Gay History

Organized Crime

Posts categorized "Genovese Crime Family"

December 26, 2007

"[b]eginning in the 1890s, homosexuals, a group that historically faced widespread discrimination, found a few hospitable commercial establishments in the Village"

In The Italians of the South Village (Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation:  2007), Mary Elizabeth Brown writes:

The South Village business establishments catered to a wide variety of groups, a fact that underscores how the penchant for making money overcame the desire to discriminate. Beginning in the 1890s, homosexuals, a group that historically faced widespread discrimination, found a few hospitable commercial establishments in the Village. In the 1920s, Prohibition outlawed alcoholic beverages, driving underground the sale and consumption of alcohol and the interactions that accompany it. When Prohibition ended in 1933, the tolerance previously extended to homosexuals socializing in public did not resume. Mafiosi (individuals with Mafia ties) took advantage of the situation by opening establishments catering to gays and lesbians.  Several men affiliated with the Genovese crime family owned and operated the Stonewall Inn, the site of the 1969 protest that began the Gay Liberation Movement.

Download The_Italians_of_the_South_Village.pdf

Vito Genovese Buys Into Gay Bars In Greenwich Village

Mafia__genovese_family__vito_genoveA January 2002 article by John William Tuohy from Rick Porrello’s AmericanMafia.com states:

During the early 1930s, [Vito] Genovese took over New York's massive Italian lottery, and grew rich from it, using his wealth to buy into gay bars in the Greenwich Village area, which struck police as an oddchoice of investments until 1954 when they learned from a cashier at one of the clubs that Genovese’s wife, Anna Petillo Vernotico, who was also his distant cousin, was a regular at these clubs and for many years, was involved in a lesbian relationship which Genovese knew of, and approved. It had always been an oddball union anyway.  Genovese had married Anna a year after the death of his first wife in 1931. When he met her, Anna was locked in a loveless marriage and couldn't get a divorce. On March 16, 1932, Genovese had her husband murdered and twelve days later they were married.

And in An Offer We Can’t Refuse:  The Mafia in the Mind of America, George De Stefano writes:

Anofferwecantrefuse_2In the social mythology of the mob, there is an unbreachable barrier between the world of the “men of honor” and homosexuals who dishonor masculinity by being like women.  But both the actual history of organized crime and its pop-culture representations belie the myth. Mobsters thrived on illicit enterprises such as gambling and prostitution, and in the pre-gay liberation days, they owned gay bars and bathhouses.  Nick Tosches, in his biography of Dean Martin, reports that mobster Vito Genovese, “the most violent, most grasping, and most treacherous of his breed,” owned drag queen bars and was married to a lesbian.  Gay folklore has long held that Mafiosi put their sons and other male kin who were homosexual in charge of the gay bars they owned.

Cafe Bohemia at 15 Barrow Street and the San Remo at 93 MacDougal Street: "the police and organized crime, which jointly supervised such things in the Village, rarely allowed a homosexual haunt to run for more than a few years"

In On Bohemia:  The Code of the Self-Exiled (Transaction Publishers:  1990), contributor Michael Harrington writes:

On_bohemiaI was not looking for historical trends on the evening in 1949 when I first arrived from Chicago – then, as always, the second city – put down my bags, and went out to find Greenwich Village.  I wandered in and out of a few bars around Sheridan Square and then drifted into a place called Café Bohemia on Barrow Street.  It was in a lesbian phase (the police and organized crime, which jointly supervised such things in the Village, rarely allowed a homosexual haunt to run for more than a few years) and, like all straight young men from the Middle West, I found that fascinating.  I got into a conversation with an attractive young woman, but then her girl friend appeared, angry with my heterosexual poaching.  “You don’t belong here, buddy,” she said.  “You’re a San Remo type.”  The next night I went to the Remo and found out that she was right.  The San Remo was an Italian restaurant at the uneasy intersection of Greenwich Village and Little Italy, with bad, yellowed paintings over the bar and the Entr’Acte from Wolf-Ferrari’s Jewels of the Madona on the jukebox.  In 1949 it was the united front of the Village.  * * *  Among the regulars there were heterosexuals on the make; homosexuals who preferred erotic integration to the exclusively gay bars on Eighth Street; communists, socialists and Trotskyists; potheads; writers of the older generation, like James Agee, and innovators of the future like Allen Ginsberg, and Julian Beck and Judith Malina, who were to found the Living Theater.

NOTE:  Café Bohemia owner James Garafalo turned the place into a famed jazz place by 1955 although the premises at 15 Barrow Street later resumed operation once again as a gay bar which was busted in 1971 as a Gambino crime family operationThe San Remo at 93 MacDougal was a frequent locale at which Genovese gangster Anthony Strollo a/k/a Tony Bender conducted his "family" business.

Our Sister J. Edgar Hoover

In FBI Secrets:  An Agent’s Expose, M. Wesley Swearingen writes:

FbisecretsswearingenOne year after arriving in Memphis, Hoover transferred me to Chicago, Illinois.  I was thrilled – my mind was full of gangsters, Tommy guns, and the FBI’s famous machine gun battles of the 1930s. It was clear to me from Chicago’s newspaper headlines that gansters ruled a Chicago underworld element in the 1950s because gangland style murders averaged close to 100 a year in the Chicago area.  * * *  But when I told my colleague and veteran agent Vince Coll of my big plans for Chicago, he said that Hoover did not recognize the existence of a mob in Chicago.  According to Coll, Mafia leader Meyer Lansky’s organization had enough on Hoover and Tolson, as closet homosexuals, that Hoover would never investigate the mob.  I laughed, thinking Coll was joking.  I said he should be careful to whom he tells such stories.  Coll insisted he was not joking.  He made me promise never to tell anyone as long as he lived. I noted that it was true that FBI training school had taught nothing about organized crime.  The thought of Hoover and his associate Clyde Tolson being homosexual shocked me.  There were jokes in training school about Hoover and Tolson being homosexual, but I had passed off the jokes as being in bad taste.  * * *  Rumors of Hoover’s and Tolson’s homosexuality continued to permeate the field offices for years, but no agent seemed to have any personal knowledge of an affair.  Still, Hoover did nothing about organized crime for thirty-seven years, until pressured to do so by Attorney General Bobby Kennedy in 1961.  * * *  Today it’s clear that Hoover disliked Bobby Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy because Hoover feared the Kennedys would prosecute Meyer Lansky as a gangster, and prompt Lansky to expose Hoover and Tolson as closet homosexuals.

OfficialandconfidentialAnthony Summers documents the basis for Hoover’s fear in his 1993 book Official and Confidential, the Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover.  The book’s dust cover states, “J. Edgar Hoover . . . was a closet homosexual and transvestite.  Mafia bosses obtained information about Hoover’s sex life and used it for decades to keep the FBI at bay.  Without this, the Mafia as we know it might never have gained its hold in America."  A review of Anthony Summers’ book from the February 22, 1993 issue of Time magazine states:

Timecover02_22_93The motto of the FBI is "Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity." How well did William Sessions' all-powerful predecessor, J. Edgar Hoover, uphold these words? Not very, according to a just published biography of the late FBI chief. Anthony Summers' Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover is sure to disturb the old crime fighter's final rest.  Even as he railed against gays as "sexual deviants," Hoover apparently struggled with his own homosexuality. Summers offers fresh details of Hoover's 40-year friendship with Clyde Tolson, a handsome young agent he plucked out of the rank and file and quickly promoted to assistant director. The pair ate dinner together almost every night and vacationed together every year; Summers contends that Luisa Stuart, a former fashion model, once saw them holding hands in the back seat of a limo. According to Summers, the Mafia claimed to have the goods on Edgar and Clyde, including compromising photographs of the two men engaging in oral sex. That knowledge provided the mob with rich blackmail material. It protected gangsters like Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello from FBI scrutiny for more than 20 years and forced Hoover to insist that syndicated crime was not a national problem. Perhaps Summers' most bizarre revelation is an account provided by Susan Rosenstiel, the wife of a liquor distiller and gambling crony. Rosenstiel recalls attending what she thought would be an elegant private party at New York City's Plaza Hotel in the company of lawyer Roy Cohn, Hoover and others. Instead, Cohn introduced Rosenstiel to a woman named "Mary," dressed in a fluffy black dress, lace stockings and high heels. It was obvious Mary was no woman. "You could see where he shaved. It was Hoover," said Rosenstiel. Joined by Cohn, Hoover stripped down to a tiny garter belt and proceeded to have sex with two young boys. Cohn later joked about the evening. "That was really something, wasn't it, with Mary Hoover?"  Hoover's presidential snooping included efforts to pin an illicit liaison on Eleanor Roosevelt and culminated, most famously, with eavesdropping on J.F.K. frolicking with Mafia moll Judith Campbell and Marilyn Monroe.  "We had to be not only as straight as an arrow," recalled a former agent last week on PBS's Frontline. "We had to give every perception that we were straight as arrows." In 1972, at age 77, the omnipotent FBI chief became the first civil servant to be granted a state funeral, at which he was eulogized by Richard Nixon in the Rotunda of the Capitol as "one of the giants . . . a national symbol of courage, patriotism and granite-like honesty and integrity." But the year before, bedeviled by fallout from his efforts to tap the phones of journalists, the President had confided to John Ehrlichman, "We may have on our hands here a man who will pull the temple down with him, including me." It is not surprising that not one of the eight Presidents he served dared fire him.

In Stonewall:  The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution, [New York:  2004] David Carter writes:

Davidcarterstonewall_5_2Ginsberg, a man who loved both to gather and pass on gossip, had known since the late forties that J. Edgar Hoover was homosexual.  * * *  That Hoover was homosexual, and Clyde Tolson his lover is currently generally accepted.  The history of The Homosexual Handbook, published in 1968, shows, however, that by the late 1960s, not only was Hoover’s homosexuality whispered widely in the homosexual world but also that Hoover was, understandably, extremely sensitive about any public suggestion of this information.  The book’s last chapter, titled “Uncle Fudge’s List of Practical Homosexuals Past and Present with Very Short Biographical Notes—A Hearsay Reference Work,” includes Hoover’s name:

J. Edgar Hoover:  Celibataire, the director of the Federal Bureau of Intelligence [sic], he has for several decades remained the eminence froide of our national great society.

After the book appeared, pressure from the FBI caused it to be withdrawn.  The publisher soon reissued the book, but with Uncle Fudge’s list one name shorter.

*     *     *

From information published in the 1993 book Official and Confidential:  The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, by Anthony Summers, Ginsberg’s intuition has been proved correct.  Not only did Summers discover that the Mafia had photographic evidence implicating Hoover in homosexual activities, but it also came to light that Hoover at times dressed in female attire.  Research conducted for this book strongly suggests that Ed Murphy had one or more of these photographs, which allowed him to avoid serving time in prison for leading an extensive national blackmail ring.

John Paul Ranieri, a former prostitute interviewed for this history, provided critical testimony for corroborating and better understanding the larger implications of Murphy’s criminal enterprises for gay history.  Ranieri said that as a youth from Westchester County he had been forced by blackmail and Mafia-supplied drugs into a prostitution ring in which he remained active for three years before he escaped the mob’s control.  He claimed that a number of youths in the ring had disappeared after they got careless with talk, for while most of the customers were more or less average homosexual men with money, the regular clientele, according to Ranieri, also included famous men such as Malcolm Forbes, Cardinal Spellman, Liberace, U.S. Senators, a vice president of the United States, one of the most famous rock musicians, and J. Edgar Hoover.  The mob’s order, according to Ranieri, was strictly “Keep your zipper open and your mouth shut.”

Ranieri said that he met J. Edgar Hoover at private parties at the Plaza Hotel and that Hoover’s name was never mentioned.  Hoover was always in drag, and Ranieri said he could tell that the FBI director was sure that no one recognized him.  Ranieri said that he had ensured his own survival by having in his possession a photograph of himself with Hoover, given to him by the photographer.

How does the preceding information link Ed Murphy with J. Edgar Hoover?  The connection is made evident in a news story written shortly after Hoover’s homosexuality and transvestism became public.  When Summer’s book was published, a newspaper story about the 1960s national homosexual blackmail ring suddenly appeared after a quarter of a century of silence on the subject.  Without mentioning Murphy’s name, it quoted law enforcement sources who had worked on the case as saying that their investigation into the nationwide blackmail ring had turned up a photograph of Hoover “posing amiably” with the racket’s ringleader and had uncovered information that Clyde Tolson, Hoover’s lover, had himself “fallen victim to the extortion ring.”  After federal agents joined the investigation, both the photograph of Hoover and the documents about Tolson disappeared.  * * *  Very suggestive in this context is that Murphy would publicly say in 1978—before it became public information, as it did in the 1990s, that the Mafia had photographs of Hoover involved in sex acts—that he knew that J. Edgar Hoover “was one of my sisters."

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New York Confidential

In Jack Lait's and Lee Mortimer's 1952 U.S.A. Confidential, they write:

Where side-street sin is organized, the big boys of the Crime Cartel have no hand in it themselves, but hand it out for cigarette money to poor relatives.  That is why Greenwich Village can get away with almost anything – it is run by Alan Bono, a cousin of Joe Adonis.  We cannot give you here a compendium on what goes.  The following paragraphs are a few, at random, as they occurred to us:  The fairy situation is a pronounced problem, the more so because, in addition to our own, we get the pick of the nation’s pansy crop.  Like everything else in New York, our homosexuals are divided into three geographic strata – downtown, the West Side, and the East Side.  The Greenwich Village she-males are supposed to be the artistic set in an esoteric bohemian colony where everyone knows everyone else.  One of their favorite gathering places is the Moroccan Village, on West 8th Street.  They can be found also at almost every bar on Third Street, where Lesbians, too, foregather.  The most famous fag joint in town was the 181, at that number on Second Avenue.  After we wrote about it, City Hall was reluctantly forced to shutter it; but it was allowed to reopen sans liquor license, ostensibly as a hot jive place, but actually to steer customers to the Rainbow Inn, around the corner, where the gay girls and boys moved, show and all.  As a patron enteres the reconstructed 181, he is told “We only sell cokes; there’s no show.”  When the customer’s face falls, he is handed a card for the Rainbow.   * * *  So it is most understandable that the East Side homos should be a cut above those in the other parts of town.  We have two breeds East of the Avenue—the streetwalkers, who parade along Lexington Avenue, from 45th to 59th, and the swish-swells.  The streetwalkers are college boys and young “intellectuals” who prance Lexington, arm in arm, or try to make picj-ups, usually accosting Negroes.  There are some twenty or thirty cocktail lounges along the avenue and adjoining side streets, all patronized almost exclusively by fairies, and it is not uncommon to see as many as a hundred young near-men packed up against the bar without a woman on the premises.  One of the most patronized is the Golden Pheasant, on 45th just east of Lexington.  Another is the beautiful Chandelle Bar, on E. 48th.

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Club 82 at 82 East 4th Street: Part I

82ad_3A June 20, 1953 article (“Brutal Mugging Fatal”) from the New York Times states:

Stephen Franse, a former night club owner in Greenwich Village, was found murdered yesterday, the police believed, of a brutal mugging.  His body, badly beaten, was discovered at 9:45 A.M. face down on the rear floor of his automobile, which was parked in front of 164 East Thirty-seventh Street.  Detectives said a sapphire and diamond ring, a gold watch and approximately $200 in cash were missing.  Up to last night they had discovered no serious threats on Mr. Franse's life.  The police said that Mr. Franse, who was 55 years old and lived with his wife at 1777 Grand Concourse, the Bronx, had left the Club 82 at 82 East Fourth Street at 4:30 A.M. planning to go to a restaurant at Fifty-ninth Street and Madison Avenue.  Mr. Franse formerly operated the Club 181 and the Howdy Club both in Greenwich Village, the officials said.

