The Mob and the City (26 page)

Wiseguys muscled in on the vulnerable owners of gay establishments with protection rackets and skimming operations. “Even if you came in [and] tried to open a gay bar, you would be contacted by the Family, and be informed it was a closed shop,” explained a bartender. Cosa Nostra then had the cash and clout to keep open gay bars in which it held hidden interests.
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Though it seems unthinkable today, there were also cultural reasons for the Mafia's association with gay bars. Chauncey has documented the presence of many
finocchio
(“fairies”) among working-class, southern Italian men in the early 1900s; Italian bachelors would get serviced by
finocchio
without thinking themselves gay. During Prohibition, gangsters ran the speakeasies with “coarse” entertainment like Dutch Schultz's Club Abbey on West 54th Street, featuring Jean Malin's “pansy act” show.
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Even in its formative decades, the Cosa Nostra had some members who engaged in forms of same-sex acts or transgender dressing. According to FBI informants, David Petillo “in his early teens was reputed to be a ‘fairy,’” and “dressed as a woman” to disguise himself while executing hits. (Petillo was convicted with Charles Luciano for compulsory prostitution in 1936). Similarly, Charles Gagliodotto reportedly wore dresses and carried his gun in a purse so often he was known in the Genovese Family as the “fag hit-man.” Later, the wiseguy operator of the Stonewall Inn, whose father was a prominent
mafioso
, had male lovers. Mobster Joseph “Crazy Joey” Gallo talked about how “normal, natural and unremarkable” homosexuality was in prison. Gallo held interests in gay bars including the Purple Onion and Washington Square.
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Gay Nightclubs in the 1930s and ’40s

Vito Genovese's crews in Greenwich Village held the most interests in gay establishments in Manhattan going back to the 1930s. Genovese associate Steve Franse ran the Howdy Club at 47 West 3rd Street in Greenwich Village, the first nightclub catering to lesbians after they were outlawed by the NYSLA. It featured Blackie Dennis, a male impersonator, who dressed in tuxedoes and wore slicked-back short hair. “She was the best looking and most popular singer in the whole Village,” remembered a club regular. The club even did promotional photographs with women dressed in football gear. During the Second World War, sailors docked in New York went to the Howdy Club, some meeting other homosexuals in public for the first time.
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6–4: Promotional photograph for the Howdy Club, ca. 1935. Steve Franse ran the Howdy Club under Vito Genovese's Mafia crew in Greenwich Village. (Used by permission of the Lesbian Herstory Archives)

In 1943, the mob opened Tony Pastor's Downtown, which billed itself as “One of New York's Most Colorful Nite-Clubs.” Lesbians at the bar would send over drinks to attractive girls, and there were Sunday cocktail dances for women. The manager of Tony Pastor's Downtown was Joseph Cataldo. Behind the scenes, Joseph “Joe the Wop” Cataldo was a longtime
mafioso
under the Genoveses.
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Even the Cosa Nostra's power had its limits when the public's enmity toward “degenerates” required a crackdown. In 1944, the NYSLA suspended the license of the Howdy Club for presenting shows by Leon La Verdi, who “exhibited feminine characteristics which would appeal to any male homosexual.” Steve Franse argued that “La Verdi had been doing the same act for about 10 years without complaint.” It did not work, and the Howdy Club closed permanently. That same year, Joe Cataldo was found guilty of “permitting Lesbians to loiter on the premises,” resulting in the suspension of Tony Pastor's license. However, Tony Pastor's managed to reopen and remain in business until 1967, when the NYSLA revoked its liquor license for permitting “homosexuals, degenerates and undesirables to be on the license premises.”
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The 181 Club, 181 2nd Avenue

“The most famous fag joint in town,” screamed tabloid journalists pressuring officials to shutter its doors.
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Patrons and employees of the 181 Club saw their place differently. “It was like the homosexual Copacabana,” said Bertie, a tuxedoed waiter. As she described it,

it was a lovely club. Wedgwood walls, white and blue. It had a nice stage. They had the cream of the crop, as far as female impersonators. They weren't just drag queens. These were guys that had talent behind their costumes. The costumes were lavish and wonderful. They had borzoi…with rhinestone collars.
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“All the butches worked at this club as waiters and ‘Chorus Boys,’” a regular recalled. Buddy Kent performed there as Fred Astaire, with black tails, a top hat, and a cane. “It was showbiz, and very, very glamorous,” Kent recounted proudly. The audiences were a mix of gawking straight couples, closeted gays and lesbians, “and racketeers.”
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The Mafia kept open the doors of the 181 Club. Vito Genovese was once its hidden owner, and its manager was Steve Franse. Even during the height of the crackdown on gay life in New York, the 181 Club survived and prospered from 1945 to 1953. “The cops were paid off,” explained Buddy Kent.
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Mob-Owned Gay Bars in the 1950s

Franse ran the 181 Club from 1945 until 1953, when he moved it to 82 East 4th Street and renamed it Club 82. It became the most popular drag spot in the 1950s. Greta Garbo and Judy Garland were among the celebrities who attended shows at Club 82. Terry Noel, a female impersonator, did three shows a night, six nights a week, not getting off until 4:00 a.m. Noel said “the club owners had a certain influence over the vice cops, if you get my drift, and we were in less danger from them than the owners when it came to leaving in drag.”
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On June 19, 1953, Steve Franse left Club 82 at 4:30 a.m. to meet up with Pat Pagano and Fiore Siano. They wanted to see Joe Valachi's new restaurant in the Bronx. Valachi gave them a tour of his place, ending up in the kitchen. “That's when it happens,” Valachi describes:

Pat grabs [Franse] from behind—he has got him in an armlock—and the other guy, Fiore, raps him in the mouth and belly…. I'm standing guard by the kitchen door when Pat lets go and Steve drops to the floor. He is on his back, and he is out. They wrap this chain around his neck. He starts to move once, so Pat puts his foot on his neck to keep him there. It only took a few minutes.

