Manhattan Mafia Guide (28 page)

C
ASTELLANO
, P
AUL

210 East Forty-sixth Street

At about 5:30 p.m. on December 16, 1985, seventy-year-old Gambino boss Paul Castellano pulled up to the Sparks Steak House in a black Lincoln limo driven by bodyguard Thomas Bilotti. When the pair began to exit the vehicle, three men walked up to them and opened fire with semiautomatic pistols. Each target took six shots to the head and body and collapsed on the street in pools of blood. Two gunmen sprinted down Forty-sixth Street, while one stayed behind briefly to ensure that the job was done, firing a single shot at point blank range into Castellano’s skull before fleeing.

A portion of Paul Castellano’s death certificate.

According to infamous Mafia turncoat Salvatore “the Bull” Gravano, he and John Gotti sat in a car nearby and observed the whole incident, which took no longer than thirty seconds to execute. Gravano recounted, “I believe Paul was shot first. Tommy squatted down to look through the window, kind of squatted down. And then somebody came up behind him and shot him. He [Bilotti] was actually watching Paul get shot.”
¹³³

Gotti became boss of the Gambino family after the murder of Castellano, a position he would hold, even from behind bars, until his death in prison on June 10, 2002, at age sixty-one.

C
OLL
, V
INCENT

314 West Twenty-third Street

At about 12:45 a.m. on February 8, 1932, Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll and a bodyguard entered the London Chemists pharmacy at this address and headed to a phone booth in the rear of the store. Moments later, a man casually walked in through the front door and approached the booth Coll was standing in. Coll’s bodyguard quietly took off at the sight of a Thompson submachine gun slung under the would-be killer’s right arm, leaving his twenty-four-year-old boss to fend for himself.

According to witnesses, the gunman caught Coll off guard when he approached the phone booth and said, “Turn around Vincent, and get ready for it. I’m going to give it to you.”
¹³⁴
Coll had no chance. He was slaughtered by a hail of bullets from the powerful automatic weapon at close range. One slug tore away his entire nose, and several passed through his body completely.

The sensational murder took place across the street from the Cornish Arms Apartment building at 311–23 West Twenty-third Street, where Coll had been holed up and eventually arrested months earlier for killing a child during a hit attempt on rival Joey Rao on July 28, 1931.

Police guard the London Pharmacy where Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll was gunned down, 1932.
Library of Congress
.

Coll’s slaying was said to have been ordered by bootlegging kingpin Owney Madden and carried out by hired guns Leonard Scarnici, Anthony Fabrizzo and Abraham “Bo” Weinberg. Scarnici later admitted to the crime before he was electrocuted at Sing Sing prison for the 1933 murder of a police detective.

Just five months before his murder, Vincent Coll (July 20, 1908–February 8, 1932) was approached by Mafia boss-of-all-bosses Salvatore Maranzano to kill Charlie Luciano. That plan did not quite work out (see Maranzano, Salvatore, below).

C
OLOMBO
, J
OSEPH
, S
R
.

Columbus Circle, West Fifty-ninth Street at Central Park West

On Monday, June 28, 1971, mob boss Joe Colombo (December 14, 1914–May 22, 1978) was set to give a speech to the thousands who gathered at Columbus Circle for an outdoor Italian Unity Day rally. As Colombo was shaking hands on his way to the stage, an African American man approached the veteran mobster and said “Hello Joe,” before grabbing him by the neck and firing three bullets into his head at point-blank range.

The shooter, Jerome A. Johnson of New Brunswick, New Jersey—disguised as a reporter, with press pass and camera—was shot and killed at the scene by an unidentified gunman. Colombo was rushed to nearby Roosevelt Hospital, where doctors worked for six hours to save his life. They were successful; however, Colombo remained in a semi-comatose state until his death in 1978.

Several theories surround the motive of the shooting, which remains unsolved officially. Gangland legend has it that “Crazy Joey” Gallo was behind the murder, in hopes of taking over the family. An alternate leading theory is that fellow Mafiosi like Carlo Gambino were behind the assassination attempt. Yet another theory implicates the U.S. government.

D’A
QUILA
, S
ALVATORE

211 Avenue A, at East Thirteenth Street

In the early evening of October 10, 1928, “just as the [street] lamps were being lit,”
¹³⁵
Prohibition-era Mafia boss Salvatore “Toto” D’Aquila met his maker in a hail of bullets while standing beside his car on the corner outside this address.

The murder put to rest a long-standing feud with Giuseppe “the Boss” Masseria, which dated back to at least 1922. D’Aquila was the top guy in the Italian underworld until Masseria began moving in on the gangster’s bootlegging territory with the help of men like Giuseppe Morello, Charlie Luciano and Vito Genovese.

When D’Aquila was killed, Masseria declared himself “boss of bosses,” a title he would hold for about three years before being murdered himself.