A September 7, 1998 column by Jerry Capeci states:

Genovese's first wife died at a young age in 1929. Three years later, he married Anna Petillo, two weeks after her husband was mysteriously killed. The couple had two children, Nancy and Phillip, and Phillip was never tied to  in any mob rackets.  Anna Genovese divorced Vito in a very public and spectacular trial [in 1953], in which she named him as a mob boss, as well as a wife beater. Anna detailed her husband's criminal activities and his extensive income from loansharking, gambling, nightclubs and the like. Despite her claim that Genovese had an income of at least $30,000 per week from one racket alone, she was awarded only $300 a month in support. Genovese (left) claimed he could not afford that meager amount and quickly sold his valuable New Jersey mansion to prove his point. Mob watchers quite naturally were expecting some kind of violent response, and in a roundabout way, Don Vito obliged them.Genovese had spent a decade in Italy on the run from a murder charge. Before he left, he delegated one of his soldiers, Steve Franse, to assist and watch over his wife. Shortly after the messy divorce in 1953, Franse turned up dead. A decade later, Joe Valachi confirmed what everyone had believed: Don Vito had ordered the hit.

In U.S.A. Confidential, Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer wrote in 1952:

The most famous fag joint in town was the 181, at that number on Second Avenue. After we wrote about it, City Hall was reluctantly forced to shutter it; but it was allowed to reopen sans liquor license, ostensibly as a hot jive place, but actually to steer customers to the Rainbow Inn, around the corner, where the gay girls and boys moved, show and all.  As a patron enters the reconstructed 181, he is told “We only sell cokes; there's no show.” When the customer's face falls, he is handed a card for the Rainbow.

Under The Mink states:

The Club 82, at 82 East 4th St., opened in 1953 as the 181 closed.  The 82 –“The East Side’s Newest Rendevous”—was under the same management as the 181 and inherited much of its personnel and style in floorshows.  But it was never so elegant.  Tourists flocked to the 82, and gay people often came to see their friends.

In Too Much, Too Soon: The Makeup and Breakup of the New York Dolls (London: Omnibus, 1998), Nina Antonia writes:

Toomuchtoosoon82 Club had been an influential drag revue since its opening in 1953. Anyone who wanted to make it as a serious drag artist performed there and by the mid-sixties it was a big draw for any celebrities who wanted to take a little walk on the wig side. By the following decade however, the club had lost its clandestine appeal and most of its clientele. The Stonewall riots had taken drag out of secretive smoky bars and on to the street. David Jo: "We used to always go there and say to Tommy, who was this butch dyke who took the tickets, 'You should have rock & roll here.' The place was dying, that whole speakeasy element was over, 'cause everything was out in the open. People didn't have to go there and hide what they were doing anymore but Tommy didn't get it. 'Where are all the people going?' 'They're doing it in the street, Tommy.'"

In Clinton Heylin’s From the Velvets to the Voidoids (New York: Penguin, 1993), Bob Gruen states:

VelvetstothevoidoidsSince the Club 82 had had this outcast image for so long, the punk and the early glitter kids were treated very openly by the management. They didn’t think they were weird and didn’t try and cash in on ‘em—they’d been dealing with weirdos for forty years! So when bands started going there they brought the young rock & roll crowd.

A December 7, 1930 article (“25 Dry Agents Raid Greenwich Village”) from the New York Times states:

In a campaign to dry up centres in Greenwich Village which were considered “dripping wet,” twenty-five agents of Andrew McCampbell, prohibition administrator, made eight raids yesterday on restaurants and alleged speakeasies.  * * *  In a night club known as the Rainbow Inn, 82 East Fourth Street, agents arrested Jack Misker, 2018 West Sixth Street, manager; Sam Wald, 1052 Ocean Avenue; and Morris Solomon, 1710 Avenue B, waiter, all of Brooklyn; and seized 175 bottles of alleged liquor, twenty-four gallons of wine and six cases of supposed ale.

A November 1, 1928 article (“24 Indicted In Dry Law Cases”) from the New York Times states:

The Federal Grand Jury returned seven indictments yesterday charging twenty-four defendants with violations of the national prohibition law.  In addition, Assistant United States District Attorney Maxwell Shapiro filed summonses in fourteen padlock actions against as many groups of defendants.  * * *  Those named in the padlock and personal injunction actions are . . . Louis Shapiro and others, 80-82 East Fourth Street.

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BITTER QUEEN NOTE:  Since the early 1990s the 82 East 4th Street property -- in the photo below -- has housed the gay sex club and porn theater the Bijou.  The door into the Bijou is directly under the "Bar" sign and behind the security shutters were are rolled down during the day until the place opens up in the late afternoon/early evening.

Bijou

Club 82 at 82 East 4th Street: Part III

Mafiaunited_statestreasurydepartm_2According to a dossier compiled in the late 1950s and early 1960s by the Bureau of Narcotics within the United States Treasury Department – later relied upon by Bobby Kennedy when he became Attorney General in 1961 in his early efforts to bust the mob – Genovese member Ralph Polizzano was identified under government surveillance as frequently located at Club 82 on East Fourth Street.

Polizzano was a major heroin trafficker for the Genovese crime family, and owned the Squeeze Inn Bar just at 57 [87?] East Fourth Street as a front for his operations.  Fellow Genovese member Vincent James Ciraulo was identified under government surveillance as frequently located at the Squeeze Inn Bar, and Ciraulo himself owned the Stage Bar at 59 [89?] East Fourth Street.

According to the feds, the East Fourth Street strip was a center for heroin distribution trafficking – which included Al’s Luncheonette at 34 East Fourth Street, and a plant at 36 East Fourth Street where imported pure heroin was cut – by the Genovese crime family.  The identical facsimile of this Bureau of Narcotics dossier was published last year by HarperCollins under the title Mafia:  The Government’s Secret File on Organized Crime.

Club 82 at 82 East 4th Street: Part IV

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The FBI Files: David Petillo: "in his early teens was reputed to be a 'fairy,' but . . . when he was 18 or 19 years old he went to Chicago where he was ‘straightened out’ by Al Capone"

David Petillo was a long-time soldier in the Genovese crime family and, born in NYC in 1908, perhaps began his criminal career as a finocchio in Little Italy because “in his early teens was reputed to be a ‘fairy,’ but . . . when he was 18 or 19 years old he went to Chicago where he was ‘straightened out’ by AL CAPONE and was soon a member of the CAPONE mob there.”  Although Petillo may have “straightened out,” he nevertheless had a fetish for dressing in drag when he killed his numerous victims over the decades.  When Petillo returned to New York he hooked up with Charlie Lucky Luciano, and on February 1, 1936 was arrested on white slavery charges “with 100 prostitutes and madams and was described as an individual who had organized 200 houses of prosititution under LUCIANO with 3,000 girls grossing $12 million a year.”  The girls were happy to testify against Petillo, and he served 20 years at Sing Sing until he was paroled in 1956.  At this point Petillo trafficked heroin for Vito Genovese through the Lower East Side gay and straight bars on East 4th Street and Second Avenue, including Club 82, and in the mid- and late-1960s had hidden interests in an afterhours club at 11 East 16th Street.  Petillo became involved in the pornography rackets in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and he had an interest in the notorious Arrow Laboratories at 75 Spring Street which produced some of the most hardcore obscene material avialable at the time until selling out to the Gambino crime family. However, throughout the 1970s, Petillo was “active in operation of sex-related businesses in New York City” and cocaine trafficking.  On February 4, 1980, he murdered Edward Vassallo a/k/a Charles Talbot, and fled the country.  Petillo died in Spain on December 28, 1983.

 

Download David Petillo FBI Files Part I

 

Download David Petillo FBI Files Part II

 

Download David Petillo FBI Files Part III

 

Download David Petillo FBI Files Part IV

 

Download David Petillo FBI Files Part V

Genovese Crime Family Gay Bars and Nightclubs in the 1950s

Avillagebarn_2By the late 1950s the FBI had identied several existing nightclubs that allegedly were controlled by the Genovese crime family including – but hardly limited to – the following:  the gay Rainbow Inn and, later, 82 Club, at 82 East Fourth Street; the gay Club 181 at 181 Second Avenue and the Howdy Club in Greenwich Village both of which were fronted by Stephen Franse; the lesbian Surfmaid Bar at 151 Bleecker Street fronted by Tommy Musto a/k/a Tommy the Priest; the gay and beatnik San Remo at 93 MacDougal Street fronted by Frank Santini; the gay Cherry Lane Theater bar and the Bon Soir at 40 West 8th Street both of which were fronted by Ernest Sgroi; the gangster hangout the Gold Key Club at 26 West 56th Street fronted by Vinnie Mauro; the gangster hangout Tommy’s Bar at 171 Bleecker Street fronted by Johnnie “the Bug” Stopelli; the cabaret Greenwich Village Inn at 5 Sheridan Square at which Dominick Strollo – brother to gangster Anthony Strollo – often worked; the gay bar Tony Pastor’s at 130 – 132 West 3rd Street and the Heatwave at 131 West 3rd Street fronted by Joseph Cataldo; the “negro nightclub” the Savannah Club at 66 West 3rd Street, the gay club Moroccan Village at 23 West 8th Street and the Village Barn at 52 West 8th Street all of which were fronted by Joseph Schiavone; the Seven Steps Café at 92 West Houston Street and the Music Bar between MacDougal Street and Sixth Avenue both of which were fronted by Alfred Faccio a/k/a Al Butch; the Pomp Room at 125 East 47th Street fronted by Carlo Cataldo; the Continental at 127 West 52nd Street; and Club Caravan.

Anthony Strollo a/k/a Tony Bender, who managed the extensive nightclub and restaurant holdings for the Genovese crime family in Greenwich Village, conducted much of his business at the Savannah Club and the San Remo although he also was frequently observed with other Genovese members and associates at the Dante Alighieri Coffee House at 79 MacDougal Street, Greenwich Café Expresso at 102 MacDougal Street, Rocco’s Restaurant at 181 Thompson Street, Tokay’s Bar & Grill at 1433 Second Avenue, the Lodge Bar & Restaurant at 185 West Houston Street, and Dave’s Blue Room at 565 Lexington Avenue.  Although the nightclubs and restaurants provided the Genovese crime family with opportunities for profit skimming and money laundering, many of the establishments were used as wholesale and retail distribution points for heroin trafficking which was its primary racket, and it was for this that Vito Genovese was convicted in 1959.

A May 29, 1958 FBI report on Anthony Strollo states:

New York files reflect that . . . the Club Caravan, the Savannah Club, the 82 Club, and the Morroccan Club were owned by . . . VITO GENOVESE, and the syndicate, but were fronted by someone else.  On March 25, 1953, ANNA GENOVESE appeared at the office of the New York State Liquor Authority with her attorney, H. DAVID FRACKMAN, and was questioned, under oath, in a public hearing conducted by the State Liquor Authority.  She stated that she did voice the opinion in Superior Court of New Jersey, that the 82 Club, the Club Caravan, the Savannah Club, and the Moroccan Village were owned by VITO GENOVESE and the syndicate, and that the proprietors of record were fronting for them.  However, on March 25, 1953, she stated at this hearing that VITO GENOVESE never had any interest in the Moroccan Club or the 82 Club.  In regard to the Savannah Club, she stated that she knew of no previous transaction between STEPHEN FRANSE or JOSEPH SCHIAVONE and her husband, VITO GENOVESE.  SCHIAVONE was president of the Savannah Club, and FRANSE was the previous owner.  As to the Club Caravan, she stated that she never had an interest in this club, and had never visited same as a customer.   * * * In public hearings conducted by the New York State Liquor Authority on April 17, 1953, VITO GENOVESE was questioned, under oath, in the presence of his attorney, JOSEPH MATTICE.  During this testimony, VITO GENOVESE denied investing any money in the 82 Restaurant, Inc.  He stated that he had no financial interest in the Moroccan Village, and he also denied any interest in the Savannah Club in New York City.  GENOVESE denied that he had ever joined any group to purchase, own, or share in any licensed premise in New York State, or that he, in fact, has or ever had any interest in any such premises in New York State.  * * *  [I]n March, 1953 . . . the books and records of the Club Caravan, Savannah Club, 82 Club, and the Moroccan Club had been picked up by the District Attorney’s Office in New York City.  The informant stated that the persons listed as having an interest in those clubs testified under oath at public hearings conducted by the New York State Liquor Authority, and all denied that VITO GENOVESE had any interest.

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The FBI Files: Anthony Strollo a/k/a Tony Bender: Part I

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The FBI Files: Anthony Strollo a/k/a Tony Bender: Part II

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S.L.A. Warns Bars On Bad Clientele

An October 18, 1959 article (“S.L.A. Warns Bars On Bad Clientele”) from the New York Times states:

The State Liquor Authority has issued a warning to the owners of all restaurants, taverns and night clubs serving wine or liquor.  It said that catering to the patronage of prostitutes, sex deviates, hoodlums or others of  “bad reputation” would lead to the revocation of their S.L.A. licenses.  * * *  Two more restaurants were closed yesterday in the authority’s drive.  They were . . . and the Grapevine Restaurant, 300 East Twenty-eighth Street.  * * *  Grapevine Restaurant, Inc., the owner of the other restaurant, did not contest the authority’s charge that it had become disorderly.  The charge was based on reports by the police and the authority’s investigators that the restaurant employed homosexuals.  They also found that “a substantial portion of the patronage included lesbians and homosexuals, some of whom were observed committing indecent acts.”  * * *  On Friday, the authority revoked the license of . . . Le Cupidon, 40 East Fifty-eighth Street.

In Cures:  A Gay Man’s Odyssey (Westview Press:  2002), Martin Duberman writes:

Cures_a_gay_mans_odyssey_4The Grapevine became my bar of choice.  It was the liveliest gay spot in the city in the late fifties, patronized by lesbians as well as gay men, and a forerunner of the seventies discos, which thought themselves sui generis.  Indeed one of my diary entrues from April 1958 reads like a press release from the disco-queen delirium of twenty years later:  “. . . absorbed and yet released in a concatenation of emotions, bathed and abetted by the heat and excitement, the stimulation of the liquor and the music.”  We would, like those who came later, dance till dawn, pour comatose out into the streets, suffer gargantuan next-day remorse (which in the seventies purportedly gave way to mere exhaustion.)

The Jewish Mafia and Gay Bars

In Stonewall:  The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution [New York:  2004], David Carter writes:

Davidcarterstonewall_2When [Edward Francis P.] Murphy was released from reform school in 1943, he entered the army after a short stint in the gay bar business at the Pink Elephant, an establishment run by the Jewish Mafia.  After combat in France, he left the army in 1946 and worked as a bouncer at the Moss Bar on Eighth Avenue.  * * *  By the late 1940s Murphy had teamed up with a gay friend to rob dentist offices, targeting them for their shipments of gold from dental laboratories.  After robbing seventy-three dental offices, Murphy was finally caught in 1947 and served ten years in prison, the maximum time, spending much of it in isolation for assaults.  When he left prison, he worked as a bouncer in gay bars such as the Cork Club, the Bali, Mais Oui, Sans Souci, the 415, the Terrace, and Artie’s.

Cruisingthedeuce_3In Cruising the Deuce (chelCpress: 2005), Allen Windsor a/k/a Warren Allen Smith writes:

In the early 1950s or 1960s, I had heard one teenager brag to another that his dad bribed police to stay away from his gay bar, the Cork Club, on 72nd Street.  Most of us in the subculture assumed we were patronizing Mafia places, mainly because we didn’t feel safe elsewhere.

A June 4, 1949 article (“Suspect Is Arrested As ‘Toothache’ Thief”) from the New York Times states:

The “toothaches” that Edward Francis Murphy complained about when he visited Brooklyn dentists during the last year became one big headache yesterday in Brooklyn Felony Court.  The 23-year-old ex-convict waived examination before Magistrate Thomas H. Cullen on a charge of robbery.  * * *  Murphy, who lives at 139 West Fourteenth Street, according to police, was a member of a gang of three men responsible for more than thirty hold-ups of dentists in Brooklyn.  Their loot consisted of about $25,000 in cash and large quantities of gold pellets used in dental work.  The police said that Murphy, apparently the leader of the trio, would enter a dentist’s office and complain about his teeth.  Asked to wait, Murphy would excuse himself on the pretense of having a business appointment and arrange for the work to be done the next day.  On his second appearance he would show up with two accomplices and hold up the dentist.  Murphy was picked up on Thursday when he went to the old gold shop of Philip Pruzansky at 309 West Forty-second Street.  * * *  Pruzansky, 57 years old, of 1372 East Tenth Street, Brooklyn, was arraigned in Manhattan Felony Court on a charge of receiving $650 in jewelry and dental scrap allegedly stolen by Murphy.

