry was you can speak to him
Speaker 3: and negotiate with him, and they pretty much calmed everything down.
Speaker 5: They let the gallows alone, let them go earned on
Speaker 5: the docks, or let them go on Red Hook.
Speaker 3: Let's stop Brooklyn Atlantic gavernor go do go, do your numbers,
Speaker 3: go do whatever you're doing. We'll leave you the hell alone.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean. It was get get, get
Speaker 3: them out of here. Colombo's hair. And that's why it
Speaker 3: was quiet until Joey got home. So from sixty to
Speaker 3: three to seventy one, it was quiet because Larry had
Speaker 3: no Larry had no problem with the with Colombo. And
Speaker 3: then after Larry died, Albert Albert didn't have Albert Gato
Speaker 3: had no problem with Colombo. And then when Joey came out.
Speaker 3: You know, Joey was actually the head of the If
Speaker 3: the lobby died, Joey was in charge, but being in jail,
Speaker 3: Albert was in the streets, so he was one of
Speaker 3: the true wings fact.
Speaker 5: Joey to get out. So once Joey gets out, he
Speaker 5: takes over the rains again.
Speaker 3: Joey didn't like Joe Colombo being made in that, you know,
Speaker 3: as a boss, so he never sanctioned. In his mind,
Speaker 3: he never sanctioned it. He started arguing as soon as
Speaker 3: he got out of jail. He started arguing with Joe.
Speaker 4: Tell tell a story about you're on the block with
Speaker 4: Gumby and the big car pulls up.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well when Joey got when Joey first got
Speaker 3: to jail, you know, us being younger guys, we're always
Speaker 3: on the block. We'll always you know, on that block
Speaker 3: Preasutry between uh you know, Columbia van Brunt. Almost half
Speaker 3: the block was ours, you know, restaurant, lunch and nets,
Speaker 3: barber shops, candy stores, clubs, clubs, clubs, clubs, and empty lots.
Speaker 3: So we're down there a lot. So we were, me
Speaker 3: and Boomba Deer, which is another kid from the neighborhood
Speaker 3: living on the block.
Speaker 5: We were there just hanging around and big club pulls up.
Speaker 3: It has to be Joey. Joey comes out of the
Speaker 3: car with Pete the Greek, and I think it was
Speaker 3: Bobby bow Yellow picked him up. It might even be
Speaker 3: his nephew Stevie that just passed away. I think he
Speaker 3: might have went there too. Anybody pulled up and Joey
Speaker 3: gets out of the car and it's speaking for a minute,
Speaker 3: and mean Booby is right there. And he turns around
Speaker 3: to me and goes to Ricky's son. I said, yeah,
Speaker 3: he goes, where's daddy, And I said, I have no
Speaker 3: idea where he is right now, because okay, and he
Speaker 3: turns around. He goes to me. He goes, don't forget
Speaker 3: everything ever happens, you know, dude, this club is your
Speaker 3: is your home. He pinched my cheek and he runs inside.
Speaker 3: He turns around, he goes, oh, by the way, do
Speaker 3: me a favorite. Make sure you clean the car, and
Speaker 3: me and goomb had to wash the car down. That's
Speaker 3: and that's how that we met Joey that day coming
Speaker 3: out of jail.
Speaker 4: And he looked bad read he had no hair and
Speaker 4: his eyes were sunking into his head.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was thin.
Speaker 3: It was thin at the time, but he had those eyes.
Speaker 3: He had those eyes and that and those facial expressions
Speaker 3: that never go away. But he was thin. And when
Speaker 3: he was I was like eight when he left, eight
Speaker 3: eight nine when he left, so and he you know,
Speaker 3: he looked bigger than but you know, everybody looks bigger than.
Speaker 3: They fattened him up real pretty quick.
Speaker 4: And he's he's trying to put a lot of life
Speaker 4: into the next year.
Speaker 5: Well, his first thing the front, I think the next
Speaker 5: week he came in there.
