Philly 1982 Photo Help

[Angelo Santino]

Years back I created Scarfo and Stanfa era charts which have since been lost. I'm looking to redo them but I need help with photos for the soldiers/associates. Anyone who can help gets credit. This is another Black Hand Chart.

Whats different is I'm going to send this to Burnstein to forward to Leonetti who can "confirm" things. Leonetti seen my previous chart and told Scott is was mostly accurate except for a few things.

Tester:

http://s12.postimg.org/ut2fotcrh/PHILLY1982test.jpg

If anyone can help me acquire these photos, I'd be most grateful.

Felix "Little Felix" Bocchino
Albert "Reds" Potani
Joseph Scaffidi
Rocco Scafidi
Samuel “Sam” Scaffidi
John Capello
Piccolo Crew:
Joseph “Joe Buck” Piccolo
Michael “Mike Buck” Piccolo
Peter Maggio
Joseph "Joe Happy" Bellina
Fulvio "Anthony" Capozzi
Peter "The Crumb" Caprio
Dominick "Tommy Adams" DiNorscio
Gerardo "Jerry" Fusella
Michael "Mickey/The Walker" Ricciardi Jr.
Santo Romeo
Dominic Rugnetta
Joseph "Joe" Scalleat Sr.
Antonio “Nino” Sciglitano
Edward Caminiti
Anthony "Tony" Casella (Shelved)
Peter Casella (Shelved)
Charles Costello
Carl "Pappy" Ippolito (Probably Leonetti)
Dominick LePore
Frank Niccoletti
Frank Palermo
Salvatore Passalaqua
Frank Ricci
Frank Zirpoli

[Angelo Santino]

Ballbusters... Ok I've gotten a few PMs about the layout... I promise this, when I get around to Stanfa 1990's I'll make it more "professional" looking like the CCC chart I made. But for me, let me ejaculate the corkboard layout out of my system. For some reason I find that more accurate, as in reality information changes and updates whereas the official layouts look more set in stone and misleading at the visual level. But I hear ya! I value the feedback.

And yes, I'm going for this look:

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2013 ... _chart.jpg

[Pogo The Clown]

Personally I like the corkboard layout. It gives it a different feel and makes it look more authentic.


Pogo

[B.]

Personally I like the corkboard layout. It gives it a different feel and makes it look more authentic.


Pogo

Same here. Makes me think of that scene in the Sopranos when they cross Jackie Aprile off and move Tony up.

I replied to your PM Christie, but I have photos of a number of these guys I just have to figure out where I put them. Will do my best when I am at home and have some time.

[Angelo Santino]

Thanks. I appreciate all the help. JerryB sent me a few.

In searching online, I came across something of interest on http://phillymafiahistory.com/index.html

Celeste Morello's Reviews. She always had a habit of trashing her legitimate sources (and alienating the living ones) all the while doing documentaries where she gets wet describing Salvie's big dreamy eyes in high school.

I once spoke to Anastasia after the second one came out and asked if he read them. He pretended he hadn't and got tight lipped when I mentioned Morello. At the time I was praising them to him and he said something like: Yeah, she thinks she knows everything. The way she trashes people, there's really probably no love lost between them. If I had known I wouldn't have mentioned it.

Anyways, it's an interesting take:

Book reviews:
http://phillymafiahistory.com/reviews.html

Blood and Honor, one of my most favorite books, and she hates it :
http://phillymafiahistory.com/review6.html

Gun Shot Wounds!
“The Philadelphia Inquirer’s” reporter interviewed Nicholas “the Crow” Caramandi after he had done his part as a federal witness in the case against mob boss Nicodemo Scarfo and others. It is a report that can best be judged after reading lawyer Robert F. Simone’s The Last Mouthpiece as to the level of Caramandi’s believability as a con man for the mob, and as an insider to the Scarfo Family’s era of violence and mayhem. Joseph Salerno’s The Plumber first hit (excuse the pun) the bookshelves as a witness story, but Salerno did no make (or con?) the feds for the amount of money as Caramandi in exchange for his and his family’s lives.