Vito Genovese ordered the murder of Franse. Vito's wife Anna Genovese had sued Vito for maintenance and, to the shock of everyone, tried to identify his underworld assets. Anna was involved in nightclubs with Franse, and Vito blamed him for not keeping a lid on her.
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After Franse, Genovese
caporegime
Anthony “Tony Bender” Strollo took over the Genovese nightclubs in the Village. After Strollo disappeared in 1962, Tommy Eboli took over the family's bars and nightclubs in the Village. Later in the ’60s, Matthew “Matty the Horse” Ianniello, another Genovese
caporegime
, took interests in gay bars and pornographic bookstores in Times Square.
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Other
mafiosi
controlled gay bars elsewhere in New York. Edward “Eddie Toy” DeCurtis of the Gambino Family held interests in gay establishments on Long Island. In the 1960s, DeCurtis was convicted of allowing “lewd, indecent and disorderly homosexual activities” at his Magic Touch restaurant on Long Island. Anthony “Fat Tony” Rabito of the Bonanno Family “controlled a bunch of fag bars” in New York. And Salvatore “Solly Burns” Granello reportedly held hidden interests in gay bars on the East Side of Manhattan.
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Mafia Management of Gay Bars

With little competition, Mafia-run bars could charge high prices for lousy amenities. Most were hidden away on side streets, their windows painted dark, and they peddled watered-down, bootleg liquor supplied by mafiosi. “We would…take [brand label] bottles, and pour whatever swill we could get into it,” recounted Chuck Shaheen, a bartender at mob-run gay bars. Even at the glamorous 181 Club, the overpriced drinks were dismal. “The drinks were all watered, God knew what they were,” remembered a patron.
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The toxic arrangement with the police wrought indignities. To appease hostile neighbors, the police staged raids periodically. White lights would blink on when a raid was happening. Humiliated patrons stood in the harsh light of a dank basement before being hauled off in a paddy wagon. “If they took you in, it was usually for ‘disturbing the peace’ or ‘impersonating’ somebody of the opposite sex,” said Buddy Kent shaking her head.
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Starting in the 1950s, the Mattachine Society, the first gay-rights organization in New York, began criticizing the vice police and the Mafia itself. “The Mafia has been in the business for years,” charged Mattachine leader Richard Leitsch in 1967, “primarily because the legal setup has been such as to discourage legitimate business from operating [gay] bars.” Frustration with the mob system of bars culminated in a revolt that now symbolizes the gay rights movement.
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The Stonewall Inn, 53 Christopher Street

If the 181 Club was the gay Copacabana, then the Stonewall Inn was the dive bar. The Stonewall had no running water behind the bar, so its bartenders just dipped used glasses in a basin of dirty water, refilled the glasses, and served other customers. The toilets routinely overflowed, leaving the bathroom soaked. Like the 181 Club though, the Stonewall was operated by members and associates of the Genovese Family. Chuck Shaheen, who opened the Stonewall with its mob owners, said that Matthew “Matty the Horse” Ianniello was “the real boss, the
real big boss.” Its bouncer Ed “The Skull” Murphy confirmed that Cosa Nostra made $1200 monthly payoffs to the NYPD's sixth precinct in exchange for letting the Stonewall operate without a liquor license, and tipping off its managers to planned raids.
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On June 28, 1969, that arrangement was disrupted by a raid executed by an honest vice cop. The historian David Carter has shown that Seymour Pine, the newly appointed commander of the local vice squad, was really after its mob owners for other crimes. “We weren't concerned about gays. We were concerned about the Mafia,” Pine maintained. This is supported by contemporaneous news accounts: “Police also believe the club was operated by Mafia connected owners,” reported the
New York Daily News
.
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This time, the drag queens fought back. “You already got the payoff, here's some more!” screamed Ray “Sylvia Lee” Rivera throwing pennies at the police. “Why do we have to pay the Mafia all this kind of money to drink in a lousy fuckin’ bar?” protested Rivera. “It wasn't my fault that the bars where I could meet other gay people were run by organized crime,” thought Morty Manford, a Columbia student who was at the Stonewall that night. By that Sunday, June 29, protestors handed out leaflets attacking “the Mafia monopoly.”
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During the riots, someone wrote this graffiti on the Stonewall Inn's boarded-up windows:

GAY
PROHIBITION
CORUPT$ COP$
FEED$ MAFIA

And that informal haiku says it all.

6–5: Graffiti on Stonewall Inn, 1969. The outlawing of homosexuality meant that the Mafia controlled many of the gay and lesbian bars in New York City. (Photo by Fred W. McDarrah, used by permission of Getty Images)