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of meetings going on when Joey
Speaker 3: first came out, a lot of guys coming down Present Street,
Speaker 3: a lot of the guys that was in the crew
Speaker 3: coming down every day, and Joey was coming down every
Speaker 3: night to to have these conversations about being with the
Speaker 3: joe Colombo. I mean, his argument was that he didn't
Speaker 3: say it's okay. He don't like it. He wants everything
Speaker 3: that was taken away while he was while he was gone,
Speaker 3: he wants back, you know. And then the story goes
Speaker 3: that Colombo sent one of the guys down I think
Speaker 3: I got who was at the time, to give Joey
Speaker 3: some money. And you know, he first came home and
Speaker 3: Joey looking out and back at him and says, you
Speaker 3: gotta give me a hundred grand that whatever it was,
Speaker 3: they say, Colombo came down himself. Joey didn't come down nowhere,
Speaker 3: somebody down I can't do his name right now. And
Speaker 3: he told Joe sent back the words of Joe that
Speaker 3: he better send one hundred thousand over. It was gonna
Speaker 3: be a problem.
Speaker 5: And then I think the next two days after that,
Speaker 5: he turned around and says, you guys got to start.
Speaker 3: Get ready to go get some guns. He says, because
Speaker 3: if they don't do what I say or give me
Speaker 3: what I want, He goes, we'll go to war. That's
Speaker 3: why he you know, he did what he had to do.
Speaker 3: A couple of months later, it was a crazy time.
Speaker 3: Uh it's hot to explain it. You got it, you
Speaker 3: have to you have to live it, do it.
Speaker 4: I got putting up, the putting up the mattresses.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well right after, right after they killed the Colombo.
Speaker 3: It's a hit on everybody.
Speaker 4: Joe Joey pretty much got blamed.
Speaker 5: Joey got blamed. Yeah, Joey got blamed.
Speaker 4: He might have done it.
Speaker 5: Well, that's another book.
Speaker 4: That's another that's right right.
Speaker 3: It's another book.
Speaker 5: You can't get every secret out.
Speaker 3: Then we have nothing left.
Speaker 4: I just said, maybe I don't know.
Speaker 5: Joey was blamed right away, because a black guy shot him.
Speaker 3: No, you know, you know the whole story and stuff
Speaker 3: like that. Black guys shot joe Colombo and Joey Galla
Speaker 3: was in jail with the black guys and and so
Speaker 3: bright the way they blame Joey.
Speaker 4: Yeah, president is color coded and Joey sided with the
Speaker 4: with the blacks instead of the lights.
Speaker 3: Yes, so they put a hit on Joey and the crew.
Speaker 3: Bobby and my father hit was putting out billing right away.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I hit the mattresses so we couldn't leave.
Speaker 4: Well, explain what that means.
Speaker 5: Well, we had a stand up.
Speaker 3: We had a couple of billions and clubs on the block,
Speaker 3: so we couldn't leave the black no more. We had
Speaker 3: We turned the apartments into a foot actually stood at
Speaker 3: the apartment and that went nowhere until unless you had
Speaker 3: to go somewhere. And we had bob wire on the windows.
Speaker 3: We had guys with guns snipers around, not in our
Speaker 3: building because the cops were watching. We had them on
Speaker 3: other buildings. But the cops weren't watching that, would you know,
Speaker 3: they were watching the bed guys coming. So it was
Speaker 3: a lot going on. Like I didn't leave the block
Speaker 3: for six almost six months, except if they had to go,
Speaker 3: do I have to do something? But otherwise you were
Speaker 3: there twenty four hours on the block man during that
Speaker 3: seventy one to seventy two days.
Speaker 4: Well did you get stir crazy? And the first time
Speaker 4: you left they shot at the car.
Speaker 3: The first time, yeah, Bless Albot wanted to want the pizza,
Speaker 3: so they wanted They said, go get the pizza. A
Speaker 3: couple about half a dozen pizzas at Queen's Petia. Of course,
Speaker 3: you very good pitch pizzeria. Bless told us to go.
Speaker 3: Luis Seai and said don't go. So Bless turned them.
Speaker 3: I said, who's going to the young guys? MS will
Speaker 3: go after them. You're supposed to go after us, and
Speaker 3: we're getting the car to go there, and boom, we
Speaker 3: got up. We made the corner of President and the
Speaker 3: van front and the car ran up on us and
Speaker 3: a half a dozen shots. I bust the car into
Speaker 3: a Johnny pump, destroyed the car.
Speaker 4: That's a fire hydrant for the rest of my night.