A June 5, 1949 article (“2 More Are Arrested in ‘Toothache’ Thefts”) from the New York Times states:

Two more alleged members of the so-called Brooklyn “toothache gang,” who are said to have held up twenty dentists’ offices and made away with $4,000 in cash and gold pellets, were picked up yesterday by detectives.  The suspects, in company with a third man, were arrested at 8:05 A. M. in front of Armando’s Restaurant, 143 Montague Street, Brooklyn, which, the police say, they were preparing to hold up.  * * *  One of the men was Francis Mullin, alias “Red” Ryan, 25 years old, of 130 West Seventieth Street, who had dyed his red hair a black shade.  He and Richard Nelson, 31, of 352 Van Brunt Street, Brooklyn, were identified as the hold-up men by twelve dentists and were booked on charges of assault and robbery.  The man picked up with them was Val Sandstron, 35, of 611 Forty-first Street, Brooklyn who was charged with possessing burglar tools and conspiracy to commit robbery.

The 1960 Mafia Wave Over Gay Bars In NYC

In Stonewall:  The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution [New York:  2004], David Carter writes:

Davidcarterstonewall_3According to both Dick Leitsch and Randy Wicker, in the late 1950s there were a considerable number of gay bars that operated openly in New York City.  Leitsch puts the number of gay bars at “more than forty” in 1959 and says that they were business that had been around for a long time and were controlled by “private individuals.”  But a great wave of bar closings began in 1960, which Leitsch felt was the fallout of a large investigation into corruption within the State Liquor Authority (SLA).  When the New York City Police began a systematic campaign in 1960 to close all gay bars, they all lost their licenses, with one exception, the bar of the Cherry Lane Theater (though even that bar finally lost its liscense during Koch’s 1966 antigay crusade).  The result of the 1960 crackdown, according to Leitsch, was that “the organized crime syndicate saw an opening and rushed in, opening bars all over town.”  Leitsch claims that “during one period” Mafia gay bars were able to remain open by paying off “strategic people” but that “when that became more difficult after the scandals in the State Liquor Authority, the bars began to operate only until they were raided, at which time they would pick up the entire operation, bar, employees, clientele and all, and move to another place in the same neighborhood, with the licenses in another name.”  Leitsch later commented in a lecture that whenever a crackdown occurred, “homosexuals knew the ‘Mafia’ would find some way to supply us with a place to meet and socialize.  The sad philosophy of the gay world was that expressed by Brecht’s Mother Courage:  ‘Our only hope lies in corruption.’”  Leitsch saw the problem as the SLA having “surround[ed] the liquor business with so many rules and petty restrictions that honest men cannot survive,” so that business “reverts to the hands of those crooked enough to have the knowledge and lack of scruples to ferret out and work with crooked liquor agents.” 

Bar In "Village" Yields On License

An October 23, 1963 article (“Bar In ‘Village’ Yields on License”) by Charles Grutzner from the New York Times provides:

The Cherry Lane bar and grill, described by the police as one of the most flamboyant haunts of homosexuals in Greenwich Village, has given up its fight against the State Liquor Authority’s effort to close it.  Carl Moskowitz, a lawyer who had obtained a 30-day stay in State Supreme Court on a Liquor Authority order suspending the bar’s liquor license for 60 days, said yesterday that the owner, Louis Pandolfo, had decided not to press his appeal from the penalty.  * * *  The current suspension, a result of findings that of an S.L.A. hearing commissioner, is based on charges that the Louern Corporation, of which Mr. Pandolfo is the sole shareholder, had falsely stated the purchase price of the bar in its application for a liquor license and had subsequently failed to report loans it had received.  The new charges, based on police visits to the bar, allege that the owner permitted the bar to become disorderly and permitted “homosexuals, degenerates and undesireables” to congregate and conduct themselves in a lewd manner.  * * *  The reputation of the Cherry Lane as a gathering place of homosexuals has spread in the last few years among homosexuals and tourists from many parts of the country and Canada.  Tourists have visited the bar to stare at men dancing together to jukebox tunes and have been solicited by male prostitutes on the sidewalk outside the bar.  * * *  The hearing that resulted in the current suspension disclosed that the business had been bought by the Louren Corporation in 1958 from the Cherry Lane, Inc.  Ernest Sgroi Jr. of 136 Waverly Place was then half owner, with Pandolfo, of the Louren Corporation.  He subsequently sold his interest to Mr. Pandolfo.

A June 21, 1998 article (“For a Taste of the Bubbly”) from the New York Times states:

Magnum, a cocktail bar specializing in Champagne, opened at 357 West Broadway (between Broome and Grand Streets) in SoHo last month. Featuring a 30-foot-long semicircular bar, Magnum offers vintage Champagne (10 labels are available) by the glass or the bottle. Light dishes, including oysters, caviar and smoked salmon, are on the menu.  The bar is the first project of the Ambrosia Restaurant Group, headed by three veteran restaurateurs: Daniel O'Dea, Suzanne DiPirro and Ernest Sgroi 3d, a third-generation New York City bar operator whose father owned the historic Stonewall Inn.

In How I Lost 10 Pounds in 53 Years:  A Memoir  (Back Stage Books:  2006), Kaye Ballard writes:

KayeballardAfter performing at the Blue Angel, I went directly to the Bon Soir [at 40 West 8th Street], where I did one show a night and two on the weekends, with Sundays off.  * * *  The Bon Soir was owned by Ernest Sgroi and Phil Pagano, who were reputed to be members of the Mafia.  I can’t say whether that is true or not, but I know that Vito Genovese was a frequent guest at the club.  At the time I had no idea that Mr. Genovese’s other name was “The Godfather.”  Oh, Marlon, how life circles around and mixes together!  What I did know was that these men were always polite, well-dressed, and quite generous.  Phil Pagano threw the greatest parties for us on closing nights, complete with dinner and gifts for everyone in the show.  The Bon Soir was in a basement on Eighth Street in the Village.  One large room with every table facing the stage.

Bon_soir Bon_soir_1

"the crime syndicate had moved into the operation of bars and night-spots for homosexuals as early as 1957"

A December 17, 1963 article from the New York Times discusses “the revocation of the liquor licenses of two more homosexual haunts that had been repeatedly raided by the police”; specifically, the Fawn at 795 Washington Street, New York, New York, and the Heights Supper Club at 80 Montague Street in Brooklyn, New York.  The Times article states that “[o]ne division of the organized crime syndicate controls bars and restaurants that cater to the homosexual trade,” and further provides:

Commissioner Walsh, officials of the State Liquor Authority and New York homosexuals agree that there is evidence that the crime syndicate had moved into the operation of bars and night-spots for homosexuals as early as 1957.  * * *  “There is no direct proof of  syndicate operation, but on more than one occasion we have had the same persons employed in this type of place as manager, bartender, or doorman, indicating some sort of organization,” Commissioner Walsh says.  He acknowledges that this may involve some low-level police payoffs but says it is unorganized on the police side.  The Commissioner’s confidential unit cracks down on such practices whenever they can be established, he says.  Two names have recurred the behind-the-scenes operation of these places.  One is an ex-convict with a long record of arrests for offenses ranging from juvenile delinquency to assault.  He has long been known as an associate of a lieutenant of Vito Genovese, the reputed head of the Cosa Nostra crime syndicate.  The ex-convict has owned or operated a succession of places that catered to homosexuals.  His license for operation of a West Side bar was not renewed several years ago but he has appeared in the management of other homosexual haunts since then.

Mafia Steps Up Infiltration And Looting of Businesses

A February 14, 1965 article (“Mafia Steps Up Infiltration And Looting of Businesses”) by Charles Grutzner from the New York Times states:

In another business area, the State Liquor Authority is aware of tight Mafia control over many bars and nightclubs in Greenwich Village, in midtown, on the fashionable East Side and out on Long Island.  Most of the bars that cater to male and female homosexuals are Mafia operations and some are bases for blackmail of deviates from wealthy families.   * * *  The S.L.A. has cancelled more than 125 licenses on the ground of hidden ownership.  * * *  Donald S. Hostetter, a former F.B.I. man who is chairman of the liquor agency, said that with 45 investigators to handle all types of liquor law violations throughout the state it was difficult enough to prove the existence of a false front but impossible to get behind it.  That, he said, would require “an army of investigators and accountants.”  Since the disappearance of Anthony (Tony Bender) Strollo, who is believed to have been murdered for reaching for too much power, Thomas (Tommy Ryan) Eboli is understood to be the overseer of the bar and nightclub racket in this city for the Genovese family.

The FBI Files: Mattachine Foundation - Mattachine Society

An August 1965 article from the Eastern Mattachine Magazine states:

In June, the Nassau County police department reportedly completed an investigation into fires which destroyed five nightclubs “catering to sexual deviates.” (See Eastern MATTACHINE Magazine, July 1965, page 9.)  A reputed member of the Cosa Nostra and two aides were arrested as a result of this investigation in which a famous establishment in Island Park, New York was closed.  * * *  Arson and the connections of the proprietors are acknowledged facts about south shore bars.  It is the public and the State Liquor Authority who are responsible for criminal activity by their denial of our right to assemble and – just as those other “keepers of our morality” who banned alcoholic beverages in the 1920’s – they are no better than the criminals they engender.

Download Mattachine Foundation - Mattachine Society FBI Files Part I

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Download Mattachine Foundation - Mattachine Society FBI Files Part VII

Download Mattachine Foundation - Mattachine Society FBI Files Part VIII

Owner of Nightclub is Accused of Arson

Anthony_tony_bender_strollo_with_haA June 8, 1965 article (“Owner of Nightclub is Accused of Arson”) from the New York Times states:

An eight-month investigation by Nassau County authorities into fires that destroyed five nightclubs reportedly catering to sexual deviates resulted in the arrests early today of a reputed member of Cosa Nostra and two of his aids.  District Attorney William Cahn said the fires had resulted from a struggle among underworld figures for control of places catering to deviates.  Arrested and charged with keeping a disorderly house . . . were Edward De Curtis, 51 years old, of 185 West Houston Street, Manhattan; Danny Fatico, 45, of 92 Schenk Avenue, Brooklyn, and John Virgini, 47, of 335 Avenue W, Brooklyn.  Mr. Cahn said that De Curtis, owner of The Magic Touch in Island Park, had represented the interests of Anthony Strollo (Tony Bender), a former underling of Cosa Nostra-controlled Greenwich Village establishments catering to deviates.

An October 8, 1967 article (“Mafia Increasing Investments in Business on L.I.”) by Charles Grutzner from the New York Times states:

[John “Sonny”] Franzese [of the Columbo crime family] is reported to have a concealed stake in several bars, motels and cocktail lounges, including places patronized by homosexuals.  A sideline in the operation of such spots is the blackmailing of wealthy or prominent patrons.  * * *  The Genovese family, which is reported to control many of the bars and nightclubs in Greenwich Village and on Manhattan’s fashionable East Side catering to sex deviates, has extended its operations to Long Island.  A member of the family, Edward (Eddie Toy) DeCurtis, is to go on trial this fall in Nassau County Court with Danny Fatico and John (Vicious Vivian) Vignini on charges of keeping a disorderly house and conspiracy to violate the alcoholic beverage control law.  The charges resulted from a raid two years ago at the Magic Touch, an Island Park nightclub described by Mr. [District Attorney of Nassau County William] Cahn as “a cesspool of depravity.” DeCurtis has been named by the police as the concealed owner of the Magic Touch.

A January 31, 1968 article (“3 Guilty in Homosexual Case”) from the New York Times provides:

Eddie DeCurtis, a reputed member of the Mafia, and two co-defendants were found guilty today of two counts involving the operation of a disorderly house catering to homosexuals.  They were found guilty of misdemeanor charges.  DeCurtis is 53 years old and lived at 185 West Houston Street, Manhattan.  Also found guilty were John (Vicious Vivian) Vignini, 44, of 335 Avenue W., Brooklyn, and Daniel (Danny Wagons) Fatico, 47, of 92 Schenck Avenue, Brooklyn.

NOTE:  Danny Fatico was the brother of Gambino capo Carmine Fatico.

December 25, 2007

Peppermint Lounge & G.G. Barnum's Room at 128 West 45th Street

Peppermintlounge_3A December 28, 1965 article (“Peppermint Lounge Goes Dark; May Lose Liquor Permit Today”) from the New York Times states:

The Peppermint Lounge, which became internationally known as the original citadel of the twist, was dark and deserted last night.  It is scheduled to lose its liquor license today as a result of a series of charges filed against the owners by the State Liquor Authority.  The lounge, at 128 West 45th Street, just east of Times Square, spearheaded the start of the twist craze here four years ago, and eager crowds were soon storming the unpretentious front door to cavort amid celebrities on the jammed dance floor.  * * *  One of the charges against the lounge was that the owners of record included an “undisclosed person” who took part in the lounge’s direction and derived profits from it, Mr. [Thomas F.] Ring [Deputy Commissioner of the State Liquor Authority] said.  The owners of record are Ralph Saggese and Orlando Grippo, but an actual owner is Sam Konwiser, who is listed on the payroll as manager, according to the S.L.A. official.  The lounge is listed legally as the 128 Restaurant, Inc.

A July 3, 1968 article (“37 Indicted Here In Investigation of Police Payoffs”) by John Sibley from the New York Times states:

An elaborate system of “protection” payoffs to the police by gamblers and nightclub operators led to the indictment yesterday of 37 men, including 19 present and former policemen.  The announcement of the indictments by District Attorney Frank S. Hogan culminated an investigation that began in 1960.  More than 1,000 policemen testified before four grand juries during the eight-yeat inquiry.  * * *  Among the nightclubs mentioned in the indictment as being involved in the defendants’ payoff schemes were the Peppermint Lounge at 128 West 45th Street, which popularized the Twist, and the Roundtable at 151 East 50th Street, an entertainment spot that features comedians and belly dancers.  The manager of the Peppermint Lounge said last night that the present owners had no connection with the club four years ago.

Ggsbarnuminvite_2BQ NOTE:  The Peppermint Lounge was owned by Genovese capo Matty "the Horse" Ianniello who controlled many gay bars, strip clubs and other nightlife establishments in Manhattan, including the tranny bar Gilded Grape, the hustler bar Haymarket, and gay disco Starship Discovery in the early to late 1970s.  The 128 West 45th Street property later was home to Ianniello's GG Barnum's Room -- opening on July 20, 1978 -- which was a hot spot for transexuals, drag queens and gay men; the "GG" was a reference to his beloved Gilded Grape where he reportedly was fond of flirting with the young drag queens.  After the closure of GG Barnum's Room, Ianniello turned the space again into The Peppermint Lounge but this time as a rock club.  Matty Ianniello and several of his closest associates were convicted of a cash skimming operation involving several of their establishments in 1985.

Ggbarnumsroom_2  Ggsbarnumroom_2 

Underworld Expanding Control Over Night Clubs

An October 16, 1966 article (“Underworld Expanding Control Over Night Clubs”) from the New York Times states:

In Greenwich Village, where some policemen know which Mafiosi have shares in which bars and night spots but cannot prove it, the overseer of the operation is said to be Thomas (Tommy Ryan) Eboli, successor to Anthony (Tony Bender) Strollo.  Strollo’s disappearance in 1962 is generally believed among the police to be a piece of intra-Mafia business.  Eboli, like Strollo, has been identified as a high-ranking member of the “family” headed by Vito Genovese, who is serving 15 years in Federal prison for narcotics trafficking.  Mr. [Donald S.] Hostetter [the State Liquor Authority’s chairman] said . . . that he knew of the various reports of underworld infiltration of drinking places.  He said he believed many of them were true, but explained the limitations on his investigations.  “We are an agency of the state set up to regulate the sale of alcoholic beverages,” he said.  “We are not a criminal law enforcement agency.  We can revoke or cancel any liquor license where we find it is being used by someone other than the person or corporation to whom it was issued.  But we are not equipped nor do we have the legal mandate to go beyond that to determine who are the ultimate beneficiaries.  The State Liquor Authority revokes 40 to 50 licenses a year on the ground of concealed ownership or partnership.  “Some of the most aggravated cases wind up with suspensions on the lesser charges of keeping inadequate books and records because we can’t prove the more serious charges,” he said.

