Has the Colombo Family ever had a Manhattan-based crew?

[Flushing]

I know they are at construction sites in Manhattan, but I'm asking if they ever had an actual Manhattan grown crew like the other families

[maxiestern11]

Yes, down Mulberry Street they had a few clubs years back. One was on Broome St, off Elizabeth

[MichaelGiovanni]

Yes, down Mulberry Street they had a few clubs years back. One was on Broome St, off Elizabeth

Who operated the clubs and which members were based there?

[AlexfromSouth]

Think Aloi fam had som stuff in Little Italy. Also, Joey Yac Yacovelli was from Little Italy.

[Gabagool718]

Was Joey cupcake from Harlem ever made ? Was tight with Teddy jr had the pic of them taken off the wall at Raos by the feds

[Adam]

I hate to mention Breakshot, but Kenji does reference taking Eddie Garolalo to meet a Colombo capo in Greenwich Village. It reads like it was multiple times and the captain operated there. But you know....Breakshot.

[gohnjotti]

I hate to mention Breakshot, but Kenji does reference taking Eddie Garolalo to meet a Colombo capo in Greenwich Village. It reads like it was multiple times and the captain operated there. But you know....Breakshot.

Can’t see why he’d lie about something as innocuous as that. Joey Amato and Danny Capaldo met with another Colombo captain in Manhattan sometime in 2018. Manhattan’s busy streets would make it a great area to escape law enforcement tails, I’m guessing.

There was indeed construction going down there, and Joseph Baudanza also had some stock fraud operations in Manhattan too, from the early 2000s. Michael Uvino, a former Long Island captain and longtime gambling tycoon, currently lives in Long Island, and his successor as captain Dennis DeLucia also has an apartment in the area IIRC.

[maxiestern11]

Yes, down Mulberry Street they had a few clubs years back. One was on Broome St, off Elizabeth

Who operated the clubs and which members were based there?

Joe Yak had a Club off Eliz up the block from Vincent clam bar. Joe Yak, Fat Foongy, Sonny Pinto, Cisco and Benny Locicero ALL either lived or hung out down there. Or both!
Joe Black Gorgone lived there.... and a few guys around Sonny lived and hung there. Johnny Irish was Born there. So was Joe Cousins and maybe Big Jerry Galtieri (I’m NOT positive on Jerry)..... and this is off the top of my head. There’s others. NOT necessarily today. I’m talking 1950-60-70’s era.

Ok fellas. Hope that helps you.

[MichaelGiovanni]

Yes, down Mulberry Street they had a few clubs years back. One was on Broome St, off Elizabeth

Who operated the clubs and which members were based there?

Joe Yak had a Club off Eliz up the block from Vincent clam bar. Joe Yak, Fat Foongy, Sonny Pinto, Cisco and Benny Locicero ALL either lived or hung out down there. Or both!
Joe Black Gorgone lived there.... and a few guys around Sonny lived and hung there. Johnny Irish was Born there. So was Joe Cousins and maybe Big Jerry Galtieri (I’m NOT positive on Jerry)..... and this is off the top of my head. There’s others. NOT necessarily today. I’m talking 1950-60-70’s era.

Ok fellas. Hope that helps you.

Thanks for the info Maxie

[maxiestern11]

Yes, down Mulberry Street they had a few clubs years back. One was on Broome St, off Elizabeth

Who operated the clubs and which members were based there?

Joe Yak had a Club off Eliz up the block from Vincent clam bar. Joe Yak, Fat Foongy, Sonny Pinto, Cisco and Benny Locicero ALL either lived or hung out down there. Or both!
Joe Black Gorgone lived there.... and a few guys around Sonny lived and hung there. Johnny Irish was Born there. So was Joe Cousins and maybe Big Jerry Galtieri (I’m NOT positive on Jerry)..... and this is off the top of my head. There’s others. NOT necessarily today. I’m talking 1950-60-70’s era.

Ok fellas. Hope that helps you.

Thanks for the info Maxie

My pleasure pal!

