The Mob and the City (9 page)

These were intensely insular, family-centric enclaves. “Our Italian neighborhood was a ghetto. Italian was the spoken language. People built this wall around them to keep the outside world from coming in,” said Jerry Della Femina.
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Italians from the same regions, and even same villages, flocked to the same streets. “Most people from Sicily settled on Elizabeth Street, the people from Mott Street were from mixed cities in Italy, and the people from Mulberry Street were mostly Neapolitans,” recounted a man who grew up in Little Italy.
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Italians married fellow Italians, too. As late as 1920, only 6 percent of south Italians married outside their national origin, rarer than every major immigrant group except Jews.
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THE CORNER WISEGUY AND THE CONNECTED UNCLE

Only a tiny fraction of the residents of these neighborhoods were ever involved with the mob, and many more resented the gangsters. At the Mafia's height, it constituted less than one-half of one percent of New York's Italian population. Nevertheless, the creation of south Italian enclaves around New York indirectly facilitated the emergence of the Cosa Nostra.
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Mafiosi
exploited the insularity of these enclaves. South Italians placed a strong primacy on the Italian home and had a deep mistrust of government outsiders. The Mafia played on these cultural traditions. Robert Orsi, the author of an award-winning study of Italian East Harlem, explains the mythology he found: “The racketeers, in the community's mythical restatement of their identity, were the enforcers of the values of the domus [the Italian home],” Orsi explained. “Of course, no one talked about what these men might have done outside the community.”
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The mob relied on social pressure and intimidation, too. “We never asked what they did for a living,” said Clara Ferrara, a resident of East Harlem. “We never knew what Joey Rao did. His wife was a lovely woman.”
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It was hard for outsiders to penetrate the wall of silence. “The coroner's office in New York found itself handicapped whenever we had a case involving members of the Mafia,” said the chief coroner. “Respectable and hard-working Italians, some of whom I knew personally, would become evasive or refuse to answer questions.”
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Wiseguys were an everyday presence in many neighborhoods. The unofficial headquarters of the early Mafia was East 107th Street in Harlem. “The tenements gave the block the appearance of a walled medieval town somehow replanted in New York City,” said Salvatore Mondello, who grew up along 107th Street.
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Goodfellas gravitated there for decades. “They used to hang on the corner. There was the Artichoke King, Rao, Joe Stutz, Joe Stretch,” said Pete Pascale of East Harlem. “They think nothin’ of breakin’ your legs.”
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Ronald Goldstock, former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force, has pointed out that these Little Italies were recruiting grounds for young members.
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“When you were brought up in the neighborhood, East Harlem in New York City, you always looked up to the wiseguys,” said Vincent “Fish” Cafaro.
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“In Italian neighborhoods, priests and gangsters were held in virtually the same esteem,” echoed Tony Napoli. “Both were loved and feared, and most of all, respected.”
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Kinship ties further drew young men into a “Mafia family.” When FBI agent Joseph Pistone infiltrated the Bonanno Family, he found there was often “some type of family bond, real family, not Mafia family, a father, an uncle, a cousin,” between them.
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Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso was influenced to join the mob by his (lowercase
g
) godfather Sally Callinbrano, whom young Anthony saw as “a
class act” and a “man of respect.”
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Vincent “Fat Vinnie” Teresa was drawn to his mobster uncle Dominick Teresa who “seemed to have everything.”
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MAFIA FRANCHISING: WHY THE COSA NOSTRA WAS LIKE A BURGER FRANCHISE

The Sicilian
mafiosi
who settled in Gotham brought with them the organizational structure of the
cosche
or “clans.” In New York, these became known as the Mafia families.
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Mafia families have been inaccurately compared to a traditional corporation, with managers and employees.
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Rather, the Mafia families most closely resembled franchise companies.
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Franchise companies (that is, burger chains and hotels) allow the use of their trademark by franchisees in exchange for a fee or percent of profits. The franchise company controls minimum standards, guarantees exclusive territories, and arbitrates disputes among franchisees. Franchises are economically efficient because they let the franchisees reap the benefits of a trademark, while the franchisees put up their own capital and know-how to operate on a daily basis.
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Similarly, the Mafia families, rather than paying salaries, simply allowed its members to operate under their names to make money in the underworld. Of course, the Cosa Nostra did not produce any (legal) goods or services, and it was a parasitic enterprise in general. Nonetheless, as the Mafia families expanded in the 1920s, they took on the characteristics of franchise companies.