Speaker 3: And then, uh uh, that was a common coming night
Speaker 3: with something going on. I was there right after Joey
Speaker 3: got killed, going on what was going on again? And
Speaker 3: we're sitting in front of Albuts Club, and my future
Speaker 3: wife was with me, and and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: guy a car comes running, running, running down Presiding Street.
Speaker 3: And it's funny because it's supposed to be a cop
Speaker 3: on the corner. But you know, with barricades, how they
Speaker 3: got through it, I don't and three a hand grenade
Speaker 3: at us. It didn't go off. My wife ducked one way,
Speaker 3: I ducked another way and blessed uh, grabbed the girl
Speaker 3: at the time, and and and pulled her into the club.
Speaker 3: The thing didn't go off. And a couple of guys,
Speaker 3: Joe rathers jumped in cars and one after that, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. So it was it was a
Speaker 3: hairy time. It was harry time.
Speaker 4: Somebody should make a movie of it.
Speaker 3: I remember the first time, you know, my wife comes,
Speaker 3: my girlfriend at the time, I couldn't leave the black
Speaker 3: and I just met a girl about a week before
Speaker 3: this should happened. The stuff happens, I mean, the girl
Speaker 3: and I could see it because I was I was
Speaker 3: stuck on President Street now during this walk. So my
Speaker 3: mother found out about it, and she went and picked
Speaker 3: this girl up and brought her to President Street and
Speaker 3: at the time, there was a police barricade. Had to
Speaker 3: go through police line with a with a couple of
Speaker 3: cops on the corner. Next day, actually where you're going,
Speaker 3: and you would say, you're going to roil Roy's Club,
Speaker 3: Alberts Club, a Mondo's Club or whatever it was. So
Speaker 3: she comes in. I was in Railroays Club, Wilroid Musical.
Speaker 3: He was one of the members, and we were sitting
Speaker 3: there and we were talking to him, and oh, your
Speaker 3: mother brought me down. My mother went to the cross
Speaker 3: street at Albert's Club and we were sitting in there,
Speaker 3: and all sudden she's sitting there. I usually do to
Speaker 3: the Railway Musical. And then one by one some of
Speaker 3: the guys, of course street came across and like you guys,
Speaker 3: really character guys. I mean there's strong personalities. You know,
Speaker 3: some are huge and some they talk really really rough,
Speaker 3: you know. Bobby Boy Yellow came over, introduced himself. This
Speaker 3: guy was a massive guy. You know what I mean,
Speaker 3: you're looking but massive, you know, a little intimidating me,
Speaker 3: you know. Preston came over, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: the midget comes over, a Mondo comes over, and the
Speaker 3: mono comes over and kisses her. So my wife is
Speaker 3: a girlfriend seeing this guys that gangs done Mitchell come
Speaker 3: in and the Mimsic coming over and kissing. It's it's
Speaker 3: I guess for a young girl it would be you'll
Speaker 3: be a little taken back. You know, I was used
Speaker 3: to it, but you know, I think she was shaking
Speaker 3: up a little bit.
Speaker 4: She got used to it, and.
Speaker 5: That's how she met the Galla crou.
Speaker 4: And she's still around, grandmother to your grandchildren.
Speaker 3: That's right, you're still around.
Speaker 2: That is as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. Now,
Speaker 2: let's get to a very dramatic scene in this book.
Speaker 2: And you call it your dream, and you're eighteen in
Speaker 2: this dream supposedly in nineteen seventy four and yeah, nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty five Cadillac, and you're at a bar and there's
Speaker 2: some Puerto Ricans tell us about this altercation and this dream.
Speaker 3: Well, the story goes, we're in a press box of
Speaker 3: flat pushit Avon on seventh Brooklyn. Apparently I didn't know
Speaker 3: there's some guys over there shaking down the bar and
Speaker 3: selling drugs out in the place.
Speaker 5: I didn't know the press box. Call Chris yep. What
Speaker 5: they were doing.
Speaker 3: They were they were selling drugs out of place and
Speaker 3: they were trying to shake the owner down. The owner
Speaker 3: of the place was pretty much with us that you
Speaker 3: know under you know, our help if we need He
Speaker 3: didn't even need help. So we're in one night, how
Speaker 3: many a couple of drinks, and my father noticed that
Speaker 3: these two guys were in the place. They were really huge,
Speaker 3: really guy for Spanish guys who were gigantic.
