Michael Umbers & The Gambino Crime Family

The above and below photos was taken by Diana Davies at a 1971 rally by the Gay Activists Alliance protesting the Mafia control of Christopher's End at 180 Christopher Street by Gambino crime family associate Mike Umbers who, in addition to fronting gay bars, was a drug dealer, ran several prostitution rings, and produced and distributed pornography.

A January 9, 1971 article (“Lefkowitz Accuses Club”) from the New York Times states:

State Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz is seeking to close down a Greenwich Village restaurant and club where he charges deviate sexual acts were exhibited on stage for a fee.  Mr. Lefkowitz complained that Christopher’s End, a club at 180 Christopher Street, constituted a public nuisance that imperiled the physical and emotional well-being of thousands of Greenwich Villagers.

A July 26, 1971 article from the New York Times covers a protest by gay activists against the mafia control of gay bars; specifically, Christopher’s End at 180 Christopher Street:

Saturday night more than 1,000 chanting “gay activists” marched down Christopher Street to protest what they consider their “exploitation by the syndicate,” which they say controls the after-hours clubs frequented by homosexuals.  Their chief targets were Christopher’s End, an after-hours club at the river end of the street that Federal agents closed the previous weekend for liquor violations, and the club’s proprietor, Michael Umbers, whom the Gay Activists Alliance calls “a front man for the syndicate.”  * * *  The bar is on the street floor of the Christopher Hotel, the last known address of Jerome A. Johnson who was shot to death after allegedly firing the shots that felled Joseph A. Colombo Sr.  * * *  [Michael Umbers] bought the building next door [at 178 Christopher Street].  * * *  Umbers, who admits to five years in prison, says he doesn’t allow drugs, “hard or soft,” because they don’t mix with liquor.  James Owles, president of the gay alliance, said:  “I know Mike Umber’s bar has been used as a drug drop.  And he’s perfectly willing to see gay people get their head split while he takes their money.  He comes on like a father figure to these young kids and turns them into flunkies for himself.”

An August 2, 1971 article (“Last Hours of Suspect Offer Little Hint of Colombo Shooting”) by Barbara Campbell from the New York Times states:

[L]ast Friday Deputy Commissioner Daley said that [Jerome A.] Johnson’s [the shooter of crime boss Joseph A. Colombo Sr.] last known address was the Christopher Hotel at 180 Christopher Street.  It is run by Michael Umbers, who, the police said, has ties with organized crime and was an “associate” of Johnson’s.

A September 28, 1971 article (“Kerkorian Is Named at Crime Hearing”) by Nicholas Gage from the New York Times states:

Michael Umbers, who is of English extraction, did not appear at the hearing [before the State Joint Legislative Committee on Crime concerning “the involvement of non-Italians in organized crime”] Mr. McKenna said that if he did not offer a good excuse for his absence he would be cited for contempt.  Umbers, who was questioned by the police after the shooting of Joseph Colombo Sr., was said by Mr. McKenna to be involved in pornography with organized crime figures.

An August 22, 1972 article (“Hogan Aide Says Officials Fight Crime Wrong Way”) by Nicholas Gage from the New York Times states:

[T]he police yesterday listed the first arrest of a reputed organized-crime figure since Mayor Lindsay and Commissioner Murphy announced their drive against gangsters when Michael Umbers, who had been sought on pornography charges, gave himself up at the East 67^th Street Station.  Umbers, 40 years old, who the police said was associated with members of the Gambino family, was charged with promoting obscenity, a felony.

A September 1, 1973 article (“Bail of $50,000 Set in Drug Case For ‘Village’ Man”) from the New York Times states:

Bail of $50,000 was set in Federal court here yesterday for a Greenwich Village magazine distributor who had been arrested on a charge of conspiracy to sell phendimetrazine pills, which narcotics agents described as illegal stimulants and that the suspect called “vice spice aphrodisiacs.”  The suspect is Michael Umbers, 42-year-old owner of a bookshop at 180 Christopher Street, who said at his bail hearing that he was in “the sex business” and that he distributed a weekly magazine “that’s not pornography.”  Umbers was arrested Thursday night, outside the Riviera Café, at Sheridan Square, when he allegedly delivered a carton containing 75,000 pills to undercover agents for $9,500.  He reportedly told the agents he wanted to get rid of the pills before the state’s new narcotics law went into effect today.  Police officials described Umbers, who served five years in prison for larceny, as a major pornography dealer with suspected links to organized crime.  Bail of $10,000 was set for an Umbers employee, Doris Weinstable, 25, of Teaneck, N.J., who was arrested with him.

