A mob history you don't want to 'fuggeda' about

[sdeitche]

Shameless self promotion:

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.s ... st_62.html

"Garden State Gangland: The Rise of the Mob in New Jersey"

By Scott M. Deitche

(Rowman & Littlefield, 236 pp, $35)


Over the years, my son's interests spanned tools, construction equipment, firefighters, dinosaurs, rocks, the Titanic and baseball. Whatever the fascination was, we hit libraries to learn more.

When his curiosity turned to local Mafia, he asked a school librarian for a book. She told him there was no mob in New Jersey. When I finished laughing, I took him to the public library and began flagging newspaper articles.

We could have used Scott M. Deitche's well-documented book. This compact history explains why New Jersey is a natural nexus for the mob, beginning with its prized geography between New York and Pennsylvania.

Deitche, of Fords, had good genetic reason to become a Mafia scholar. His grandfather was a low-level bookie in Perth Amboy, the sort found "in every seedy old-man bar across Jersey. They were the workhorses, the ground-level face of the mob figures who controlled vast swaths of industry, unions, and the underworld in New Jersey for most of the twentieth century."

New Jersey's syndicate can be traced to Newark, which in the early 1900s was the state's largest city. Immigrants settled into neighborhoods with their like, making the First Ward Italian, the Third Ward Jewish. Soon crimes started.


Naturally, the cops weren't far behind. Thomas Adubato, Newark's first Italian detective, went after the Black Hand gangs, kidnappers who signed ransom letters with a hand dipped in coal dust. Even after being hit in a shootout with a salon keeper, Adubato killed the barkeep.

Adubato's bravery continued on Aug. 16, 1918 when he climbed out of a sick bed and trailed a local thug to the Lower East Side. Though shot again, Adubato carried a grievously injured NYC police officer down five flights before he, too, succumbed.


Tracing the mob's New Jersey roots and how it's now a shadow of itself, Deitche writes: "as with any power vacuum, when there is one in the underworld, there are always groups quick to move in."
Deitche credits Elizabeth for spawning "New Jersey's only homegrown Mafia family, while the Newark group split apart, sending recruits to Mafia families across the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area."

As gangsters were organizing themselves in the early years, New Jersey's prized locale came into play. Given its 130-mile long coast, it was ideal for moving illegal hooch during Prohibition.

Ships laden with booze from Europe, Canada and the Caribbean dropped anchor 12 miles offshore, staying in international waters. Speedboats, faster than the Coast Guard, would race out to meet them then gun it to shore where trucks were waiting.

Deitche covers Enoch "Nucky" Johnson, the gangster and political boss of Atlantic City who became known to new generations from HBO's "Boardwalk Empire."

"The underground liquor scene in Atlantic City was actually a boon to the city's tourism, attracting revelers and vacationers all year round and helping jump-start the convention industry there."

He delves into details over various mob sit-downs, charting where gangsters met, often what they ate and how, sometimes while leaving, they were killed.

Undoubtedly students of the Mafia can cite some of this, but there's a lot of only in New Jersey material and interesting detours into the lesser-known Jewish mob. Deitche explains how the New York guys were flashier but their counterparts in Jersey cities and suburbs, for the most part, purposefully kept lower profiles.

Abner Zwillman, better known as Longy because he was tall, was born in Newark in 1904, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. His dad died when he was 14 and Longy quit school to help support his six siblings and mom. He sold produce but soon realized that running numbers paid better. And a career mobster was made.

He also invested in legitimate businesses and operated out of the Riviera Hotel on Clinton Avenue in Newark. He covered all bases, reaching his tentacles into politics and police, essentially running the Third Ward.

Zwillman never forgot where he came from, helping those in the old neighborhood. He contributed to both political parties and to charities from different religions. When the German-American Bund, Nazis, decided to march in Jewish neighborhoods, Jewish mobsters put an end to it -- Meyer Lansky in Manhattan and Zwillman in Newark and Irvington.

Deitche takes readers through the years, and how as the government cracked down, so many mobsters sang they should have formed a chorus.

"But even with the dissolution of many of the crime-family crews in New Jersey, competition from emerging ethnic criminal enterprises and street gangs, and the relentless pursuit of law enforcement, the mob remains a presence in the New Jersey-underworld landscape."

[Stroccos]

I look forward to reading it

[sdeitche]

I look forward to reading it

Thanks. Let me know what you think.

[yatescj7781]

Good book Scott. Just got done reading it on my Kindle Cloud Reader. I loved it man. Great Job. I always look for errors in Mob Books. I found very few in your book. Who is your editor? take it as constructive criticism because I am not hating on you at all. I have always admired your work. I found around 18 errors which is not a lot. One of which was the line from Location 1178 in the Kindle Edition. It quotes......."Moretti was close with Vito Genovese, whose name eventually became the old Mangano crime family's "official name". This is an obvious typo as I am sure you know the Mangano Family was the predecessor to the Anastasia and the Gambino Family, not the Genovese Family. The other mistakes are grammatical. The Colombo Jersey connection you just barely reflected on. You did mention the Campisi hit on Tony Bananas guy Dominic Luciano which was great. It should be mentioned that among the 10 guys picked up on that was Aurelio Ray Cagno who was a Jersey guy made in the Colombo Family from Toms River who whacked out Jimmy Randazzo in tinton Falls.