Speaker 5: And what happened was he knowed something, so he wound
Speaker 5: up walking.
Speaker 3: Into the bedroom. The guy followed him. The next guy
Speaker 3: knows that my father cracked him and actually hit him
Speaker 3: and they broke the door off the hinges. The other
Speaker 3: guy that was there started making a move to to
Speaker 3: my father another guy, and I wanted up. I wanted
Speaker 3: up hitting him breaking my hand and my father jump
Speaker 3: off that guy and wanted to knocking him out and
Speaker 3: then told me to go get the costs. I got
Speaker 3: the cast so we can get out of that. The
Speaker 3: dream was that these two guys were picked up and
Speaker 3: one was beaten to debt, and I dreamed that I
Speaker 3: shot him and then my father cut him up and
Speaker 3: him in suitcases and dropped him back off of where
Speaker 3: they lived. That was a dream.
Speaker 4: We were going to call the chapter Statute of Limitations,
Speaker 4: but we decided the dream would be trust me, it's
Speaker 4: a yes.
Speaker 2: Now, Michael, let's talk about how the President Street Boys.
Speaker 2: What's the fate of the President Street Boys, the Gallow Gang?
Speaker 2: What does it? What happens with the Gallows? Tell us
Speaker 2: about insummation? Here? What happens with this crew and Red Hook?
Speaker 4: The beginning of the end is when Joey gets killed.
Speaker 4: Because guys start deserting. They want to be on the
Speaker 4: side that's winning, so they go back with the Colombos.
Speaker 4: And then the remaining President Street Boys feel betrayed by
Speaker 4: those that left and put out hits on the guys
Speaker 4: that left, and all of a sudden, Frank's dad is
Speaker 4: supposed to go out and hunt for a guy who,
Speaker 4: you know, two years earlier had been a pal and
Speaker 4: had been cooking for the gang and everything. And I think, Frank,
Speaker 4: if I'm not mistaken, this is about the time when
Speaker 4: the light goes on in your head and you realize
Speaker 4: that maybe it maybe the cowboys with the white hats
Speaker 4: and the cowboys with the black hats are really the same.
Speaker 3: Is that right, you know, when these guys were very
Speaker 3: very close over money and stuff like that. These guys
Speaker 3: turned on each other in nineteen eighty, in seventy four.
Speaker 3: It was pretty bad watching guys that just one week
Speaker 3: you're you're helping out, going with and drinking with and
Speaker 3: going to them their wife's parties and they have little children.
Speaker 3: And then and the next week you shoot at each other.
Speaker 3: It's pretty crazy to be involved with that. But that's
Speaker 3: what happened. They broke up over money power and like
Speaker 3: I said, a lot of guys that want to be
Speaker 3: with Albert, so they went back with the Columbos.
Speaker 5: Like I said, right after that, Albert was, you know,
Speaker 5: friends with Giganti, and they.
Speaker 3: Made the deal that if the Columbus, if Joe Colombo's
Speaker 3: crew a family and Columbo wasn't there anymore. I think
Speaker 3: it was. I think it was come on, Persico was
Speaker 3: I think he's in jail. I forget it was acting
Speaker 3: bost of the time. If you release the crew, they
Speaker 3: go with the chin. And what happened was they were
Speaker 3: so sick that Columbus was so sick of the gallows,
Speaker 3: with the trouble and the arguments in the fighting, they
Speaker 3: released the whole crew, and everybody in nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 3: whoever wanted went with with Chin and the Genericie family
Speaker 3: and Whoevers didn't want to go go wherever you want
Speaker 3: to go, and that's what happened. That's how it ended.
Speaker 3: The Gallo crew. Everybody went with the whomever they want
Speaker 3: to go with or Chin. A lot of guys went
Speaker 3: with Chin to guarantee.
Speaker 4: Eventually the block itself goes under because in.
Speaker 3: Seventy six, the laws seventy five they wanted they wanted
Speaker 3: break us up down there, because we had like a
Speaker 3: fortress down there. They all of a sudden they had
Speaker 3: to rip the streets out to put new sewer system in.
Speaker 3: So they put a new sewer system in, they got
Speaker 3: the whole street dug up, and all of a sudden
Speaker 3: the pumps didn't work one night, and they underminded all
Speaker 3: the homes on the block and they condemned the whole
Speaker 3: block and they got us off, and that's how they
Speaker 3: destroyed the present street. And it's funny that was only
Speaker 3: it was only one block had the whole thing was old.