The Mafia's "Chicken and Bulls" Extortion Scam

A March 3, 1966 article (“Nationwide Ring Preying on Prominent Deviates”) by Jack Roth from the New York Times states:

Eminent educators, including at least  two deans of Eastern universities, prominent theatrical personalities and officers of the armed services—all homosexuals—have been the victims of an extortion ring that has operated throughout the nation for nearly 10 years.  * * *  This was learned yesterday from the police and sources in the District Attorney’s office.  It was also learned that more than a thousand victims had paid millions of dollars in extortion, with some individuals paying more than $20,000 to ring members posing as policemen.  * * *  District Attorney Frank S. Hogan announced last Feb. 17 the indictment of 17 defendants on charges of extortion from homosexuals and reported that nine were in custody.  * * *  It came to light yesterday, however, that the report on the extent of the ring’s operation had only touched the surface.  With about 25 members, the ring worked with what are called decoys, or “chickens,” and phony policemen.  The decoy would lure the victim to a hotel room, usually from a midtown bar, and get him into a compromising situation.  Then one of two things would follow.  A bogus policeman would break in and threaten the victim with arrest and disclosure unless he paid off or the decoy would assult the victim and steal his money and credentials.  The credentials would then be sent to bogus policemen who would shake down the victim at a later date.  Mr. Hogan has said that the police in cities in various parts of the country had been asked to apprehend several of the men who had been indicted.  To illustrate the scope of the operation, he explained that a New York businessman who had been beaten up in Chicago and had had his identification stolen there was greeted some time after in New York by two bogus policemen who had his credentials.  They said they were Chicago police and shook him down for $2,000.  * * *  One victim was a musician who has made numerous appearances on television; one currently is a partner in a well-known night-spot; and another is a leading motion picture actor.  Others included accountants; heads of business firms; an assistant principal of an Eastern school who is now living in the Midwest; a director of an art gallery; a trustee of a university who has since resigned; a number of professors and a much-admired television personality.  * * *  Over the years, it was explained, a number of the ring members have been convicted of various offenses, have served time in jail and have returned to the ring.  One source close to the inquiry said that it definitely was a single ring in which all the members were acquainted with each other, rather than isolated independent operations.

A June 1, 1966 article (“3 Indicted Here As Sex Extorters”) by Edward Ranzal from the New York Times states:

Three former convicts were indicted yesterday on charges of conspiring to extort millions of dollars from homosexuals.  One of the accused is a reputed leader of a nationwide ring that preyed on the victims.  * * *  Named in the one-count indictment of a federal grand jury were Sherman Chadwick Kaminsky, 38 years old, of Baltimore, accused as a ringleader; John Fellebaum, 27, of Monroeville, Pa.; and Elwood Lee Hammock, 48, of Durham, N.C.  * * *  [Assistant United States Attorney Thomas H.] Baer said the ring operated primarily in New York, attending conventions to look for victims.  Fellebaum, a six-foot former weight-lifter, was used to lure victims to hotel rooms, Mr. Baer asserted.  In most instances the victim was beaten and his wallet or billfold stolen, the prosecutor said.  Fellebaum would then mail the stolen contents to Kaminsky and Hammock, it was charged, and the latter two would then visit the victim at his home.  Representing themselves as police officers, the ring members would advise the victim that he was “a material witness” in the “prosecution” of Fellebaum and was required to post a bond.  The reluctance of the victims to get involved in a criminal case made them easy prey for extortion.  In most instances investigating agents found the victims willing to pay the extortionists rather than have their homosexuality disclosed.

A July 1, 1966 article (“Detective Accused As A Top Extorter”) from the New York Times states:

A Chicago police detective was named yesterday in Federal Court here by the Government as one of the masterminds of a nationwide ring that extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars from homosexuals.  The detective, John J. Pyne, who worked for many years on the confidential squad in Cook County, was arrested there last Friday.  * * *  United States Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau said that Federal Bureau of Investigation agents had found in Pyne’s Chicago home a drawer filled with police badges and identifications from almost every state in the country, together with arrest forms and extradition warrants used by ring members to extort money under threats of exposing the homosexual.

An August 17, 1966 article (“Blackmailer Gets Five-Year Sentence In Homosexual Case”) from the New York Times states:

A member of a nationwide ring that blackmailed homosexuals received yesterday in Federal Court the maximum prison sentence, five years, and a $10,000 fine.  The defendant, John Fellebaum, 27-year-old former weight lifter, of Monroeville, Pa., had interrupted his trial to plead guilty to conspiring to use interstate communications to shake down homosexuals.  Before imposing sentence Judge Irving Ben Cooper caustically said:  “This case is as revolting as you are.  It’s steeped in filth.”  Assistant United States Attorney Andrew J. Maloney said that one of the ring’s victims [Admiral Byrd] had committed suicide after being interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  * * *  Fellebaum’s role was to pick up the victims – most times in bars.  They would then go to a hotel room, where Fellebaum would try to compromise the victim before robbing him of credit cars or other identification.  Other ring members posing as detectives would approach the victim at his home, tell him he was needed as a witness against Fellebaum and then suggest a bribe to forget it.  The ring’s leader was said to be John J. Pyne, former Chicago detective, who is under indictment here and awaiting trial.

An August 19, 1966 article (“Detective and Two Others Indicted in Extortion Plot”) from the New York Times states:

A Federal grand jury indicted a former Chicago policeman and two other men today on charges of interstate travel in aid of racketeering.  The indictment named the one-time detective, John J. Pyne, 52 years old, and William J. Burke, 55, of New York City, and Sherman Kaminsky, 40, of Baltimore, Md.  * * *  The case stemmed from an investigation into alleged shakedowns of homosexuals.  Pyne is in New York awaiting trial on a similar charge.

An August 24, 1966 article (“Jersey Man Seized in Extortion Case”) from the New York Times states:

Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested another suspect today in a drive on an alleged nationwide ring that extorted money from homosexuals.  The suspect, Robert F. Schwartz, 28 years old, was seized at his home here on a Federal complaint and warrant issued in Chicago last month.

A May 17, 1967 article (“Blackmail Paid by Congressman”) by Jack Roth from the New York Times states:

A member of Congress from an Eastern state was shaken down for $40,000 by members of a nationwide ring that has preyed on homosexuals over the last decade, Federal and local authorities said yesterday.  The existence of the ring, which extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars from several thousand victims, was first disclosed Feb. 17, 1966, when 17 suspects were indicted and nine were arrested.  The investigation of the ring has continued.  At least 30 persons have been convicted and imprisoned on charges of extortion and impersonating a police officer, and Federal and local officials say the ring has now been broken.  As the investigation went on, the list of known victims grew.  * * *  [A]dditional victims included the member of Congress, a general, an admiral, a British producer and two well-known American singers.  All were shaken down, it was learned, on the threat that their homosexual proclivities would be exposed unless they paid for silence.  The arrests of ring members have been made over a period of more than a year, but five suspects are still being hunted by New York authorities.  The five are among six persons under indictment on extortion charges.  Among them is Sherman Kaminsky, 38 years old, also known as Paul Vargo, a Chicago salesman.  * * *  Kaminsky was scheduled to go on trial in State Supreme Court in Manhattan last Nov. 9.  He was in court that morning and his trial was set for 2 P.M.  He never appeared in the afternoon, jumping his $5,000 bail.  The others wanted for trial here are Donald Gombos, 22, a college student from Connecticut; George Lee, 63, no occupation; Henry Baxter, 42, a salesman; Rex Allen Scurlock, 23, now fighting extradition in Indianapolis; and Theodore Wiatrowski, 48.  * * *  One law enforcement official said yesterday:  “Extortion of money from well-known persons who are homosexual or bisexual is a persistent problem.  We want to alert these people, who come from all walks of life, that such extortion schemes exist and we want to impress upon them also that New York City detectives are no part of this disgusting racket.

A July 12, 1967 article (“Extortionist Gets Maximum Five Years”) from the New York Times states:

A member of a 70-man extortion ring that preyed on homosexuals received a maximum five-year sentence yesterday from Federal Judge Irving Ben Cooper on conspiracy charges.  The man sentenced was Christopher Hughes, a 26-year-old drifter.  He was described in court as the principal suspect in an Atlantic City homicide involving a homosexual victim.  * * *  To date, 45 members, including the major ring leaders, have either pleaded guilty or have been convicted.  * * *  Testimomny at Hughes’s trial showed that the defendant, described as a “chicken,” picked up the victim, a former official of a Southern state at the Taft Hotel bar.  They went to the victim’s hotel room in the New York Hilton where Hughes overpowered the victim and took his billfold and credentials.  This was the role of the “chicken.”  The credentials were then turned over to other ring members who, posing as police officers carrying phony arrest warrants, would visit the victim at his home or place of business.

A September 28, 1967 article (“Jersey Man Gets 2 Years In Extortion of Homosexuals”) from the New York Times states:

Thomas J. Rochford of Edgewater, N.J., was sentenced to two years in prison yesterday for taking part in a nationwide ring of extortionists victimizing homosexuals and other men.  * * *  Rochford, who pleaded guilty to the charge, could have been sentenced to up to 10 years in prison, but Andrew J. Maloney, assistant United States attorney, said the defendant had cooperated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the investigation.

A December 9, 1967 article (“2 Found Guilty in Chicago om Extortion of Homosexuals”) from the New York Times states:

A Federal Court jury found two men guilty today of masterminding a nationwide blackmail ring that preyed on homosexuals.  Convicted of conspiracy to violate Federal laws to engage in interstate extortion were John J. Pyne, 53 years old, a Chicago policeman from 1938 to 1966, and John M. Fellabaum, 27, a former weightlifter from Monroeville, Pa.

A February 16, 1968 article (“Judge’s Statements Cause Retrial Here”) from the New York Times states:

The conviction of a member of a nationwide ring that preyed on homosexuals was reversed yesterday and sent back for retrial in Federal court because of prejudicial statements by the trial judge, Irving Ben Cooper, and the prosecutor.  The defendant, Christopher Hughes, 26-year-old drifter, was sentenced to five years in prison last July 11.  * * *  Hughes, described as a “chicken,” had met the victim in a midtown bar here and then went to his hotel, where he robbed the victim of his credentials.  In its opinion, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said:  “* * *  The Government has emphasized the ‘loathesome actions’ which the defendant admitted . . . ."

A July 23, 1966 article (“Extortion Suspect Surrenders Here”) from the New York Times states:

A 13th man accused of being a member of a ring that extorted money from homosexuals surrendered yesterday at the office of District Attorney Frank S. Hogan.  The suspect was identified as Sherman Kaminsky, 38 years old, who said he lived in Baltimore and was a salesman.  * * *  Those charged in a four-count indictment with Kaminsky were William Burker, 54, now being held in City Prison on other charges, and Charles Mitchell, 29, who is in Sing Sing Prison on an extortion conviction.

BQ NOTE:  Genovese associate Ed "the Skull" Murphy was the ringleader of the "Chicken and Bulls" extortion scam but never served time in jail for these -- and many other crimes, including the murders of young boys whom he prostituted -- due to his possession of compromising photographs of J. Edgar Hoover.  The 1969 Gay Scene Guide states:

The following news item was reported in the March 1968 Mattachine (N.Y.) Newsletter, and is presented here in condensed form . . . the Mattachine Society Inc., of New York, was instrumental in aiding D.A. Frank Hogan's office with information that led to the arrests of a number of blackmailers:--Edward F. P. Murphy, an ex-convict who is alleged to have been the head of a national ring which recently was active in extorting money from homosexuals . . . has served prison terms for larceny and for carrying deadly weapons, and was arrested for impersonating an officer, and for extortion . . . under Federal indictment on extortion charges . . . permitted to plead guilty and received a five-year probation.  On a number of indictments in the state courts, Murphy pleaded guilty on May 16, 1966 . . . sentencing has been postponed six times . . . he could get up to 15 years in prison as a second offender, on the robbery charge alone.

Liquor License Is Revoked At Tony Pastor's Night Spot

A March 18, 1967 article (“Liquor License Is Revoked At Tony Pastor’s Night Spot”) from the New York Times states:

Tony Pastor’s Greenwich Village night spot has lost its liquor license, the State Liquor Authority said yesterday.  The S.L.A. said it had revoked the license of Tony Pastor’s, Inc., 130-32 West Third Street, effective Feb. 28.  The licensee also was penalized with a loss of $1,000, which had been posted as bond for the license.  The liquor authority said the operator of the night spot “permitted the licensed premises to become disorderly in that it permitted homosexuals, degenerates and undesirables to be on the license premises and conduct themselves in an offensive and indecent manner."

Mafiaunited_statestreasurydepartmenBQ NOTE:  According to an extensive dossier compiled in the late 1950s and early 1960s by the Bureau of Narcotics within the United States Treasury Department on all known Mafiosi in the country – later relied upon by Bobby Kennedy when he became Attorney General in 1961 in his early efforts to bust the mob – Joseph Cataldo was identified as the owner of Tony Pastor’s Club at 130 West 3d Street, and government surveillance frequently spotted fellow mobster Innocenzio Stopelli at the club.  The identical facsimile of this Bureau of Narcotics dossier was published last year by HarperCollins under the title Mafia:  The Government’s Secret File on Organized Crime.

Ex-F.B.I. Agent Links Liquor Aide to Mafia

A November 30, 1967 article (“Ex-F.B.I. Agent Links State Liquor Aide to Mafia”) by Emanuel Perlmutter from the New York Times states:

An investigator for the State Liquor Authority was accused yesterday of being a Mafia contact man in the authority.  William D. Kane, a former agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said he had been told by underworld figures that John J. Alliegro, an authority investigator, was the Mafia contact in the agency.  * * *  Testifying about the information he had received from unnamed underworld sources, Mr. Kane said yesterday:  “These persons reported that he [Mr. Alliegro] was allegedly connected with persons in organized crime, such as Joseph Cataldo, his brother Benny and Matthew Ianello [Ianniello] – known as Matty the Horse – and people who are members of the Vito Genovese family of Cosa Nostra.”  “What was Alliegro’s connection with Joseph Catlado?” asked Joseph Applestein, attorney for the authority.  “Our information was to the effect that Alliegro was a constant visitor to the Pump Room [a night club] which was owned by Benny Cataldo, and that he was in constant association with Benny Cataldo and his brother,” Mr. Kane replied.  * * *  Later in the day Mr. Alliegro testified that Benny Cataldo was a neighbor whom he had met several years ago.  He said Benny Cataldo had once introduced him to his brother, Joseph.  Questioned about Matthew Ianello [Ianniello], Mr. Alliegro said he had met him when he and another investigator picked up the books of a café of which Ianello was the licensee.  Mr. Alliegro testified that he had once been instrumental in the revocation of a liquor license owned by Pasquale and Thomas Eboli, listed by the Justice Department as top men in the Genovese Mafia family.