[sdeitche]

Good book Scott. Just got done reading it on my Kindle Cloud Reader. I loved it man. Great Job. I always look for errors in Mob Books. I found very few in your book. Who is your editor? take it as constructive criticism because I am not hating on you at all. I have always admired your work. I found around 18 errors which is not a lot. One of which was the line from Location 1178 in the Kindle Edition. It quotes......."Moretti was close with Vito Genovese, whose name eventually became the old Mangano crime family's "official name". This is an obvious typo as I am sure you know the Mangano Family was the predecessor to the Anastasia and the Gambino Family, not the Genovese Family. The other mistakes are grammatical. The Colombo Jersey connection you just barely reflected on. You did mention the Campisi hit on Tony Bananas guy Dominic Luciano which was great. It should be mentioned that among the 10 guys picked up on that was Aurelio Ray Cagno who was a Jersey guy made in the Colombo Family from Toms River who whacked out Jimmy Randazzo in tinton Falls.

Thanks Yates. I appreciate your feedback. Yeah the Mangano thing was a typo. Other than that I think they did a good job. The editor (at the publisher) asked a lot of questions and actually read through my references, which is unusual.

I had to pick and choose topics and unfortunately the Colombo guys got the short shaft. Maybe in a future book!

[yatescj7781]

Good book Scott. Just got done reading it on my Kindle Cloud Reader. I loved it man. Great Job. I always look for errors in Mob Books. I found very few in your book. Who is your editor? take it as constructive criticism because I am not hating on you at all. I have always admired your work. I found around 18 errors which is not a lot. One of which was the line from Location 1178 in the Kindle Edition. It quotes......."Moretti was close with Vito Genovese, whose name eventually became the old Mangano crime family's "official name". This is an obvious typo as I am sure you know the Mangano Family was the predecessor to the Anastasia and the Gambino Family, not the Genovese Family. The other mistakes are grammatical. The Colombo Jersey connection you just barely reflected on. You did mention the Campisi hit on Tony Bananas guy Dominic Luciano which was great. It should be mentioned that among the 10 guys picked up on that was Aurelio Ray Cagno who was a Jersey guy made in the Colombo Family from Toms River who whacked out Jimmy Randazzo in tinton Falls.

Thanks Yates. I appreciate your feedback. Yeah the Mangano thing was a typo. Other than that I think they did a good job. The editor (at the publisher) asked a lot of questions and actually read through my references, which is unusual.

I had to pick and choose topics and unfortunately the Colombo guys got the short shaft. Maybe in a future book!

The Colombo footprint in Jersey was small potatoes anyway. Congrats on the book. May I ask who was the editor. I've been looking to get into the editing game for awhile now, I read hundreds of books per year and see so many minute things that should have been caught. It would be a slight pay cut in salary, but I would actually enjoy my job. I have a copy of The Silent Don. Good book also. Any thoughts on your next OC book? I have a couple of good ideas. Good Luck, hope to see a Best Seller in your future.

[sdeitche]

Good book Scott. Just got done reading it on my Kindle Cloud Reader. I loved it man. Great Job. I always look for errors in Mob Books. I found very few in your book. Who is your editor? take it as constructive criticism because I am not hating on you at all. I have always admired your work. I found around 18 errors which is not a lot. One of which was the line from Location 1178 in the Kindle Edition. It quotes......."Moretti was close with Vito Genovese, whose name eventually became the old Mangano crime family's "official name". This is an obvious typo as I am sure you know the Mangano Family was the predecessor to the Anastasia and the Gambino Family, not the Genovese Family. The other mistakes are grammatical. The Colombo Jersey connection you just barely reflected on. You did mention the Campisi hit on Tony Bananas guy Dominic Luciano which was great. It should be mentioned that among the 10 guys picked up on that was Aurelio Ray Cagno who was a Jersey guy made in the Colombo Family from Toms River who whacked out Jimmy Randazzo in tinton Falls.

Thanks Yates. I appreciate your feedback. Yeah the Mangano thing was a typo. Other than that I think they did a good job. The editor (at the publisher) asked a lot of questions and actually read through my references, which is unusual.

I had to pick and choose topics and unfortunately the Colombo guys got the short shaft. Maybe in a future book!

The Colombo footprint in Jersey was small potatoes anyway. Congrats on the book. May I ask who was the editor. I've been looking to get into the editing game for awhile now, I read hundreds of books per year and see so many minute things that should have been caught. It would be a slight pay cut in salary, but I would actually enjoy my job. I have a copy of The Silent Don. Good book also. Any thoughts on your next OC book? I have a couple of good ideas. Good Luck, hope to see a Best Seller in your future.

I actually dont know who the actual manuscript editor(s) was/were- it was someone in house at Rowman & Littlefield. My managing editor for the project however is Kathryn Knigge there.

The editor for The Silent Don was MIchele Wells. She's now a VP At Warner Bros/DC Entertainment.

[richard_belding]

While on the subject, how many of the Campisi clan were made? Iv heard different answers, from 1 to around 4 or 5.

Loved the book Scott, i especially enjoyed the Zwillman/Delmore info, i had forgotten the details of the Rising Son incident

[yatescj7781]

While on the subject, how many of the Campisi clan were made? Iv heard different answers, from 1 to around 4 or 5.

Loved the book Scott, i especially enjoyed the Zwillman/Delmore info, i had forgotten the details of the Rising Son incident

From my research 2 Campisi's were made plus an early Campisi member I discussed earlier Aurelio Ray Cagno.