[PHL_Mob]

I hate to mention Breakshot, but Kenji does reference taking Eddie Garolalo to meet a Colombo capo in Greenwich Village. It reads like it was multiple times and the captain operated there. But you know....Breakshot.

Do people tend to not think Kenji/Breakshoot was a very reliable book?

[gohnjotti]

I hate to mention Breakshot, but Kenji does reference taking Eddie Garolalo to meet a Colombo capo in Greenwich Village. It reads like it was multiple times and the captain operated there. But you know....Breakshot.

Do people tend to not think Kenji/Breakshoot was a very reliable book?

Okay. Kenji's book is very, very, very hard to believe, and only one portion of it is about the mob. The rest is about how he was a drug-dealing millionaire college student at the age of 19 or whatever, some little Asian kid messing with the top drug traffickers in the industry, etc., etc. And Kenji's book kind of reads like fiction. It's so dramatized and opinionated. It's not really the type of book that presents the facts, it presents Kenji's view of the facts.

That being said:
I tend to judge Kenji's reliability on his retelling of the Skinny Teddy-Little Craig incident of 2004 compared to court papers on the very same incident, which were based on Kenji's undercover tapes. Kenji tells the story pretty much exactly how it is, with maybe a bit of dramatized lines and quotes added for effect, with one key difference:
In Kenji's book, he recalls the infamous car ride with Walter Samperi and Skinny Teddy, Danny, & Carmine L. Persico. He uses some of the exact same lines in his book as he recorded in court papers, but he strays a bit from court papers when it comes to motive. He claims that the infuriated Skinny Teddy was driving to Little Craig's Bay Ridge(IIRC) hangout to murder him there, on the spot. Kenji is claiming it was a conspiracy to murder Little Craig Marino right there. That's not a far-fetched analysis given that Skinny Teddy was a) angry at Little Craig b) armed to the teeth c) frequently talks about murdering people on a whim.

Court papers, however, claim that Skinny Teddy was driving to Craig Marino - angry and armed to the teeth - in order to seek permission from Little Craig to kill his associate, George Fanelli, who allegedly disrespected and potentially stole money from Skinny Teddy's girlfriend. Kenji does acknowledge in his book that he was perplexed as to why Skinny Teddy would kill Little Craig and not Fanelli himself, but chalked it up to old grievances from the Third Colombo War.


In conclusion, I would say Kenji is about 80% reliable when he talks about the Colombo family in New York. That's not to say he is dishonest, but he is telling the story from the perspective of a California pornography tycoon and drug-dealer, which is why he might paint such a dramatic view of the Mafia. But Kenji does have some facts in his favor, such as the fact that he was indeed a valuable cooperating witness who made hours of tapes with various Colombo figures, and he proves in his book that he has extensive knowledge about the Colombo family's past. For example, he referred to the Baudanza crew as the Scopo-Baudanza crew or something along those lines. That shows that he knew the crew lineage of Joseph Baudanza, and he was also able to give a pretty spot-on description of other Colombo figures and associates.

[gohnjotti]

Also, you have to bear in mind that just because a captain is based in Greenwich Village does not mean he heads a Greenwich Village crew. Joseph Amato lived in Colts Neck, N.J., and was the captain of a Brooklyn/Staten Island crew. Similarly, Anthony Stropoli was a New Jersey acting captain who had various business interests in the Garden State - but he was the acting captain of a crew based in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn.

[Targenmantarian]

White flight made that happen.

In the olden days of the mob crews we're much more rooted in their historical, geographic homes.

A Dyker Heights Crew was comprised primarily of guys who grew up in Dyker Heights and hung out and operated there. Not entirely. Stuff always spilled over and people commuted but early on mostly only the bosses lived in LI or NJ.

The Greenwich crew was mostly Greenwich guys born and bred.

As the mob first moved from Manhattan to the boroughs and then to the suburbs the crew names become almost ceremonial in nature.

I.e. the Prince Street Crew for the Luchese Family.

[Philly d]

I know they are at construction sites in Manhattan, but I'm asking if they ever had an actual Manhattan grown crew like the other families

Good question/topic!