Candlelight Lounge at 309 Amsterdam Avenue

Notkansas02_3The writer for NYCNotKansas states:

CandlebarAs far as I knew there were no gay bars on the Upper West Side.  But sometime in '66 or early '67 I noticed a "suspicious looking" place.  It was called Milano's, and was across from Verdi Square near the northeast corner of Amsterdam and 72nd. There was nothing special about it to notice really, and I'd probably passed it a lot.  But one day as I walked by I happened to glance at the window. There was a guy sitting there and he locked eyes immediately, and stayed glued to my eyeballs until I looked away.  The bad news was he looked like someone you'd be able to hire to knife your rich grandmother.  I furtively glanced in the window a few more times when I had to pass, but either the bar looked empty or someone else from the Most Wanted list was checking out the street.  I decided that maybe the place got some rough trade as customers.  Verdi Square had the well-earned reputation for being a gathering place for low life, and was one of several spots on Broadway nicknamed "Needle Park."  (Milano's, I learned later, was pretty much what I had thought.)  Someone . . . told me there was a gay bar a little further up Amsterdam Avenue.  * * *  The place was called the Candlelight Lounge back then, today it's just the Candle Bar.  I was going there by February '67 – so my first visit might have been late the year before.  The bar had been operating as a gay bar before I started going there, which means – I think – that it might be the oldest continuously operating gay bar in New York City.  * * *  The worried little gentleman I'd seen sitting in the window was known as "Sweet William."  The story was that he was there to keep an eye on the place for the owners – and/or that he was the front man whose name appeared as the official licensee.  His duties appeared to weigh heavily on him.  He was a short, stocky man, and periodically he would slide wearily off of his stool in the corner by the window and trudge through the bar, fingering a string of komboloi/worry beads and looking troubled.  * * *  The realCandle20bar20ny_3   owners were allegedly a Greek-American family who owned a restaurant on the Jersey shore of the Hudson.  * * *  The bar's owners were now said to be a couple known as Sonny and Jenny.  Sonny Tobin, according to an unkind reference at one time or another in one of the tabloids, had been a minor figure in the waterfront rackets.  Jenny would go on – alone, Sonny having died - to be the reputed owner in future years of several other gay bars in the neighborhood, and for this she got her own snide reference in the press sometime in the early 70’s…this time New York Magazine.

The New York Stock Exchange and the Stonewall Inn

In Offer We Can’t Refuse:  The Mafia in the Mind of America, George De Stefano writes:

Anofferwecantrefuse_3The Stonewall Inn, a Greenwich Village bar whose name is synonymous with gay emancipation because of the 1969 uprising that occurred on its premises and in the surrounding streets, was owned and operated by the mob.  In the decades since the “Stonewall Rebellion,” there has been much speculation about why the police raided the bar on the evening of June 29.  David Carter, in his 2004 book Stonewall:  The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution, reports that the Stonewall was owned by “Fat” Tony Lauria, a gangster whose father was also a mob figure.  Carter discovered that New York police targeted the bar because because they believed mobsters were using it as the base of an extortion ring.  Police officials also believed that Lauria and his associates were blackmailing patrons who worked at the New York Stock Exchange into stealing negotiable bonds, which mobsters purportedly sold through the bar.

Martin Duberman's Stonewall

Stonewallinn3_2 In Stonewall , historian Martin Duberman writes:

MartindubermanstonewallCraig Rodwell—like Leo Laurence in San Francisco—wanted militant activism to be the touchstone of New York's homophile movement. He was thoroughly fed up with Dick Leitsch's controlling influence over Mattachine, for if Leitsch had once been a militant, he was now, in Craig's view, interested solely in the advancement of Leitsch. He had become a mere politician, concerned more with protecting and inflating his own role as the broker between gays and the city administration than with empowering gays themselves, through confrontational action, to build a proud, assertive movement.  Craig was also fed up with the gay bar scene in New York— with Mafia control over the only public space most gays could claim, with the contempt shown the gay clientele, with the speakeasy, clandestine atmosphere, the watered, overpriced drinks, the police payoffs and raids. His anger was compounded by tales he heard from his friend Dawn Hampton, a torch singer who, between engagements, worked the hatcheck at a Greenwich Village gay bar called the Stonewall Inn. Because Dawn was straight, the Mafia men who ran Stonewall talked freely in front of her—talked about their hatred for the ”faggot scumbags” who made their fortunes.  Indeed, the Stonewall Inn, at 53 Christopher Street, epitomized for Craig everything that was wrong with the bar scene. When a hepatitis epidemic broke out among gay men early in 1969, Craig printed an angry article in his newsletter, New York Hymnal, blaming the epidemic on the unsterile drinking glasses at the Stonewall Inn. And he was probably right. Stonewall had no running water behind the bar; a returned glass was simply run through one of two stagnant vats of water kept underneath the bar, refilled, and then served to the next customer. By the end of an evening the water was murky and multicolored.  Craig also thought Stonewall was a haven for ”chicken hawks” —adult males who coveted underage boys. Jim Fouratt shared that view. He characterized Stonewall as ”a real dive, an awful, sleazy place set up by the Mob for hustlers, chickens to be bought by older people.” But this was, at most, a partial view. One segment of Stonewall's varied clientele did consist of street queens who hustled; but even for that contingent Stonewall was primarily a social, not a business place. Some sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds did frequent Stonewall, and were admitted with the friendly complicity of somebody at the door (the drinking age was then eighteen)—but not for purposes of prostitution. As in any club, of course, the occasional cash transaction undoubtedly took place.  Figuring prominently in Craig and Jim's scenario is the figure of Ed Murphy, one of the bouncer-doormen at the Stonewall Inn, whom they accuse of purveying drugs and young flesh there. The indictment, though overdrawn, has some substance. Murphy did deal drugs, did lech after teenagers, did make ”introductions” (for which he accepted ”tips”), and was involved in corruption, simultaneously taking payoffs from the Mafia and the New York Police Department. (That is, until the police badly beat him up one night, and he stopped informing for them.)  Sascha L., who in 1969 briefly worked the door at Stonewall alongside Murphy, began by thinking of him as a father figure— posing as a cop, Murphy had once rescued Sascha from an angry John wanting more than Sascha had been willing to give—but finally decided that Murphy was a run-of-the-mill crook. Sascha was eyewitness one night to an underage boy named Tommy turning over to Murphy, in the Stonewall basement, a bag of wallets stolen during the evening.  But Murphy and the Stonewall Inn had many defenders. Murphy had been employed in gay bars and after-hours places since 1946 and in the course of that long career had made—along with detractors and enemies—some staunch friends. (Indeed, in later years the Christopher Street Heritage of Pride Committee would canonize Murphy as an originating saint of the gay movement.) And as for the Stonewall Inn, it had, in the course of its two-and-a-half-year existence, become, the most popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. Many saw it as an oasis, a safe retreat from the harassment of everyday life, a place less susceptible to police raids than other gay bars and one that drew a magical mix of patrons ranging from tweedy East Siders to street queens. It was also the only gay male bar in New York where dancing was permitted.  Sylvia Rivera was among the staunchest defenders of Stonewall, and of its omnipresent bouncer Ed Murphy. When down on their luck, which was often, Sylvia and her street-queen friends always knew they could turn to Murphy for a handout. Some of them called him Papa Murphy, and Sylvia's friend Ivan Valentin seems to have been his special favorite. ”To me,” Ivan says, ”Ed Murphy never did anything wrong.” Murphy had a soft spot in general for hispanics like Ivan, and also for blacks; indeed, later gay bar owners who employed Murphy would worry that he would ”turn the club black” and—since racism has always been alive and well in the gay world—frighten off the white clientele.  But though Sylvia and her friends enjoyed going to Stonewall, their bars of choice were in fact Washington Square, on Broadway and Third Street and, to a lesser extent, the Gold Bug and the Tenth of Always (an after-after-hours place that catered to all possible variations of illicit life and stayed open so late it converted by nine a.m. into a regular working-class bar). The Washington Square was owned by the Joe Gallo family, which also controlled Tony Pastor's and the Purple Onion (whereas the Genovese family operated Stonewall, Tele-Star, the Tenth of Always, the Bon Soir on Eighth Street, and—run by Anna Genovese—the Eighty-Two Club in the East Village, which featured drag shows for an audience largely composed of straight tourists). Washington Square was Sylvia's special favorite. It opened at three in the morning and catered primarily (rather than incidentally, as was the case with Stonewall) to transvestites; the more upscale ones would arrive in limos with their wealthy Johns and spend the evening ostentatiously drinking champagne. But others, like Sylvia, went there for relaxing nightcaps and gossip after a hard evening of hustling on the streets.  The Mob usually provided only a limited amount of money to Family members interested in opening a club; it thereafter became the individual's responsibility to turn a profit. That meant, among other things, not investing too heavily in liquor. When Washington Square first opened, the Mafia members who ran the place lost twelve cases of liquor and fifty cases of beer during the first police raid. Thereafter, only a few bottles were kept in the club and the rest of the liquor was stored in a nearby car; when the bartender was about to run out, someone would go around the corner to the parked car, put a few bottles under his arm, and return to the club. (Other bars had different strategies, such as keeping the liquor hidden behind a panel in the wall.) By thus preventing the police from confiscating large amounts of liquor during any one of their commonplace raids, it was possible—and also commonplace—to open up again for business the next day.  The Stonewall Inn had, in its varied incarnations during the fifties, been a straight restaurant and a straight nightclub. In 1966 it was taken over by three Mafia figures who had grown up together on Mulberry Street in Little Italy: ”Mario” (the best-liked of the three), Zucchi, who also dealt in firecrackers, and ”Fat TonyLauria, who weighed in at 420 pounds. Together they put up $3,500 to reopen the Stonewall as a gay club; Fat Tony put up $2,000, which made him the controlling partner, but Mario served as Stonewall's manager and ran the place on a day-to-day basis.  Tony Lauria was the best-connected of the three. He had gotten a B.A. at Xavier, had married and divorced, and lived at 136 Waverly Place, a Mob-owned apartment building. It was home to a host of related Mafia figures involved in assorted rackets: vending machines, carting companies, and sanitation. Tony's two uncles and his father also lived in the building; the latter (whose other son was a stockbroker) was high up in Mob circles and sat on the board of the Bank of Commerce on Delancey Street, a bank that laundered a fair share of Mafia money. Lauria Senior did not approve of his wayward son's penchant for hanging around street mobsters and getting involved in the ”fag bar” scene.  Fat Tony lived from 1966 to 1971 with Chuck Shaheen, an openly gay man in his mid-twenties of Italian descent. The relationship was secretarial, not erotic. Shaheen acted as a man Friday, serving at different times as everything from a Stonewall bartender to the trusted go-between who ”picked up the banks”—the accumulated cash—at the bar several times a night and carried the money home to his boss. According to Shaheen, Tony developed a heavy methamphetamine habit, shooting the crystal several times a day into his veins. Under the drug's influence, Tony lost about two hundred pounds, stayed up all night at clubs (at Stonewall, his favorite hangout, he would embarrass his partners by insistently doing parlor tricks, like twirling cigarettes in the air), and began, for the first time in his life, to go to bed with men—though, to Shaheen's relief, not with him. Tony's father stopped speaking to him altogether and Shaheen had to carry messages between them. Increasingly shunned, Tony, so the rumor mill had it, was later killed by the Family.  Tony and his partners, Mario and Zucchi, had opened Stonewall as a private ”bottle club.” That was a common ruse for getting around the lack of a liquor license; bottles would be labeled with fictitious names and the bar would then—contrary to a law forbidding bottle clubs from selling drinks—proceed to do a cash business just like any other bar. The three partners spent less than a thousand dollars in fixing up the club's interior. They settled for a third-rate sound system, hired a local electrician and his assistant to build a bar and raise the dance-floor stage, and got their jukebox and cigarette machines— had to get them—from the local don, Mattythe HorseIannello.  As the man w ho controlled the district in which Stonewall was located, Iannello was automatically entitled to a cut in the operation. Shaheen never once saw Iannello in Stonewall, nor did he ever meet him, but Matty the Horse got his percentage like clockwork. The Stonewall partners also had to pay off the notoriously corrupt Sixth Precinct. A patrolman would stop by Stonewall once a week to pick up the envelopes filled with cash—including those for the captains and desk sergeants, who never collected their payoffs in person. The total cash dispensed to the police each week came to about two thousand dollars.  Despite the assorted payoffs, Stonewall turned a huge weekly profit for its owners. With rent at only three hundred dollars a month, and with the take (all in cash) typically running to five thousand dollars on a Friday night and sixty-five hundred on a Saturday, Stonewall quickly became a money machine. Some of the profit was made through side gigs for which Stonewall as a place was merely the occasion. In Shaheen's words, ”all kinds of mobsters used to come in. There were all kinds of deals going on. All kinds of hot merchandise. They would deal the stuff out of the trunks of cars parked in front of the bar. You could buy all kinds of things at Stonewall.” Shaheen recalls vividly the time a Cuban couple was swindled out of a clay plate with multicarat diamonds hidden under the glaze; they had taken the plate with them when fleeing Castro. Fat Tony had a ring made from one of the bigger (five-carat) stones and, when he later fell on hard times, had Shaheen negotiate its sale to Cartier.  Some of the Mob members who worked gay clubs were themselves gay—and terrified of being found out. ”Big Bobby,” who was on the door at Tony Pastor's, a Mafia-run place at Sixth Avenue and MacDougal Street, almost blew his cover when he became indiscreet about his passion for a Chinese drag queen named Tony Lee (who, though going lamentably to fat, was famed for her ballerina act). The Stonewall Inn seems to have had more than the usual number of gay mobsters. ”Petey,” who hung out at Stonewall as a kind of free-lance, circulating bouncer, had a thick Italian street accent, acted ”dumb,” and favored black shirts and ties; he was the very picture of a Mafia mobster—except for his habit of falling for patrons and coworkers.  He took a shine to Sascha L., but they would have sex only when Petey was drunk, and no mention could be made of it afterward. Some of the other mobsters would take Sascha aside and question him—Sascha was openly gay—about whether Petey ”didn't seem a little funny.” Sascha would dutifully answer no, and as a reward—and perhaps, too, because his presence made Petey nervous—Petey got Sascha a better-paying job at Washington Square.   Petey turned his attentions to a drag queen named Desiree, apparently figuring that if he were caught, getting a blow job from a drag queen would be far more forgivable than giving a blow job to a stocky male doorman. Besides, Desiree was Italian. A beautiful boy with shoulder-length hair and huge amber eyes, she had a figure so stunningly ”feminine” that she passed as a woman—as a gorgeous woman—in broad daylight.  But even the beautiful Desiree was outclassed by blond Harlow. (Petey had developed a huge lech for Harlow, too, but he couldn't get near her.) Harlow rarely came to Stonewall, preferring a tonier, straight uptown scene, but when she did, her chic black dresses and real jewelry set the standard for aspiring queens on the Washington Square-Stonewall circuit. Harlow never had the luck to catch Andy Warhol's eye, and so never achieved the widespread notoriety of Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis, and Candy Darling, who made it into Warhol's movies and were thereby elevated into mainstream New York stardom. But Harlow—at least according to drag-queen mythology—later achieved her own kind of stardom, purportedly marrying a congressman, getting a sex-change operation at his expense, and buying (again courtesy of the congressman) a club in Philadelphia.  As for Desiree, she and Petey eventually ran off together to live outside of New York as a heterosexual couple. But—again according to the rumor mill—theirs was not a storybook ending: Petey subsequently turned ”bad” and, in a fit of jealousy, shot and killed Desiree.  Most of the employees at Stonewall, and some of the customers, did drugs, primarily ”uppers.” Desbutal—a mix of Desoxyn and Nembutal—was a great favorite (though later banned by the FDA), and the bar was also known as a good place to buy acid. The chief supplier was Maggie Jiggs, a famous queen who worked the main bar at Stonewall, along with her partner. Tommy Long. (Tommy kept a toy duck on the bar that quacked whenever someone left a tip.) They were a well-known team with a big following. Maggie, blonde, chubby, and loud, knew everybody's business and would think nothing of yelling out in the middle of the crowded bar, ”Hey, girl, I hear you got a whole new plate of false teeth from that fabulous dentist you been fucking!” But Maggie loved people, had good drugs, was always surrounded by gorgeous men, and arranged wonderful threeways, so her outspokenness, and even her occasional thievery, were usually forgiven.  Maggie and Tommy were stationed behind the main bar, one of two bars in the Stonewall. But before you could get to it, you had to pass muster at the door (a ritual some of the customers welcomed as a relief from the lax security that characterized most gay bars). That usually meant inspection, through a peephole in the heavy front door by Ed Murphy, ”Bobby Shades,” or muscular Frank Esselourne. ”Blond Frankie,” as he was known, was gay, but in those years not advertising it, and was famous for being able to spot straights or undercover cops with a single glance.  If you got the okay at the door—and for underage street kids that was always problematic—you moved a few steps to a table, usually covered by members of what one wag called the Junior Achievement Mafia team. That could mean, on different nights, Zucchi; Mario; Ernie Sgroi, who always wore a suit and tie and whose father had started the famed Bon Soir on Eighth Street; ”Vito,” who was on salary directly from Fat Tony, was hugely proud of his personal collection of S.S. uniforms and Nazi flags, and made bombs on the side; or ”Tony the SniffVerra, who had a legendary nose for no-goods and kept a baseball bat behind the door to deal with them. At the table, you had to plunk down three dollars (one dollar on weekdays), for which you got two tickets that could be exchanged for two watered-down drinks. (According to Chuck Shaheen, all drinks were watered, even those carrying the fanciest labels.) You then signed your name in a book kept to prove, should the question arise in court, that Stonewall was indeed a private ”bottle club.” People rarely signed their real names. ”Judy Garland,” ”Donald Duck,” and ”Elizabeth Taylor” were the popular favorites.  Once inside Stonewall, you took a step down and straight in front of you was the main bar where Maggie held court. Behind the bar some pulsating gel lights went on and off—later exaggeratedly claimed by some to be the precursor of the innovative light shows at the Sanctuary and other gay discos that followed. On weekends, a scantily clad go-go boy with a pin spot on him danced in a gilded cage on top of the bar. Straight ahead, beyond the bar, was a spacious dancing area, at one point in the bar's history lit only with black lights. That in itself became a subject for camp, because the queens, with Murine in their eyes, all looked as if they had white streaks running down their faces. Should the police (known as Lily Law, Alice Blue Gown—Alice for short—or Betty Badge) or a suspected plainclothesman unexpectedly arrive, white bulbs instantly came on in the dance area, signaling everyone to stop dancing or touching.  The queens rarely hung out at the main bar. There was another, smaller room off to one side, with a stone wishing well in the middle, its own jukebox and service bar, and booths. That became headquarters for the more flamboyant contingent in Stonewall's melting pot of customers. There were the ”scare drag queens” like Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt, Birdie Rivera, and Martin Boyce—”boys who looked like girls but who you knew were boys.” And there were the ”flame” (not drag) queens who wore eye makeup and teased hair, but essentially dressed in male clothes—if an effeminate version with fluffy sweaters and Tom Jones shirts.  Only a few favored full-time transvestites, like Tiffany, Spanola Jerry, a hairdresser from Sheepshead Bay, and Tammy Novak, who performed at the Eighty-Two Club, were allowed to enter Stonewall in drag (Tammy sometimes transgressed by dressing as a boy). Not even ”Tish” (Joe Tish) would be admitted, though he had been a well-known drag performer since the early fifties, when he had worked at the Moroccan Village on Eighth Street, and though in the late sixties he had a long-running show at the Crazy Horse, a nearby cafe on Bleecker Street. Tish was admitted into some uptown straight clubs in full drag; there, as he sniffily put it, his ”artistry” was recognized.  Some of the younger queens were homeless and more or less camped out in the small park directly opposite the Stonewall bar. Bob Kohler, a gay man in his early forties who lived nearby, became something of a protector. (Kohler would later be prominent in the Gay Liberation Front, but had long since developed empathy for outsiders: In the early sixties, his talent agency on West Fifty-seventh Street represented a number of black artists no one else would take on.) Kohler would give the young queens clothing and change, or sometimes pay for a room in a local fleabag hotel; and when out walking his dog, he would often sit on a park bench with them and listen to their troubles and dreams. He was able to hear their pain even as he chuckled at their antics. Once, when he went down to bail out Sylvia Rivera's good friend, Marsha P. Johnson, he heard Judge Bruce Wright ask Marsha what the ”P” was for. ”Pay it no mind,” Marsha snapped back; Judge Wright broke up laughing and told Kohler to “get her out of here.”  Yet for all their wit and style, Kohler never glamorized street queens as heroic deviants pushing against rigid gender categories, self-conscious pioneers of a boundary-free existence. He knew too much about the misery of their lives. He knew a drugged-out queen who fell asleep on a rooftop and lay in the sun so long that she ended up near death with a third-degree burn. He knew ”cross-eyed Cynthia,” killed when she was pushed out of a window of the St. George Hotel in Brooklyn—and another ”Sylvia,” who jumped off its roof. He knew Dusty, ”ugly as sin, never out of drag, very funny, big mouth,” who made the mistake of calling the wrong person ”nigger” and was stabbed to death. And he knew several queens who had themselves stabbed a recalcitrant customer—or a competitive sister.  The queens considered Stonewall and Washington Square the most congenial downtown bars. If they passed muster at the Stonewall door, they could buy or cajole drinks, exchange cosmetics and the favored Tabu or Ambush perfume, admire or deplore somebody's latest Kanecalon wig, make fun of six-foot transsexual Lynn's size-12 women's shoes (while admiring her fishnet stockings and miniskirts and giggling over her tales of servicing the firemen around the corner at their Tenth Street station), move constantly in and out of the ladies room (where they deplored the fact that a single red light bulb made the application of makeup difficult), and dance in a feverish sweat till closing time at four a.m.  The jukebox on the dance floor played a variety of songs, even an occasional ”Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” to appease the romantics. The Motown label was still top of the heap in the summer of 1969; three of the five hit singles for the week of June 28—by Marvin Gaye, Junior Walker, and the Temptations—carried its imprint. On the pop side, the Stonewall jukebox played the love theme from the movie version of Romeo and Juliet over and over, the record's saccharine periodically cut by the Beatles' ”Get Back” or Elvis Presley's ”In the Ghetto.” And all the new dances—the Boston Jerk, the Monkey, the Spider—were tried out with relish. If the crowd was in a particularly campy mood (and the management was feeling loose enough), ten or fifteen dancers would line up to learn the latest ritual steps, beginning with a shouted “Hit it, girls!”  The chino-and-penny-loafer crowd pretty much stayed near the main bar, fraternizing with the queens mostly on the dance floor, if at all. (”Two queens can't bump pussy,” one of them explained. ”And I don't care how beefy and brawny the pussy is. And certainly not for a relationship.”) The age range at Stonewall was mostly late teens to early thirties; the over-thirty-five crowd hung out at Julius', and the leather crowd (then in its infancy) at Keller's. There could also be seen at Stonewall just a sprinkling of the new kind of gay man beginning to emerge: the hippie, long-haired, bell-bottomed, laid-back, and likely to have ”weird,” radical views.  Very few women ever appeared in Stonewall. Sascha L. flatly declares that he can't remember any, except for the occasional ”fag hag” (like Blond Frankie's straight friend Lucille, who lived with the doorman at One-Two-Three and hung out at Stonewall), or ”one or two dykes who looked almost like boys.” But Chuck Shaheen, who spent much more time at Stonewall, remembers—while acknowledging that the bar was ”98 percent male”—a few more lesbian customers than Sascha does, and, of those, a number who were decidedly femme. One of the lesbians who did go to Stonewall ”a few times,” tagging along with some of her gay male friends, recalls that she ”felt like a visitor.” It wasn't as if the male patrons went out of their way to make her feel uncomfortable, but rather that the territory was theirs, not hers: ”There didn't seem to be hostility, but there didn't seem to be camaraderie.”  *       *      *  The Stonewall management had always been tipped off by the police before a raid took place—this happened, on average, once a month—and the raid itself was usually staged early enough in the evening to produce minimal commotion and allow for a quick reopening. Indeed, sometimes the ”raid” consisted of little more than the police striding arrogantly through the bar and then leaving, with no arrests made. Given the size of the weekly payoff, the police had an understandable stake in keeping the golden calf alive.  But this raid was different. It was carried out by eight detectives from the First Division (only one of them in uniform), and the Sixth Precinct had been asked to participate only at the last possible second. Moreover, the raid had occurred at one-twenty a.m.—the height of the merriment—and with no advance warning to the Stonewall management. (Chuck Shaheen recalls some vague tip-off that a raid might happen, but since the early-evening hours had passed without incident, the management had dismissed the tip as inaccurate.)”  *     *     *  But evidence has surfaced to suggest that the machinations of the Sixth Precinct were in fact incidental to the raid. Ryder Fitzgerald, a sometime carpenter who had helped remodel the Stonewall interior and whose friends Willis and Elf (a straight hippie couple) lived rent-free in the apartment above the Stonewall in exchange for performing caretaker chores, was privy the day after the raid to a revealing conversation. Ernie, one of Stonewall’s Mafia team, stormed around Willis and Elf's apartment, cursing out (in Ryder's presence) the Sixth Precinct for having failed to provide warning in time. And in the course of his tirade, Ernie revealed that the raid had been inspired by federal agents. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATE) had apparently discovered that the liquor bottles used at Stonewall had no federal stamps on them—which meant they had been hijacked or bootlegged straight out of the distillery. Putting Stonewall under surveillance, BATE had then discovered the bar's corrupt alliance with the Sixth Precinct. Thus when the feds decided to launch a raid on Stonewall, they deliberately kept the local police in the dark until the unavoidable last minute.  When the raid, contrary to expectations, did get going, the previous systems put in place by the Mafia owners stood them in good stead. The strong front door bought needed time until the white lights had a chance to do their warning work: Patrons instantly stopped dancing and touching; and the bartenders quickly took the money from the cigar boxes that served as cash registers, jumped from behind the bar, and mingled inconspicuously with the customers. Maggie Jiggs, already known for her ”two for the bar, one for myself” approach to cash, disappeared into the crowd with a cigar box full of money; when a cop asked to see the contents, Maggie said it contained her tips as a ”cigarette girl,” and they let her go. When questioned by her employers later, Maggie claimed that the cop had taken the box and the money. She got away with the lie.  The standard Mafia policy of putting gay employees on the door so they could take the heat while everyone else got their act together, also paid off for the owners. Eddie Murphy managed to get out (”Of course,” his detractors add, ”he was on the police payroll”), but Blond Frankie was arrested. There was already a warrant outstanding for Frankie's arrest (purportedly for homicide; he was known for ”acting first and not bothering to think even later”). Realizing that this was no ordinary raid, that this time an arrest might not merely mean detention for a few hours at Centre Street, followed by a quick release, Frankie was determined not to be taken in. Owners Zucchi and Mario, through a back door connected to the office, were soon safely out on the street in front of the Stonewall. So, too, were almost all of the bar's customers, released after their IDs had been checked and their attire deemed ”appropriate” to their gender—a process accompanied, as in Sylvia's case, by derisive, ugly police banter.”  As for ”Fat Tony,” at the time the raid took place he had still not left his apartment on Waverly Place, a few blocks from the Stonewall. Under the spell of methamphetamine, he had already spent three hours combing and recombing his beard and agitatedly changing from one outfit to another, acting for all the world like one of those ”demented queens” he vilified. He and Chuck Shaheen could see the commotion from their apartment window but only after an emergency call from Zucchi could Tony be persuaded to leave the apartment for the bar.  *     *     *  As for ”Fat TonyLauria, he was quick to see the handwriting on the wall. He and his partners, Mario and Zucchi, decided that with the pending investigation of corruption within the police department by a special commission, and with Stonewall now notorious, the bar could never again operate profitably. Fat Tony soon sold the Stonewall lease to Nicky de Martino, the owner of the Tenth of Always, and had the satisfaction of watching him fail quickly—even though, with the help of Ed Murphy, de Martino got some street queens to parade around in front of Stonewall with balloons for a week or two.