In Mafia Dynasty:  The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family, John H. Davis states:

The deeper the detectives delved into the shooting, the more it became apparent that the only white mobsters Jerome Johnson was known to deal with were members of the Gambino crime family.  The detectives found out that Johnson used to frequent a gay establishment on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village owned by Gambino soldier Paul DiBella and managed by a Gambino associate Michael Umbers, a known dealer in pornography.  Johnson and Umbers had been seen together at the after-hours places during the weeks prior to the attack on Colombo.  But for all their expert sleuthing, the New York police were unable to link Jerome Johnson to the man police were convinced ordered the hit, Carlo Gambino.

In The Gay Insider (The Olympia Press:  New York 1971), John Francis Hunter writes:

It gets raided now and then, but with the sangfroid of an oft-ravaged country on the Great Plain of Europe it re-opens and gradually eases back into the modus operandi that got it busted in the first place.  Sometimes even the same personnel.  * * * The End is an afterhours joint.  Don’t expect much of anything before morning.  It’s forever changing gears, going with a fad but still remaining essentially the same joint.  In one of its recent phases there was a charge of five bucks at the door, for which you got to drink as much as you wanted without any money passing hands over the bar. Most recently there has been a three-buck minimum, for which you get two drink chits.  * * * In earlier days in the back room, after the movies showing everything about the sex act including the coming, a go-go boy would make himself available for sucking, which would urge the panting audience over the cliff into really tempestuous orgiastic breakers.  Then the NYPD infiltrated with two humpy vice officers posing as lovers, and after they had gotten their rocks off a few mornings they pulled a raid.  The raid (which bagged a roomful of mixed couples down slumming as well as regular homosexual patrons) served two purposes:  to discourage the straights and stop the movies.  The back room is still there, but just now the partition has been knocked down, and it’s exposed to the dance floor.  There are, however, inviting bleachers in the shadows.

A July 20, 1971 article (“Suspect in Shooting of Colombo Linked to Gambino Family”) by Fred Ferretti from the New York Times ties the shooter to the West Village gay bars operated by the Gambinos and Mike Umbers, and states:

Jerome A. Johnson, the man who the police say shot Joseph A. Colombo on June 28, was “associated with people known to be connected to” the alleged Mafia family of Carlo Gambino, Chief of Detectives Albert Seedman reported yesterday.  * * *  Yesterday, Chief Seedman disclosed what he called Johnson’s link to organized crime.  “Johnson hung out in a club raided over the weekend that was controlled by Paul Di Bella, who is reputed to be a ‘soldier’ in the Gambino crime family,” he said.  The club referred to is Christopher’s End, at 180 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village.  It was one of nine after-hours clubs raided by a joint Federal-city strike force on Sunday.  The 180 Christopher Street address was the first given by the police for Johnson after the shooting.  Mr. Seedman said that “Johnson frequented the Christopher’s End in the weeks immediately preceding the shooting.”  He also said Johnson was “associated” with Michael Umbers, whom he called the “front man and operator” of the after-hours bar, “which was in reality controlled by Paul Di Bella, supposedly a soldier in the Gambino family.  He asserted that “Johnson associated with people known to be connected to that family.”  Asked if he meant Carlo Gambino, Chief Seedman said, “Yes.”  * * * He [Chief Seedman] was asked if the police had questioned Mike Umbers, who the chief said was Johnson’s link to the Gambino family, and he answered:  “Yes, but we’re interested in speaking to him again.  He’s easy to find.  We reached out and found him last week.  Found him physically but it was hard to reach him mentally.”  A reporter at the news conference at Police Headquarters suggested that Johnson’s link to Umbers had been in the area of “weirdo sex,” and Mr. Seedman agreed.  * * *  Earlier, Commissioner Daley had said of Umbers:  “He didn’t look too good at first.  He looks better now,” and “Johnson was known to have been an intimate of Umbers.”  Umbers served a sentence in Sing Sing Prison and in Greenhaven prison in 1961 for grand larceny.  He was paroled in 1962.  The following year he was arrested for parole violations and returned to Sing Sing, then transferred to prison at Clinton and at Auburn.  He was released in 1965.  In 1969, he was arrested after a quantity of pornographic materials were found in a car in which he was sitting.  A conviction on obscenity charges was reversed by a higher court.  He was accused by District Attorney Frank S. Hogan’s office of conspiring to commit obscenity, but pleaded to a lesser charge of obscenity as a misdemeanor.  His case is due in September.