SonnyBlackstein wrote: ↑Sun Aug 11, 2024 11:37 am
InCamelot wrote: ↑Sun Aug 11, 2024 10:44 am
Maybe he asks certain questions for the super basic mob watcher in an attempt to pull a broader audience? He actually asked "why would anyone choose the Colombos over the Gambinos? Thats like going to community college over Harvard" or something. Like this is fantasy/superhero shit.
I've actually pondered this to some extent and it's a perfectly reasonable question. You cannot say there are no advantages to going to with say the Westside vs the DeCavalcantes. Or Colombos.
One has significant more respect, connections, rackets, manpower, presence.
It's not really as major as you think. When I lay out these examples, it's important to note that I'm considering the "modern" era of the Mafia, say 1980-onwards.
As far as "
respect" goes, made members warrant a universal respect regardless of which family they're in. Among made members, the same rules still apply at sit-downs regardless of whether someone is a Colombo or a Genovese. Obviously there have been periods in history where certain families are ostracized but, on the whole, the perception of a "made member" on the street is universal to all families,
especially to anyone who isn't made. A sizeable percentage of associates on the street might not know which family someone is from, only that they are inducted. The Conrad Ianniello example ("I don't give a fuck if he's a Colombo") is a somewhat misleading, because we have an example from the same timeframe (the late 2000s) where Big Anthony Russo expressed that he didn't care whether a rival gambling club belonged to Gambino captain Sonny Juliano or not, he violently shut them down all the same.
As far as "
connections" go, that's an interesting point. Although if you're posing a hypothetical scenario where an associate has to choose between whether to go "on-record" with the Colombos or the Genovese family (two arbitrary examples for the sake of conversation), their thought-process would depend wholly on the connections of the individual Colombo member they're associated with, compared with the individual Genovese member they're connected with. A prospective associate wouldn't be sitting there going "Well, I read in the papers that the Colombos have the concrete unions, but I've read in the papers that the Genoveses have stronger connections in Jersey! Who should I go with for my lifelong career in the Mafia?"
As far as
rackets goes, ditto with the connections thing. An individual weighing his options between associating with two different crime families would not be considering the overall depth and diversity of a crime family's rackets, only the rackets of the individual member of the Colombo or Genovese family that he knows. For example, all families have a theoretical "ban" on selling drugs, but each made member handles that differently, so a drug dealer with the privilege of deciding between going "on-record" with a Colombo or a Genovese member would consider their individual stances on drug-dealing, not the crime family with the biggest drug-dealing rackets.
As far as
manpower goes, I'm not sure why any prospective associate or made member would consider that. I'm not even sure what that means. Bill Cutolo and his Colombo crew of the late '90s had far more "manpower" than, say, Tony Federici or Ciro Perrone's crews of old-timers during the same timeframe. Okay, I'll admit I don't know the breadth of those two Genovese guys' crews, but I believe they were mostly older in age. Theoretically, all families are equally capable of murder regardless of their overall size and, in a criminal sense, the more "manpower" involved in a murder, the more risk is involved. Criminals like to keep their circles tight and commit violent crimes with their most trusted associates, so the idea of a crime family having "reserves" of "manpower" for such jobs is misleading (perhaps it was different 50+ years ago).
And lastly, you mentioned "
presence." I guess by "presence," you're referring to visible presence on the street in the form of social clubs, bars, connected restaurants, etc.? Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe phrases like "Oh this restaurant is a Colombo spot and this restaurant is a Genovese spot" exist more in the eyes of journalists and online mob researchers rather than the New York criminal underworld; most people simply think of places as being "mobbed-up" or "not mobbed-up". Restaurants, bars, after-hours clubs or gambling clubs are not usually specific to any family whereas social clubs that
are specific to one family are usually specific to one
crew from the family. Greg Scarpa's club was exclusive to his crew, rather than a general "Colombo club," ditto with Bonanno consigliere Anthony Spero's club a few blocks south.
I spent far too long writing this but I hope it helps clear things up. Because there's nothing that bugs me more than when people over-analyse the Mafia and treat crime families like sports teams, and criminals as professional athletes. "Whose stronger, the West Side or the Gambinos?" "Who was the better Mafia boss, Joe Massino or Chin Gigante?" And even autobiographies from made members can propagate these narratives, since they or their ghostwriters usually add a bit more pomp and pageantry on their lives in hindsight. It's a lot more interesting to write about the rival families in almost-mythical terms than to write "I could see no discernable differences between the Five Families other than what I read in the newspapers, but I happened to be inducted into the Luccheses because my sponsor Tony was apparently a Lucchese."
its in reference to making a living with a particular company. 