"I’m sorry," Says Inspector Who Led Stonewall Raid

An article (“‘I’m sorry,’ says inspector who led Stonewall raid”) by Lincoln Anderson from the June 16 – 22, 2004 issue of The Villager states:

The police commander who led the raid that spiraled out of control into the Stonewall Rebellion left his assisted-living home in Whippany, N.J., for one evening earlier this month to join a discussion about the infamous event — and apologized for his role in it. The sold-out June 2 talk at the New-York Historical Society, of which Seymour Pine was the main attraction, was part of the launch of David Carter’s new book, “Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution.” Now 84, in 1969 Pine was a deputy inspector of the Police Department’s vice and gambling unit for the area of Manhattan covering Greenwich Village. He retired from the force in 1976.  * * *  Pine said there were two reasons why police raided gay clubs: First, many of them were controlled by organized crime. “We weren’t concerned about gays. We were concerned about the Mafia,” he said.  * * *  Raids on gay bars during his two years working in Manhattan were “very common,” he acknowledged. At the time of the raid, the police had received a tip of the Mafia being involved with stolen European bonds. Police believed that “the after-hours clubs — like the Stonewall” were in on the operation. “If we could close them down, we’d see what would happen to the bonds that were surfacing,” he explained. Stonewall was known to be run by Mafiosi, the former deputy inspector said. According to author Carter, the bar was opened by Tony “Fat Tony” Lauria, whose father, also a mob figure, owned a building at the corner of Waverly Pl. and Sixth Ave. But the money from the club ultimately made its way into the pocket of Matty the Horse [Ianniello]. Another panel member, artist Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, one of the homeless street kids who hung out at the Stonewall, as opposed to rival Julius’s bar — which they considered too preppy — said he knew the management was unsavory. But they liked the Stonewall’s edge. “Stonewall was where our souls could dance,” said Lanigan-Schmidt, who at the time lived in an abandoned East Village building. “It was a Mafia joint. The windows were painted black.”  * * *  “We knew the Sixth Precinct wasn’t very effective in keeping these bars properly controlled,” he [Inspector Pine] said. “We didn’t tell them we were going to raid the bar . . . ."

The Mafia In The Village

A September 15, 1987 article (“Back To Our Future?  A Walk on the Wild Side of Stonewall”) by Robert Amsel from The Advocate states:

The Genovese Mafia "family" operated out of Greenwich Village.  Its godfather, Vito Genovese was sent to prison in 1959, but had continued to control the operations of the family from there.  When he died in early 1969 - still serving his sentence - Tommy Eboli, aka "Tommy Ryan" became the Genovese boss.  Among Eboli's interests were restaurants and vending machines in the Village, and the bars that catered to gay men in southern Manhattan.  Not as fortunate as Vito Genovese, Eboli was gunned down in a Brooklyn street in 1972, leaving his mistress's apartment. The Stonewall Inn was located at 53 Christopher Street, off Sheridan Square. It was an after-hours "private club" for members only. Anyone who could scrounge up three bucks could become a member for the evening. The place was reputed to be Mafia-owned (as were most of the gay bars in those days) and liquor was sold on the premises without benefit of a liquor license. This made it a perfect target for the authorities. There were many gay people at the time who supported the raid on the Stonewall. They wanted gay bars to be gay-owned and operated. They wanted the Mafia out of the business. They failed to appreciate one thing: the reason the Mafia was in the gay bar business to begin with. The Mafia's traditional sphere of influence centered around any illegal activity. Without the Mafia's money, there might not have been any gay bars to legitimize.

The FBI Files: Gay Liberation Front: "an alternative to the tacky, overpriced Mafia run bars"

Gay_liberation_front_circa_1971_0_2One of the principal goals of the Gay Liberation Front – as well as other homophile groups such as the Gay Activists Alliances which formed subsequent to the Stonewall Inn Riots – was to eliminate the monopoly involvement of the Mafia from the gay bars.  Included within the FBI files on the Gay Liberation Front is an excerpt from an article which appeared in the August 12-26, 1969 issue of the Rat – a publication by the Students for a Democratic Society – entitled “Gay Revolution Comes Out” which states:

Q:  I’ll begin with this question:  what is the Gay Liberation Front?

A:  We are a revolutionary homosexual group of men and women formed with the realization that complete sexual liberation for all people cannot come about unless existing social institutions are abolished.  We reject society’s attempt to impose sexual roles and definitions of our nature.  We are stepping outside these roles and simplistic myths.  We are going to be who we are.  At the same time, we are creating new social forms and relations, that is, relations based upon brotherhood, cooperation, human love, and uninhibited sexuality.  Babylon has forced us to commit ourselves to one thing . . . revolution.