Speaker 3: It goes from Hicks to Van Brunt Hicks. They didn't
Speaker 3: have to fix this just our block, you know. So
Speaker 3: they wanted to say, figured how to do it, and
Speaker 3: they did it. When they figured what to do, they
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 4: And that's about the end of the story.
Speaker 3: And that's about the end of the story. We wandered
Speaker 3: with Albert with the Chin, and a whole new other
Speaker 3: story started.
Speaker 4: Frank, did you ever meet Chin?
Speaker 3: Sure, it's changed. We used to go Chin every week,
Speaker 3: you know, to go see him. Chin used to drop
Speaker 3: off Christmas a case of Tangier to my my mother
Speaker 3: for Christmas. We were close, My father was close with
Speaker 3: Hin for a little while.
Speaker 4: That's the guy walked around Grantede village in his bathroom
Speaker 4: pretending he was crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this was just before that. It was
Speaker 3: just before that, you know. And then after that you
Speaker 3: didn't see him unless you were you were invited in
Speaker 3: the club personally. But yeah, we wound up like the
Speaker 3: whole other story, we wandered with Chin and then we're
Speaker 3: at it there too, So like that's another story. Chin
Speaker 3: was another one. Chin crazy, that guy who was smarter
Speaker 3: than he fooled everybody. Yeah, he fooled dead doctors, he
Speaker 3: fooled their lawyers, fooled man. You got to be pretty
Speaker 3: good man, I don't know how stupid this guy was.
Speaker 2: I'd say in this book that you chronicled the murderous
Speaker 2: life of gas Pipe Casso.
Speaker 4: Definitely deadly. Is killer ever to come from Red Hook?
Speaker 4: And that's saying something.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well that was at the end. He really lost it.
Speaker 3: But no when I when I was, we used to
Speaker 3: meet at the eighteenth hole on uh fourteen den on
Speaker 3: Age sixth Street. I mean it was always a little
Speaker 3: out of it.
Speaker 4: Most guys are out of their minds, but that's about
Speaker 4: golf course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there was be the eighteenth hole on
Speaker 3: the corner. They were all nuts, but he wasn't. He
Speaker 3: didn't seem that bad to you too. But at the end,
Speaker 3: to me, I think they would do drugs. I think
Speaker 3: that they have a noise set in and they was
Speaker 3: killing everybody just just to protect himself in case they
Speaker 3: went bad.
Speaker 5: They just lost their mind at the end.
Speaker 2: And how did your life? How did your life fare
Speaker 2: after this as well? Red Hook ceased to exist after
Speaker 2: a while. What did you morph into business wise.
Speaker 3: In your life? Listen, we were always in the pornal business.
Speaker 3: We used to distribute a screw magazine for our ghosting.
Speaker 3: That's where we did all our lives. But we went
Speaker 3: from from President Street to Mulberry Street with Chin and
Speaker 3: then and then after Chin, we wound up with Would
Speaker 3: Save Me the Plumber in Jersey until everybody got pinched
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety nine, and we walked away in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety nine when everybody went bed, And that's how we
Speaker 3: walked away. If nobody went bed, we probably still doing
Speaker 3: what we were doing. If maybe, but when everybody became
Speaker 3: informant in ninety nine, that's pretty much we walked away.
Speaker 3: At that time, we still had the pornal business with Screw,
Speaker 3: so we had legitimate money. Then we had a little
Speaker 3: restaurant at the time, so we pretty much walked away
Speaker 3: in two thousand and nineteen ninetety two thousand and from
Speaker 3: two thousand on, you know, we just got into other business.
Speaker 4: Has always been when did Mob Candy start?
Speaker 3: Two thousand and seven, that's that's Frank's magazine, Yes, two candy,
Speaker 3: Mob Candy Magazine started Girls and Mob Stories.
Speaker 5: Well, they closed, We closed the school down in two
Speaker 5: thousand and five.
Speaker 3: That was it. About two thousand and five, we were
Speaker 3: pretty much out of business because you know, with that
Speaker 3: Giuliani laws, and all that stuff, and we lost all
Speaker 3: the cases in court. So from two thousand and five
Speaker 3: to two thousand and seven I stood really low, and
Speaker 3: then we came in and then I met the Paonner.