MAFIA FRANCHISES: THE MAFIA TRADEMARK AND FRANCHISE FEE

Like a franchise company, the New York Mafia developed a valuable “trademark” in the underworld. The Cosa Nostra developed a reputation for reliability, for protection from police and other criminals, and for its capacity for violence.
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The Mafia was known for its ability to offer reliable immunity from local cops. “You had to be allied with somebody like Paulie [Vario] to keep the cops off your back,” believed Henry Hill, an associate of the Lucchese Family. “Wiseguys like Paulie have been paying off the cops for so many years,” explained
Hill. “They developed a trust, the crooked cops and the wiseguys.”
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The Mafia became an elite slice of the underworld. When NYPD detective Frank Serpico joined the plainclothes division, he was bluntly told by a fellow officer that while he could arrest black and Puerto Rican criminals, “the Italians, of course, are different. They're on top, they run the show, and they're very reliable, and they can do whatever they want.”
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The Cosa Nostra's underworld reputation was so ferocious that it shielded its members from
other
crooks. “That's what the FBI can never understand—what Paulie and the organization offer is protection for the kinds of guys who can't go to the cops. They're like the police department for wiseguys,” described Hill. “The only way to guarantee that I'm not going to get ripped off by anybody is to be established with a member, like Paulie.”
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Mob connections could shield non-mobsters, too. “When a businessman is ‘with’ someone, it means he has a godfather, a gladiator who will protect him,” explained Michael Franzese, a prominent ex-
mafioso
. “That status made him ‘hands off’ to anyone on the street.” The Mafia's preeminent reputation in the underworld was such that it often served as a kind of master arbiter of disputes among other criminals well into the 1970s.
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Ultimately, the Mafia's “brand” was based on its reputation for extreme violence. The scholar Diego Gambetta noted how many
mafiosi
demonstrated “the ability to use violence” early in their careers to enhance their reputations.
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New York's mob bosses commanded authority based on “a reputation for savagery and a history of settling disputes by shedding blood,” confirms undercover FBI agent Joseph Pistone.
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The Mafia's
reputation
for violence was so intimidating, that it only had to resort to actual violence sparingly.
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As an FBI informant stated, “a ‘button guy’ received a lot of respect in the neighborhood and was able to use this position to obtain money without getting himself involved in a lot of problems.”
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When Jimmy Fratianno became a “made man,” the
mafioso
John Roselli explained its reputational benefits: “The fact that you're a member gives you an edge. You can go into various businesses and people will deal with you because of what you represent,” said Roselli. “Nobody fucks with you. We're nationwide…. And that means you can make a pretty good living if you hustle,” counseled the veteran wiseguy.
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The Mafia trademark was valuable enough that there was even some “licensing” and “passing off” of the mark in the underworld. Trademark owners sometimes license their mark to nonaffiliated companies (for example, “[trademark] Diet™-Approved” for food companies). In Manhattan, an Irish gang named “the Westies” entered into a virtual licensing agreement with the Gambino Family. As a federal court explained, the Gambino Family “permitted the Westies to use the Gambino name and reputation in connection with their own illicit business,” and in exchange “the Westies paid the Gambino Family ten percent of the proceeds from various illegal activities.”
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Others occasionally tried to “pass off” the mob's trademark by pretending to be affiliated. “Because of my ethnic background, they thought I was mob-connected and it worked to my advantage. It gave me some leverage to keep bettors in line,” said Anthony Serritella, a Chicago bookie. “I really wasn't connected, but never admitted or denied it.”
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In exchange for operating under a Mafia family, the members paid something resembling a franchise fee and percentage of the profits. Joseph Valachi testified before Congress that each of the five-hundred-odd soldiers in the Genovese Family of which he was a member paid $25 monthly “dues” (about $2,300 annually for each soldier). In the mid-1950s, an Anastasia Family underboss named Frank Scalise was selling mob memberships for $40,000—an express franchise fee. Soldiers were also expected to split some of their profits with their
caporegimes
(captains) who in turn sent some up to the bosses of the family. “Usually the split is half with your captain,” explained FBI agent Joseph Pistone, who infiltrated the Bonanno Family. “The captain in turn has to kick in, say, ten percent upstairs, to the boss.”
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MAFIA FRANCHISES: TERRITORIAL RIGHTS

Franchise companies often guarantee each franchisee an exclusive territory and prohibit encroachments by their other franchisees (for example, no two coffee shops of the same trademark may open on the same block).
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Similarly, the Cosa Nostra upheld territorial rights for wiseguys.

The Mafia's recognition of territorial rights can be traced all the way back to Sicily. An investigative report from Sicily in the 1890s stated:

Among the canons of the mafia there is one regarding the respect for the territorial jurisdictions of other [
cosche
]. The infraction of this canon constitutes a personal insult. Hence the encroachments…were perceived by the Siino family as an atrocious personal insult.
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This carried over to New York, albeit in a narrower form. Gotham was too dense to grant exclusive rights to
all
criminal activities in a neighborhood. In the 1920s, East Harlem was divided up between the Masseria Family and the Reina Family. Later, the New York Mafia protected rights to specific rackets. For example, the Lucchese Family controlled shipping at Kennedy Airport, and different families controlled specific factories in the garment district.
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Soldiers were conversely limited by the territorial rights of other members. The Profaci Family had to suppress a dissident crew lead by the brothers Larry Gallo, Joseph “Crazy Joe” Gallo, and Albert “Kid Blast” Gallo. An FBI informant reported that the Gallo brothers believed that once they were “made” they “would come into sudden wealth.” They grew angry when they discovered the rackets “were already under the control of someone else, and the GALLOS were not allowed to move in on anyone else's operation.”
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MAFIA FRANCHISES: MAINTAINING STANDARDS AND ARBITRATING DISPUTES

To preserve the trademark, franchise companies retain the right to enforce standards or step in when a franchisee is harming the brand (for example, running a shoddy motel under their trademark). Similarly, the Mafia families had the authority to maintain rules to protect the organization and its trademark. Among the most serious rules were that a member could not betray secrets of the Cosa Nostra, he could not physically attack another member, and he could not “fool around…with another
amico nostra
's [made man's] wife.”
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Although the Mafia talked about these rules in terms of “honor,” they also served the business rationale of protecting the organization. “In New York we step all over each other. What I mean is there is a lot of animosity among the soldiers,” Joe Valachi explained. “So you can see why it is that they are strict about the no-hands rule.”
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The Mafia also sought to protect the reputation of its “brand.”
Publicly, at least, the Mafia disavowed any involvement with prostitution, pornography, and drugs (much more on that later), which were viewed negatively by the public.
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