The East Village Mafia
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Few New Yorkers are aware that the tenements and storefronts of the East Village, famous for Beat poetry, avant-garde art and alternative rock music, were a stronghold of Mafia racketeering, intrigue and treachery for almost seventy years. From the 1920s to 1990, mob icons like Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Joe "The Boss" Masseria and Joseph Bonanno, and their underbosses and capos, lived in or frequented the East Village, known as part of the Lower East Side until the mid-1960s. There they planned and perpetrated headline-grabbing murders, international heroin trafficking, counterfeiting, extortion, gambling and loansharking in local social clubs, bars, restaurants and coffee houses. The blocks just south of East 14th Street may have encompassed the smallest Italian immigrant enclave in New York City. But the ruthless Mafiosi who operated there helped to orchestrate the assassinations of no fewer than five of Cosa Nostra’s most powerful dons. These executions-D’Aquila, Masseria, Maranzano, Anastasia and Castellano-altered the Mob’s power structure decade after decade and expanded the influence of organized crime into almost every aspect of New York City life.
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About the Book
Few New Yorkers are aware that the tenements and storefronts of the East Village, famous for Beat poetry, avant-garde art, and alternative rock music, were a stronghold of mafia racketeering, treachery, and intrigue for almost seventy years. From the 1920s to 1990, mob icons lived in or frequented the East Village, known as part of the Lower East Side until the mid-1960s.
In The East Village Mafia, author Thomas F. Comiskey shares the history of this little-known Manhattan mafia enclave that wielded influence on the direction and destiny of organized crime in New York City, telling how:
- Mafia royalty Lucky Luciano, Joe "the Boss" Masseria, and Joseph Bonanno lived in or frequented the East Village;
- East Village-bred Mafiosi plotted the assassinations of five Cosa Nostra bosses;
- Lucky Luciano ordained the East Village to be one of the mafia’s major heroin distribution centers after World War II;
- A mobster from Avenue A conspired to sell the Vatican millions worth of bogus stocks and bonds, some forged in the East Village;
- A sit down in Mafia don Joseph Bonanno's favorite Social Club on East Twelfth Street determined control over a New Jersey hotel; and
- A federal agent from Avenue A and Fifteenth Street became the nemesis of mafia narcotics dealers.
About the Author
Thomas F. Comiskey is an attorney who had a thirty-three-year career at the New York City Department of Investigation exposing criminal conduct in New York City's anti-poverty programs and public schools. He currently lives in Scarborough, New York.