Speaker 3: We came up with the Mob Candy magazine in two
Speaker 3: thousand and seven. Until now.
Speaker 2: In closing, Michael, you talk about red Hook today in
Speaker 2: the epilogue, and you say that there was a a
Speaker 2: barge hosted a stage performance of On the Waterfront, screenplay
Speaker 2: by Bud Schulberg, and you I'd work with Schulberg previously.
Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about some of the things
Speaker 2: that happened celebrating I guess red Hook.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I think one of the nice things about
Speaker 4: the story is that even the grungiest parts of Red
Speaker 4: Hook are a little bit on the comeback. I think
Speaker 4: maybe the gentrification isn't going quite as quickly as some
Speaker 4: people hoped it would. But there are now hip clubs,
Speaker 4: and there are places to go with great restaurants you
Speaker 4: want lobster, seafood excellent. And one of the places I
Speaker 4: found was the Waterfront Museum down at the end of
Speaker 4: Conover Street, southern tip of Red Hook, where Captain Dave
Speaker 4: has turned a barge into not only his home, but
Speaker 4: a museum and a show house where once was performed
Speaker 4: on the waterfront, which was largely written by Bud Schulberg
Speaker 4: in a bar right across the street which has been
Speaker 4: there for Everything's called Sunny's. Yeah. I worked with Bud
Speaker 4: when I was editing Fight Game magazine. Of course he
Speaker 4: wrote on the Wall outer Front and was a boxing writer.
Speaker 4: So yeah, we went to the Evander Holyfield Lennox Lewis
Speaker 4: fight together. It was great to know him later in
Speaker 4: his life. He was he was, He was a tremendous guy.
Speaker 4: But red Hook would seem to be on the comeback,
Speaker 4: and I think that we don't want to give the
Speaker 4: impression that, you know, when the lights are off and
Speaker 4: the Carroll Street bridge, that means they're dumping the bodies.
Speaker 4: I think those days are over, definitely.
Speaker 3: You know, we used to race down in red Hook,
Speaker 3: a long dock, raced your cars. We used to race
Speaker 3: cars alone. That was a quart amount of track.
Speaker 4: And on the other hand, I took a cruise with
Speaker 4: my wife earlier this year and it left and came
Speaker 4: back from the red Hook docks and getting five thousand
Speaker 4: people in and out of Red Hook after disembarking was
Speaker 4: really a difficult task. It was also it was a
Speaker 4: rainy day. It was the day of the batteries to
Speaker 4: the tunnel to towers. Race and streets were closed off.
Speaker 4: It took us three hours to get home, which was
Speaker 4: considerably longer than it would have taken us to walk it.
Speaker 5: And there's still cobblestone down there.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's right, it's right, very atmospheric. It was fun
Speaker 4: going around taking pictures of the Red Hook because it
Speaker 4: looks the same as it did in nineteen oh five
Speaker 4: in some places, yeaheah.
Speaker 3: Some some places you can really catch it nostalgic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but no more feral dogs, no more.
Speaker 3: They're eating them.
Speaker 5: They're eating the dogs.
Speaker 4: Now they're putting them on the plate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're eating the cats and dogs.
Speaker 2: You're right in the very end, Michael. You say, it's
Speaker 2: interesting to see artists living in Red Hook performing in
Speaker 2: Red Hook, But it is to forget how unthinkable these
Speaker 2: things would have been not that long ago, when warf, rats,
Speaker 2: human and otherwise ran over the piers looking for one
Speaker 2: brief moment of glory before a gunshot in the night
Speaker 2: brought down the curtain.
Speaker 4: That's good who wrote that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, making life us.
Speaker 2: For those that have listened to this program, we didn't
Speaker 2: go into the personality of Carmi and Persico so much,
Speaker 2: but you haven't a previous book. Tell us about your
Speaker 2: previous book talking about Carmi and Persico.
Speaker 4: Mine.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'll like to tell you this one day. Carmine
Speaker 3: was a whole of them. Is a tough guy. R
Speaker 3: Mine was for Carmine. Carmund made a lot of good
Speaker 3: moves himself on mine, the life in jail. He was
Speaker 3: dedicated to what he did. Was he not crazy? He
Speaker 3: was crazy, just like anybody that's in that life. That's
Speaker 3: for real. Some guys are for real. Some guys like
Speaker 3: to play the game. I don't disrespect Carmine, even though
Speaker 3: we haven't been friends or my family hasn't been friends
Speaker 3: with him, but you gotta respect the guy this guy was.