Q:  What does the GLF intend to do?

A:  We are relating the militancy generated by the bar bust and by increasing pig harassment to a program that allows homosexuals and sexually liberated persons to confront themselves and society through encounter groups, demonstrations, dances, a newspaper, and by just being ourselves on the street.  The program will create revolution of mind and body as we all confront the opposition.  At this time we have specific plans to open a coffee house, a working commune, and experimental living communes.  We hope to extend the coffee house idea as an alternative to the exploitative over-priced syndicate run gay bar.

The FBI files also contain leaflets, pamphlets and newsletters of the Gay Liberation Front including GLF News, Gay Flames, Come Out!, Red Butterfly and Gay Journal.  One GLF newsletter promotes an August 16, 1969 dance, and states:

We are holding this dance to raise money to further the work of the Gay Liberation Front’s work in the gay community and also to provide you with an alternative to the tacky, overpriced Mafia run bars.

And a 1970 pamphlet – Gay Liberation – by the Gay Liberation Front states:

The movement fully came to light in June 1969 when, after much of the usual police harassment of closing bars and arresting people for being in certain neighborhoods, the police raided the Stonewall bar on Christopher Street in New York City.  The police thought this would be just another routine matter, but this was not the case.  The people in the bar started to push the pigs back and onto the street.  The police warned the crowd that was gathering to disperse or be arrested.  The people ignored the warning, and more people joined the crowd that had assembled to confront the pigs.  They had taken enough shit.  The police called in reinforcements to put the crowd back in place, but found out that word had spread throughout the West Village, and many more sisters and brothers came down to help those defending the bar from pig invasion.  It was not the Mafia bar as such which was being defended.  Rather, it was the idea of defending just one place, even in a gay ghetto, where people could meet without harassment and intimidation.

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Robert Wood & The Salvation

The New York Times ran three articles in March 1970 on the murder of Robert Wood – a former used-car dealer in the Bronx -- who owned and operated The Salvation which was a gay club at 1 Sheridan Square.  Mr. Wood had left a letter to his attorney prior to his murder with the request that it be delivered to law enforcement in the event of his death, and in that letter Mr. Wood

named several men listed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as members of the Mafia, described “a classic case of how organized crime moves in on bars and nightspots, puts its members or associates on the payroll, and eventually takes over.”  [The letter further describes] the reported harassment of John Addison, operator of a 59th Street discotheque known as The Together.

A March 18, 1970 article (“2 Detectives Accused in Letter ‘From Grave’ Known to Police”) by Charles Grutzner from the New York Times states:

The identity of two detectives accused in letters from a murdered discotheque operator of having extorted $8,000 from him is known to District Attorney Frank S. Hogan of Manhattan and Police Commissioner Howard R. Leary, a source close to the investigation said last night.  Neither of the detectives has been suspended from duty or arrested pending investigation of the credibility of the accusation made by Robert Wood, a cocaine addict, who was murdered Feb. 18, several months after the Mafia had allegedly forced him to give up control of the Salvation Discotheque at 1 Sheridan Square.  In two identical letters dated Jan. 16 and delivered after his death, Wood had accused the detectives, whom he identified only as “Jerry” and “Charlie,” of having shaken him down after finding heroin in his apartment last April 29.  The letters, also containing alleged information about narcotics dealings and Mafia interests in bars and nightclubs, were forwarded after Wood’s murder to Mr. Hogan and to United States Attorney Whitney North Seymour Jr.  * * *  “Should I meet with a violent death or disappear, certainly one or a combination of these men are responsible.  However, I pray there is retribution.

A March 23, 1970 article (“Slain Man’s Letters Give Impetus to Local and Federal Investigations of After-Hours Clubs Here”) by Charles Grutzner from the New York Times states:

Scores of bottle clubs, after-hours dives and mingling places for homosexuals are operating illegally here, Federal and local authorities disclosed yesterday as they pressed their investigations of the seamy side of New York’s after-dark entertainment.  The investigations, some of which had already started were given high priority following the turning over of “letters from the grave” to law enforcement officials by the attorney for Robert J. Wood whose bullet-riddled body had been found in a Queens street on Feb 18.  Wood, operator of the Salvation discotheque in Greenwich Village, left a legacy of accusations of Mafia control of bars and nightclubs, narcotics traffic in drinking places and police corruption.  The State Liquor Authority, which is taking a new look at the books and ownership declarations of several licensed places where it suspects that members of organized crime have secret investments or have seized control, said that it was powerless to take action against many places because they kept out of its jurisidiction by operating without liquor licenses.  * * *  It has been estimated there are more than 100 such illegal bottle clubs, after-hours clubs and homosexual clubs where liquor is consumed in this city.  * * *  The Salvation, which surrendered its license last Dec. 1, continued to operate thereafter as an unlicensed place that catered to homosexuals.  Although Woods, who had made a fortune as a used car dealer in the Bronx, said in his letters that he had “bought” the discotheque and had lost $250,000 when the Mafia took control, his name does not appear in any S.L.A. record as having purchased an interest in the operation.  The authority began an investigation into hidden financing in November but this lapsed when the license was surrendered.  The letters, written by Wood on Jan. 16 with instructions to his lawyer to give them to authorities if he was murdered, describe how the underworld takes control and drains off the profits.  The letters relate that last October Wood “met a young man named Jogn Riccobono” who inspired such trust that he hired him to manage the Salvation at $300 a week with the option of buying 10 percent of the discotheque out of his earnings.  They say that Riccobono induced him to hire Andy B_______ as doorman.  John Riccobono is described in the letters as the son of one important Mafioso and the nephew of another.  Joseph (Staten Island Joe) Riccobono is listed by the Department of Justice as consigliere (counselor) of the Mafia “family” headed by Carlo Gambino.  The letters allege that John Riccobono and Andy paid so little attention to their duties at the Salvation “that I finally had to hire other men to do their jobs while continuing to pay their salaries.”  The narrative continued:  “It became so ludicrous that I told Andy that our relationship was ended.  He thereupon told me that I couldn’t do that.”  A few days later Riccobono and Andy allegedly walked into the discotheque with the two elder Riccobonos and four or five other Mafia members.  Wood, who apparently was uncertain of the exact relations or identities of the Riccobonos, described one as “the purported Gambino underboss” and the other as “a button man to Tommy Ryan and formerly [to] Vito Genovese.”  Thomas (Tommy Ryan) Eboli oversees the bar and nightclub interests of the Mafia “family” of the late Vito Genovese, according to the police Central Investigation Division.  * * *  “He (Andy) started using the club to sell drugs and forced one of my trusted employees to steal $900 from my safe,” wrote Wood, himself an admitted user of cocaine.  * * *  In talking about the investigation of the infiltration of the Mafia into nightclubs, a police official said:  “Several of the Mafia ‘families’ are in the act and they’re spreading their infiltration so fast and so far that sometimes they don’t even know whose joint is whose.”  As a result, any bar or club, especially after-hours joints and the homosexual clubs, where profits are high and opportunities for blackmail abundant, is regarded as fair game for any gang unless the operator can show that he has already become affiliated.

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December 24, 2007

Mafia Control of the Mineshaft at 835 Washington Street

Sopranos_3The Mafia control of the Mineshaft at 835 Washington Street is confirmed by Jack Fritscher in Leather Dolce Vita.  Indeed, Fritscher writes that “[t]he original gay leather bar was an Italian-American invention inspired by the leather world’s nicely capitalistic drive to make money.  Ask the Mafia.”

In regard to the Mineshaft, Fritsher documents a conversation that he had with Harold Cox – a partner with Wally Wallace, the former manager of the Mineshaft, in leather bar The Lure – specifically naming it as “a Mafia bar”:

When it came to money, Wally was no crook. He was personally very honest, but he had worked for some shady types. So when we started The Lure, kind of to give him a job after the Mineshaft closed, we had to tell him he did not need to drive to New Jersey to buy liquor, and he did not have to pay people under the table. We were not a Mafia bar.

Fritscher further recounts a story on Wally Wallace having to explain to the Mafia that the drop in revenue at the Mineshaft was not due to employee skimming but loss of customers due to AIDS:

I wouldn’t say the Mafia was slow on the pick up, but in 1984 profits dropped so sharply at the Mineshaft that the good fellas called in Wally Wallace and his staff, one by one, and accused them of skimming the cash register. It took nearly six months for the godfather to believe what Wally Wallace said: AIDS was killing their paying customers.

Of course, even when the Mineshaft first opened in 1977, it was no surprise that it was operated by the Mafia; after all, the 835 Washington Street location previously had been home for numerous Gambino gay bars, and at one point law enforcement dug up the concrete basement floor of the gay bar the Den on reports it would find the body of an unfortunate soul whacked by the good fellas.  Although prior bars out of the 835 Washington Street property clearly were operated by the Gambino crime family there is some support -- which I am not at liberty to disclose at this time -- that the Mineshaft actually was a Genovese crime family operation.  (Of course, both of these crime families could have been involved with the Mineshaft as it was not uncommon for the two to share interests in some gay bar enterprises.)

835_washington_street_early_1970s_5

"extorting kickbacks from . . . gay bars on the West Side and in Greenwich Village"

In Five Families (St. Martin’s Griffin 2005), Selwyn Raab writes:

FivefamiliesAt the corner of Hester Street [on April 7, 1972], they found a brightly lit, Italian-style restaurant, Umberto’s Clam House.  Without realizing it, [Joe] Gallo had stumbled into a recently opened restaurant run by relatives of Matthew “Matty the Horse” Ianniello, a barrel-chested capo in the Genovese family, and a Little Italy mob enforcer.  (Umberto’s was a minor diversion and cover for Ianniello; his main duties were extorting kickbacks from topless bars in Times Square and gay bars on the West Side and in Greenwich Village.)  * * *  The carefree group was eating and laughing when a balding man in a sports jacket flung open the restaurant’s side door on Mulberry Street and blasted away at the party with an automatic revolver.  * * *  Gallo bolted for the main door on Hester Street.  The gunman pegged at least five shots at Gallo; two missed, one hit him in the buttocks, another in an elbow, and the last smashed through an artery in his back.  Staggering outside, he collapsed a few feet from the door.

Nite Life at 85 Washington Place: "Lively, active crowd"

Nite_life_5Eddie DeCurtis was a Gambino crime family member who had interests in gay bars in Manhattan and on Long Island since at least the mid-1960s, and he often partnered with Genovese crime family members such as Anthony “Tony Bender” Strollo and Joseph Cataldo.  In 1973 the FBI investigated DeCurtis for his "possible connection with" the popular gay disco Nite Life at 85 Washington Place.  Michael’s Thing – the fag rag of the times – characterized Nite Life this way:  “Very popular discotheque.  Two rooms of fun.  Beautiful décor.  Lively, active crowd.”  In addition to maintaining interests in gay bars and clubs, DeCurtis provided the muscle behind the Gambino crime family’s takeover of the pornography rackets in the early 1970s.  Although never charged DeCurtis was widely believed as the one behind the August 1972 murder of New York State Assemblyman Robert Newmark.

December 23, 2007

Outsiders Disrupt Life In The "Village"

An August 12, 1973 article (“Outsiders Disrupt Life in the ‘Village’”) from the New York Times states:

Pointing at a gathering in front of the Bon Soir nightclub at 40 West Eighth Street, Mr. [Ralph] Berman [president of the Eighth Street Community Association] said, “We need crowds down here to prosper, but we don’t need that type of carrying on till all hours.”  * * *  In front of the nightclub stood a crowd of young men and boys.  “Hustlers, pot heads, junkies, dope dealers – whatever you want is here,” said Jose, a 25-year-old self-described “queen.”  “Old ladies should stay at home if they don’t like it.”   But many of the older women, other residents of the block and some of the merchants have been complaining to the police about the noise and the drug dealing, which they allege emanates from the nightclub and the surrounding fast-food operations.  The police said they had received similar complaints about the Limelight, a nightclub near Sheridan Square.  * * *  Murray Forman is one of the owners of the building in which the Bon Soir is situated.  He admits the club has deteriorated since the days when it was a famous night spot in which celebrities such as Barbara Streisand began their careers.  He feels the “whole block should be torn down.” But Mr. Forman said his partners are willing to rent to the Bon Soir because of the high rent the present management pays.  “Morality is great when you come from a family like the Kennedys, but there’s not too much time for morality when you’ve been fighting for 30 years, like me, to make a living,” he declared.

The Bon Soir was controlled by the Mafia according to historian Martin Duberman in his 1993 book Stonewall:

Martindubermanstonewall_2But though Sylvia [Rivera] and her friends enjoyed going to Stonewall, their bars of choice were in fact Washington Square, on Broadway and Third Street and, to a lesser extent, the Gold Bug and the Tenth of Always (an after-after-hours place that catered to all possible variations of illicit life and stayed open so late it converted by nine A.M. into a regular working-class bar).  The Washington Square was owned by the Joe Gallo family, which also controlled Tony Pastor’s and the Purple Onion (whereas the Genovese family operated Stonewall, Tele-Star, the Tenth of Always, the Bon Soir on Eighth Street, and–run by Anna Genovese—the Eighty-two Club in the East Village, which featured drag shows for an audience largely composed of straight tourists).  Washington Square was Sylvia’s special favorite.  It opened at three in the morning and catered primarily (rather than incidentally, as was the case with Stonewall) to transvestites; the more upscale ones would arrive in limos with their wealthy Johns and spend the evening ostentatiously drinking champagne.  But others, like Sylvia, went there for relaxing nightcaps and gossip after a hard evening of hustling on the streets.

"[m]any gay bars in New York City are still controlled by organized crime"

In Male Homosexuals:  Their Problems and Adaptations (Oxford University Press:  1974), Martin S. Weinberg and Colin J. Williams write:

Male_homosexuals_001_3In all major cities in the United States the gay bar is the cornerstone of the gay community.  * * *  Some cater to certain types of homosexuals.  For example, “leather” bars cater to those homosexuals interested in a hyper-masculine atmosphere, “nellie” bars for an effeminate atmosphere.  Some bars center around the provision of specific services, for example, “hustler” bars.  * * *  New York is considered to be one of the best cities in the United States for homosexuals.  * * *  [T]he homosexual finds a large number of fellow homosexuals as well as a variety of homosexual bars, clubs, baths, and other meeting places.  * * *   To provide a specific picture of the gay bar scene in New York that would hold over a period of time is problematic because of its transient nature.  We rely mainly on our informal observations gathered over the years 1966 to 1970.  * * *  During this period the number of gay bars operative in Manhattan remained relatively constant.  However, this number was made up of different bars at different times.  * * *  The fact that many gay bars in New York are owned by organized crime, which is more interested in profit than in providing services to its clientele, probably contributes to the instability of the gay bar situation.

One factor that distinguished gay bars in New York is the number of bars in which organized crime is involved.  Gay bars in New York City have been a lucrative investment for syndicate funds.  More respectable businessmen, disinclined to deal with homosexual clients, leave a vacuum which is quickly filled by organized crime.  The growing tolerance toward gay bars, however, has changed the extent to which this kind of development occurs.

S.L.A. rulings now make the serving of known homosexuals no longer a violation; nor can authorities suspend or revoke the license of a bar on the basis of an alleged solicitation by a homosexual.  At present, the S.L.A. brings disciplinary proceedings only on evidence that the licensee permitted lewd or obscene behavior.  Court decisions have exempted-sex dancing, kissing, and physical contact such as embracing or holding hands from the definition of lewd behavior (touching genitals or engaging in overt sex acts are still crimes).  The result is that the bar scene is more “open” in New York City than it used to be.  Running a gay bar has become less risky, and legitimate businessmen have begun to move into this area, breaking the monopoly that organized crime has enjoyed for many years.