D
I
B
ONO
, L
OUIS

Former Site of the World Trade Center

At 3:00 p.m. on October 4, 1990, a parking attendant of an underground garage at the World Trade Center discovered the body of sixty-three-year-old Louis DiBono lying across the front seat of his 1987 Cadillac. The three-hundred-plus-pound construction contractor and Gambino crime family member had been shot three times in the head.

Ten months before the murder, authorities recorded a phone call between Gambino boss John Gotti Sr. and an associate. In the conversation, Gotti said of DiBono, “He’s gonna die because he refused to come in when I called…He didn’t do nothing else wrong.”
¹³⁶

Mafia turncoat Salvatore “the Bull” Gravano later testified that Gotti had targeted his underling because he felt disrespected.

Twenty-nine years later, in March 2009, mob hit man Charles Carneglia was found guilty of murdering four men over three decades, including Louis DiBono in 1990. Carneglia, a Gambino soldier, was sentenced to life in prison.

G
ALLINA
, G
INO

Carmine Street, near Varick Street

Bronx-born Gino Gallina was a former New York assistant district attorney turned high-profile lawyer who had defended some of the most influential gangsters of the 1960s; however, his intimate relationship with the mob may have cost him his life.

Gallina served in the district attorney’s office from 1965 through 1969 before taking on such infamous clients as Genovese crime family members and “American Gangster” Frank Lucas. According to at least one informer, Gallina was a successful defender because he passed on sealed information to his clients, which led to the murders of several witnesses (though these accusations were never proven).
¹³⁷

Gallina was accused in 1975 of being involved in an international heroin-trafficking ring and named as a co-conspirator in a federal trial alongside several organized crime figures; however, he was not indicted.

Whatever his relationship with the mob was, it deteriorated by 1977. On November 5 of that year, Gallina and a young female companion left a West Twenty-third Street restaurant shortly after 10:00 p.m. and headed to a downtown nightclub. As the couple was getting out of their car, parked on Carmine Street, an unidentified gunman stepped out of the shadows and shot Gallina seven times in the head and neck, in what was thought to be a mob hit. He died ninety minutes later at St. Vincent’s Hospital on Sixth Avenue. The young woman was struck with a ricocheting bullet but survived.

Shortly before his death, Gallina had testified before a Newark grand jury that he held in his possession a secret tape recording that could prove who killed Jimmy Hoffa; however, he never had the chance to produce it.

G
ALLO
, J
OEY

129 Mulberry Street

On April 7, 1972, Colombo dissenter “Crazy Joey” Gallo was celebrating his forty-third birthday with some friends at the old Umberto’s Clam House at this address when a gunman calmly walked up to the group and fired two shots into Gallo’s head as he sat at his table. Gallo attempted to chase his assailant out the front door but stumbled several times before collapsing in the street and dying. At least one “bystander” returned fire on the assassin, who was able to escape unharmed.

The Gallo party had just returned to Little Italy for a late-night meal after a night on the town, which included a Don Rickels performance at the Copacabana. Seated at the table when Gallo was shot was his new wife, Sina; her ten-year-old daughter; and several relatives and close friends.

Joe Gallo (April 7, 1929–April 7, 1972), perhaps most famously known as the suspected killer of mob kingpin Albert Anastasia, was a member of the Joe Profaci crime family. By 1960, he had earned quite a high profile among police and Mafiosi alike for his truly brazen tactics. For example, when Gallo felt that Profaci—his boss and one of the most powerful Mafiosi in America—was shortchanging his crew, Gallo simply kidnapped Profaci’s top four men (and attempted, but failed, to kidnap the boss himself).

The Gallo brothers—Larry, Albert and Joe—along with a dedicated crew of followers, had initiated what would become known as the Gallo-Profaci War. After a few years of upheaval within the family, the war died down when Gallo was sent to prison in 1964 on charges of extortion. When released in 1971, Joey Gallo demanded what he felt was owed from the Profaci organization—only by this time, Joe Profaci had died and the new boss was Joe Colombo, who had no intention of paying Gallo reparations.

129 Mulberry Street today.
Courtesy of Shirley Dluginski
.

While in prison, Gallo formed relationships with black gang members and is said to have been one of the first to realize the value of incorporating urban street gangs into the Mafia’s illegal activities. It was in fact an African American gunman who shot Joe Colombo three times in the head on June 28, 1971, in Columbus Circle. The gunman was suspected to have been working for Gallo, but no proof of a connection has ever been shown.

G
IANNINI
, E
UGENIO

221 East 107
^th
Street

In the early morning of September 20, 1952, the body of Gagliano/Lucchese crime family member Eugenio “Gene” Giannini was found in the gutter in front of this address with two gunshot wounds to his head. It was determined that Giannini was shot about five blocks away in front of the Jefferson Majors Athletic Club at 2173 Second Avenue. From there, two associates tried driving the severely wounded mobster to the hospital, but when they realized he had died en route, they simply dumped his body out of the car at this location and fled. His sixteen-year-old son identified the body.