Speaker 5: He was a tough guy and he was well liked.
Speaker 3: His crew stow with him, his family student in true
Speaker 3: thirty years in jail, they never abandoned him. The guys
Speaker 3: that were close to whim when he was out, they
Speaker 3: took bullets with him and for him as a criminal,
Speaker 3: he's a criminal. What more can you say about the guy.
Speaker 3: Guy do a life in jail. It's got to be
Speaker 3: pretty committed. You know, he'll go yeah, yeah, he took it.
Speaker 3: He took his oath of America.
Speaker 4: Seriously.
Speaker 3: Oh he took him. Yeah he was, no, he was.
Speaker 5: Here's for real. Comma was a real, real, tough real
Speaker 5: thanks to the tough guy.
Speaker 3: Like what he did, and don't like what he did.
Speaker 5: You know who said you're on and not is that's
Speaker 5: that's that's got nothing to do with it. The guy
Speaker 5: is a tough guy.
Speaker 4: Survived several really decent assassin Asian attempts.
Speaker 3: And it didn't didn't shake him. You know, most guys
Speaker 3: who run look at a fact. He was getting killed
Speaker 3: and he ran to a Florida or he thought that
Speaker 3: the guy who might get too close to him, and
Speaker 3: he ran to Florida. See the difference in somebody in
Speaker 3: the tough guy and some guys just playing the game.
Speaker 4: And he never he never rat it on anybody. I
Speaker 4: just kept his kept his mouth shut and did his time.
Speaker 5: Yes, So that's where you got to give him his
Speaker 5: respect for what he is.
Speaker 3: You know what he did.
Speaker 5: You know, if you you know, if you like you know,
Speaker 5: if you.
Speaker 3: Admire gangsters and criminals and killers.
Speaker 5: I mean, I mean they're very entertaining.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm not sure we need to admire them to
Speaker 4: be entertained by them. These are complex characters. Are the
Speaker 4: most fascinating. Gangsters are the ones who are smart. Sure,
Speaker 4: you know, I had more trouble writing about Galante than
Speaker 4: I did about Persico because, uh no, the problem.
Speaker 3: Is that most most gangsters, most gangsters, you don't know
Speaker 3: who they are. You know, we only we we write
Speaker 3: about who we can. You know who's out there, and
Speaker 3: you know that the lord now battle got busted or
Speaker 3: got the court all the time, or somebody had it on.
Speaker 3: There's so many unnamed gangsters that ran the whole show
Speaker 3: that has that killed more people than that the guys
Speaker 3: who got caught doing did the unknown gangsters that you
Speaker 3: don't about, that you don't supposed to know about.
Speaker 5: That's that's how this thing worked, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: We just so happened to.
Speaker 3: Know these famous names because, like I said, they got
Speaker 3: arrested or somebody ratted them. But those those thirty forty
Speaker 3: famous names we can mention right now that you know
Speaker 3: a lot about. There's hundreds of guys that killed the
Speaker 3: hundreds of thousands of people that you don't know about.
Speaker 3: That's that's the untold story that that's that need to
Speaker 3: be told.
Speaker 2: I want to thank you both Frank Di Matteo and
Speaker 2: Michael Benson for coming on and talking about you're fascinating
Speaker 2: Red Hook Brooklyn Mafia ground Zero. For people that might
Speaker 2: want to check out this book and your other books, Michael,
Speaker 2: can you revert to them, refer them to your your
Speaker 2: Amazon site and a website if you have one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you google at author Michael Benson, it'll all
Speaker 4: come up for you. It's one word at at symbol
Speaker 4: author Michael Benson. That'll do it.
Speaker 2: And Frank, could you give us a link to your.
Speaker 5: Marm Kinney meg dot com. Just go there and everything
Speaker 5: should be up on there.
Speaker 4: Got it.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Thanks so much, Dan, thank you,
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Frank, thank you very much. Michael,
Speaker 2: Red Hook Brooklyn Mafia ground Zero, thank you for this interview,
Speaker 2: and good night,