At present, underworld money is being reinvested in private clubs, many designed to retain their homosexual clientele.  Since these clubs are private, they are immune from routine police and S.L.A. inspection.  Most do not operate with a liquor license and many have “orgy rooms,” darkened recesses where sexual behavior takes place.  The police find it difficult to move against unlicensed liquor sales and homosexual behavior since courts will not issue warrants without specific complaints, and, naturally, these are difficult to obtain.  Even those that have been raided take advantage of the delays in court appearances and the relatively minor penalties by remaining open for business, or by reopening again in a short time.  Some of these places also, of course, “buy immunity” in the form of payoffs to the local police.  This would appear to have been the situation on the night of July 17, 1971, when federal agents raided nine after-hours gay bars.  It was reported that the patrons were not arrested or harassed since the targets were the alleged Mafia-linked managements.  It was further stated that such intervention came as a complete surprise to the local police who, it was believed, were involved in extensive payoffs.

Many gay bars in New York City are still controlled by organized crime.  One past president of M.S.N.Y. claims that about a third of homosexual bars, restaurants, and clubs are operated by underworld figures.  Most of these establishments are found in Manhattan.  A common strategy is to buy a straight bar in financial difficulties, redecorate it, and bring in a few “tame” homosexuals, thus establishing a gay bar.  As soon as it starts making money, they sell it to a legitimate businessman at a large profit.

We estimated that at least seventy gay bars were in operation in Manhattan over the period 1966-70.  To describe their distribution we divided New York into the following areas (see map):

Manhattan_zones

Area 1—The Upper West Side  This area contains twelve bars on the list, two of which are in Harlem and the others of which seem to be concentrated between West 62nd and West 68th Streets.  Many gay persons live in this area, parts of which, though once fashionable, have greatly declined of late and are experiencing an influx of poor Puerto Rican immigrants.  Another change is the influx of young heterosexual singles in the recent past.

One private club, three steam baths, and a number of coffee houses and gay hotels are situated in this area.  The eastern boundary, between 70th and 80th Streets, is Central Park West which has been called “the longest cruising area in the world.”  On the west side of the park are also two areas that are popular for cruising and having sex.  Another popular cruising location is Riverside Drive between 79th and 96th Streets along the eastern boundary of Riverside Park.

Area 2—The Upper East Side  This area contains fifteen bars on the list.  This section, from the East 60s to the East 80s, is one of New York’s most fashionable, with its “sophisticated” lifestyle, its emphasis on the contemporary “chic,” and the latest in the arts.  The bars are elegant in their décor and usually require a coat and tie of their clientele.  Also, these bars, because of their reputations and longevity, attract many out-of-towners.  For the younger crowd, the area also includes a number of dance bars, possible since the easing of restrictions.

The Upper East Side contains expensive restaurants, antique shops, and various specialty shops, especially clothing, many of which are run by homosexuals or which attract a predominantly homosexual clientele.  Especially important are homosexual restaurants and coffee houses.  Here the area of most concentrated cruising is 3rd Avenue between 50th and 72nd Streets.

Area 3—Midtown West  Only five bars on our list are located in this area which, unlike the previous two, contains no large concentration of homosexuals and their institutions, that is, no “lavender ghettos.”  Most of these bars are “neighborhood” bars whose clientele are not exclusively homosexual; in appearance they seem little different from the run-of-the-mill New York bar.  Two restaurants on the list are also found here, however, as well as two private clubs and two hotels.

Running east-west through the middle of this area is West 42nd Street and the Times Square area.  This locale is famous as a hang-out for so-called lower-class deviant types.  Many of the erotic literature stores on 42nd Street have sections set aside for homosexual publications and photographs.  The homosexuals in the area are mainly the poor and footloose young.  Black drag queens are a feature of the street scene as well as young hustlers who lean against the entrances to cheap restaurants, amusement arcades, and bookstores plying their particular business.  Cruising goes on up and down the street and in movie houses, some of which often show homosexual movies.  The Port Authority Bus Terminal on 41st Street is also a place for street cruising.

Area 4—Midtown East  This area is somewhat similar to the Upper East Side except that it is less affluent and less residential.  It includes large office buildings like the Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center and large concentrations of shops and stores on 5th Avenue, Madison Avenue, and Lexington Avenue.  There are many apartments here, of course, but rents in the main are lower than those in the Upper East Side.

Thirteen bars on our list and two restaurants are located in this area.  The bars in this section are very pleasant and do much of their business in the daytime; thus, a bar might have a “mixed” clientele by day whereas at night it might be predominantly gay.  Because of its central location there are different types of bars in this area, ranging from the most elegant to neighborhood bars and a dance bar that is active in the very early hours of the morning.

Other homosexual institutions in this area include two private clubs and a steam bath.  Finally, cruising areas include Bryant Park on 42nd Street and various sections of the avenues.

Area 5—Southwest Manhattan (Greenwich Village)  The most concentrated area of homosexual institutions has been in the Greenwich Village area—an area renowned for unconventional lifestyles.  At one time labeled Bohemian, then Beat, it now rejoices under the appellation of Hip or Hippie to describe its particular culture.  Various “subterranean traditions” find their home, even their origins, in the Village—the radical political, romantic poet, mystical religious, and so forth.  It is not surprising that in such an atmosphere homosexual institutions should take root to such a degree.  Twenty-six bars on our list are located in this area, and twelve nightclub/restaurants.  (The extent of concentration cannot be adequately shown by the number of bars but rather by the fact that in terms of area or city blocks, the Village area is one-half to one-third the size of the areas previously mentioned.)

The fulcrum of homosexual life in the Village is Christopher Street, running southwest of 6th Avenue.  The majority of bars, restaurants, and clubs on our list are located within one or two blocks of here.  Christopher Street itself is a popular cruising area.  At the western end of the street are the “docks” or “trucks” at the waterfront.  The trucks parked here are a locale for much homosexual activity.  Left unattended at night, they are often used as convenient places in which to engage in sex.  Sometimes they will be used by those who have been cruising on Christopher Street and have picked up a partner but have no place to go.  On other occasions persons will wander about the parked trucks waiting for an invitation or will just jump into a truck when they hear sounds of activity and take “pot luck.”  Often particular trucks become the scene of orgies that continue for hours with a stream of new participants.

Bars at the western end of Christopher Street and northward along the waterfront have little in the way of décor, just a long bar with little furniture and sometimes a sawdust floor.  Reflecting the “tough” tone of the area, this area has two leather bars on the waterfront which attract the hypermasculine type of homosexual.  On the same street is a gay discotheque featuring go-go boys and a “back room” for impromptu orgies.  This is a good example of the newer after-hours places and was one of the bars raided by federal agents to which we referred earlier.

The Village contains all types of homosexual bars.  In addition to the leather bars, the five lesbian bars on our list were all located in this area.  Approaching Sheridan Square, the bars (and homosexual restaurants) improve in décor, and the clientele is older and sometimes more “mixed.”

Other bars in this area include the Stonewall on Christopher Street (now closed), which was the center of the riots in 1969, and a long-established and very popular bar on West 10th Street.

Four hotels which cater to homosexuals can be found in the Village area; two private clubs but no baths are also situated here.  Cruising areas abound:  Washington Square Park, West 8th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues, Greenwich Avenue from 6th to 7th Avenue, Bleecker Street between 7th and 8th Avenuesm and, as previously mentioned, Christopher Street from Greenwich Avenue to the Hudson.

Area 6—Southeast Manhattan (The East Village)  East of Greenwich Village is the East Village, a deteriorating area of New York, undergoing a rapid change as older, Lower East Side ethnic immigrants move out and are replaced by Puerto Rican immigrants and young white “hippie” types.  Only one gay bar is listed as being in this area, along with a popular bath.  There is also a private club.  Though not a particularly “gay area,” it should perhaps be noted that the East Village is the home of what has been called the “new homosexual,” a young person who is said to be bisexual because of the value he places on sexual expression of any kind.

Area 7—Outside Manhattan  In the boroughs outside of Manhattan there is no appreciable concentration of homosexuals and their institutions with the exception of the Heights in Brooklyn and Kew Gardens and Forest Hills in Queens.  Bars used by homosexuals are more often neighborhood bars with a “mixed” clientele.  Outside of Manhattan there are recreation areas such as parks and beaches where, especially during the summer, a great deal of cruising is done and where “open air sex” is enjoyed.  The boardwalk at Coney Island is a particularly popular cruising place as well as Riis Park Beach in the Rockaways.

A Nightclub Owner Says He Has Woes--the Mafia

An October 10, 1974 article (“A Nightclub Owner Says He Has Woes—the Mafia”) by Nicholas Gage from the New York Times states:

When Shamsher Wadud, a 29-year-old native of Bangladesh, opened a $250,000 discotheque last May on the East Side, he envisioned himself as the man who would introduce Bengali food, music and culture to New York’s best society.  The young entrepreneus already owned a luxurious penthouse restaurant on Central Park South and a boutique on East 58th Street.  But for the last three months Mr. Wadud says he has been living in terror of being killed, afraid to venture out of his apartment alone or even to answer the telephone.  Mr. Wadud blames organized crime for his plight.  He says gangsters have tried to take over his discotheque and have threatened to kill him.  “It’s impossible to operate a nightclub or discotheque in this city without dealing with the Mafia,” Mr. Wadud said the other day in his soft, elegantlt accented English.  “If you don’t want to deal with them, you wind up in trouble.”  Like many ambitious men who enter the nightclub business with limited capital, Mr. Wadud was a prime target for the attentions of underworld elements.  * * *  One of Mr. Wadud’s favorite haunts in 1970 was a discotheque called the Nepantha on East 48th Street, and he confided to its maitre d’hotel, a former convict named Francesco Gioseffi, his desire to purchase a discotheque.  Mr. Gioseffi, who is known as Frankie Gio, took Mr. Wadud to see five nightclubs that he said were available for purchase, but Mr. Wadud rejected all of them.  One of the clubs was the was the Salvation on Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village which had gone out of business when its owner, Robert Wood, was found shot to death in February, 1970.  The murder was never solved.  On the evening of May 20, 1970, Mr. Wadud happened to run encounter Mr. Gioseffi, who said he had still another nightclub to show him.  Mr. Wadud said he got into Mr. Gioseffi’s car and found another man inside whom he did not know.  At an isolated spot Mr. Gioseffi, who is six foot two and weighs 200 pounds, stopped the car and seizing a tin can of fruit that was on the floor, used it to beat Mr. Wadud on the face and head.  Then Mr. Gioseffi said according to Mr. Wadud, “You’ve been trying to make a fool of me.  I want $3,000 for my troubles.  If you go to the cops, you’ll get the same thing that happened to Bobby Wood.”  * * *  The success of the Nirvana penthouse restaurant inspired Mr. Wadud to resurrect his dream of a discotheque for the “beautiful people” and last May he opened one, also called the Nirvana, at 151 East 50th Street.  * * *  Two weeks after the opening, Mr. Wadud’s discotheque entertained three men, one of whom the owner said he recognized as the man who had been in Frank Gioseffi’s car the night he was beaten up four years earlier.  The other two men, he said, introduced themselves as Anthony Graziano and Thomas Pennini.  “You’ve got a terrific place here,” Mr. Wadud quoted Mr. Graziano as saying.  “But you should be doing a lot more business than this.  Give us a call.  We can do a lot to help you.”  Mr. Wadud did not call and two nights later Mr. Pennini, who is 29 years old, returned.  Shortly after his arrival, Mr. Wadud said said, a group of about 15 men came in and began disrupting the discotheque by fighting among themselves and harassing customers.  Mr. Pennini interceded and persuaded the men to leave, Mr. Wadud said, and later Mr. Pennini told him, “This kind of problem can happen all the time.  When you wind up in the hospital, you’ll wish you had called us.”  * * *  One day in June, while Mr. Wadud was in his Central Park South restaurant, he was approached by a man named Anthony Mirra.  * * *  Law enforcement officials described Mr. Mirra as a member of the Vito Genovese family of the Mafia and Mr. Graziano as an associate in the Thomas Luchese family.

Ed "the Skull" Murphy a/k/a Ed "Mother" Murphy a/k/a Edward Francis Murphy & The Mafia

Ed “the Skull” Murphy, who operated the Stonewall Inn from 1966 to 1969, ran a prostitution ring above the bar.  In historian David Carter’s recently published book Stonewall he writes of Ed “the Skull” Murphy:

Davidcarterstonewall_7Tommy [Lonigan-Schmidt] heard the screech of an automobile’s brakes and noticed a dark car from which several men emerged.  They pulled Tano into the vehicle before speeding off.  It was the last time Tommy saw Tano.  In the coming weeks two versions of a story emerged on the street to explain the youth’s disappearance, both of which connected his kidnapping to Ed Murphy.  In one version, Tano had stolen something from Murphy.  The second rumor was that he had enraged Murphy by becoming involved with someone else.  The kidnapping of a man right in front of his eyes had startled Tommy, but when he remembered that he had heard Murphy could have people rubbed out the event no longer seemed so surprising.  The suspicion that Murphy was involved in the murders of youths goes back at least to the early sixties.  Stephen van Cline recalls, for example, that Murphy had been involved with the early 1960s waterfront gay bar called Dirty Dick’s, where, he says, a number of young men were seen for the last time.

Ed “the Skull” Murphy recruited the youths for his prostitution services out of – among other places – the Tenth of Always at 82 West 3rd Street.  According to David Carter in Stonewall:

Beyond Murphy’s involvement in the Stonewall Inn and in blackmailing gay men, he was deeply involved in male prostitution.  Chuck Shaheen, who had a very high regard for Murphy, told Martin Duberman, “I knew Eddie Murphy for a long time. . . .  He was into young boys.  Most definitely.  And he was very, very involved with the procurement of young boys.”  Danny Garvin recalls how he would “always see these hustlers hanging out with [Murphy].  He had connections, and these hustler kids would hang out with him.”  Tommy explains why the Mafia would operate the Tenth of Always as an ice-cream parlor in terms of Murphy’s predilections:  “The Tenth of Always had a kind of particular feeling, that you knew you were there because Murphy liked chicken.  In there I felt like I was in some surreal Catholic Youth Organization dance, because everybody was like my age or younger, and the drag queens just looked like regular high-school girls, and the hustlers looked like regular high-school boys.  And then it really looked crazy because everyone was sitting, sipping these sodas, and it was like – there’s no word to describe – it wasn’t a brothel, a bawdyhouse, or whatever.  It was like the pickings of johns:  that’s what it was set up for.”  Bob Kohler, who hated Murphy passionately, cited as evidence of Murphy’s loathsomeness that he paid the youths he pimped with counterfeit money.

BQ Note:  Boy killer and child rapist Ed "the Skull" Murphy died of AIDS in 1989.  Murphy was the actual ringleader -- although the feds later made Sherman Kaminsky the fall guy -- of the "Chickens and Bulls" extortion scam for organized crime in the mid-1960s, and yet he was not prosecuted due to his possession of compromising photographs of J. Edgar Hoover.  The last gay bar which Ed "the Skull" Murphy operated prior to his death was the strip and hustling joint Trix (later Stella's) at 266 West 47th Street.

Crime Group Leader Said to Rule Many Bar Businesses in Midtown

An August 1, 1977 article (“Crime Group Leader Said to Rule Many Bar Businesses in Midtown”) by Selwyn Raab and Nathaniel Sheppard Jr. states:

MattythehorseiannielloThe control and much of the profits of the multimillion-dollar bar business in midtown Manhattan has been taken over by an organized-crime group led by Matthew Ianniello, confidential law enforcement records show.  * * *  He has created a financial empire largely through a network of companies that own bars or provide them with support services, investigators said.  The business network includes holding companies that lend money to prospective bar owners, a talent agency that provides most of the topless dancers for bars, an interior-decorating concern, a garbage-collection company and vending machine companies.  * * *  A confidential 1975 report prepared by intelligence officers in the Police Department’s Organized Crime Control Bureau found that Mr. Ianniello’s primary source of income at the time appeared to have been derived from a string of more than 80 New York bars and restaurants, many of which, the report said, were “connected with prostitution, narcotics and homosexuals.”  The previously secret 1975 report, along with other private and public documents and interviews with law enforcement investigators and others familiar with New York’s bar and nightclub operations, provide a rarely seen portrait of how one man has created a lucrative barroom empire for organized crime.