But in judging this book on what Anastasia wrote as the mob’s roots in Philly is different than his reporting, or what he quotes from the Crow. One does not have to believe Caramandi (and many from South Philly don’t). But when Anastasia shifts to his presentation of facts from what comes from the mouth of Caramandi is where this news reporter is as shameless as his subject. Using the 1991 book, Anastasia leaped too far into fiction when he wrote that the 1957 Appalachian meeting caused Angelo Bruno to be boss. There were, in fact two bosses between Joe Ida, the Philly boss who was arrested at the 1957 meeting, and Bruno. Anastasia did not look into local history when he leaped again and said that “law enforcement … for the first time had definitive evidence of a national crime syndicate.” (p.42) This is so wrong. What is worse is that Anastasia, the Inquirer reporter has so many resources at hand to find the correct information: Like the Inquirer’s archives where all those headliners of the Kefauver hearings in the city in 1950, and the newspaper’s index that listed from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s the Mafia news. This type of information would have tempered Anastasia’s repeated mantra of “docile don” and “gentle don” that brainwashed the unknowing of the local mob’s violence that included Angelo Bruno. GSWs for the history in this book and GSWs for not having the know-how to research for the facts that are at the Inquirer and long preserved there.

She shits on The Last Gangster too:
http://phillymafiahistory.com/review14.html

Gun Shot Wounds
This is one of the last books published by Regan Books and it can be found online for as little as $3.95, which is what it’s worth. There is no index for quick checking as to who’s in the book, so one has to read about the “gangster” called “Fat Rat” by Joey Merlino’s buddies. Ron Previte is the “Fat Rat” who is telling his story. It’s not a history. It’s Previte’s so-called information and like others in the federal witness protection program who cut deals, there may be some “information” that seems hard to believe. At least that’s what Anastasia set out to prove about this guy and the others. But what Anastasia wrote without Previte bites and seemed too personal. He laid out a lot of nasty remarks about the FBI that weren’t related to Previte, like this: “Ask any big city police detective or state police investigator…what he or she thinks of the FBI, and the answer will be laced with expletives.” (p.199) He said more, but this sentence sort of sums it up. Anastasia’s “history of the Philly mob” then includes pages of unkind “hits” on the FBI here.
Readers of this book would see Previte compared to others, but this guy had been a police officer in New Jersey, a corrupt one, too. Supposedly that’s the twist here and that this is no ordinary mob rat. But is it contributing to the history of the Philly Mob? Maybe not. It doesn’t help Anastasia to make glowing remarks about Angelo Bruno after Ralph Natale, the oldest member of the Family of this time, testified about killings at Bruno’s orders. How long does Anastasia think people are going to believe the “gentle Don” stuff? In fact, Anastasia wrote more positive things about the mob boss who really did kill and really did allow drugs all over than he did the FBI. What’s there to believe in this book?

After writing about the Philly mob for almost 20 years it says a lot about Anastasia that he couldn’t track down at least one member of Angelo Bruno’s Family to talk and get the story straight.

Of course her book is Stand Up and she even provides a link on where to purchase.
http://phillymafiahistory.com/review12.html

Stand Up!
Morello is the only author on the Philly Mob’s history who has degrees in history and in criminology, which put her writing style and standards at a different level from the other writers. She also has a “Mafia pedigree” that is well known in her birthplace of Norristown, a Philadelphia suburb with its own separate Mafia history. These books are fact-filled and the sources are documented, lest anyone doubt where the information came. There are many obscure references used that mention Philadelphia’s underworld of Sicilians that were enhanced with the interviews the author had with the children and grandchildren of the first bosses of Philadelphia. She also tracked down and spoke to the older members of the Mob, who could not call Angelo Bruno a “Docile Don” or remove Bruno from illegal drugs before and during his years as boss.

There is good information on the history of the Philadelphia Police that blended into how organized crime thrived in the city. Many issues on Italian Americans came into discussion and how the culture of Sicily was far from that on the mainland of Italy. There are so many thought-provoking aspects to these books, that is seems that nothing is left to question. A professor of history edited these books on historical context, not on style, so if you’re wondering why these books are lacking in the “blood and guts” of news reporters and writers that is why—this is a reference of history, true crime. They’re mob books that are reliable.

[Pogo The Clown]

Morello really sounds full of herself. I read her frst two books and, while they did have some good info, they were as dry as toast and a real chore to get through.


Pogo

[Angelo Santino]

Morello really sounds full of herself. I read her frst two books and, while they did have some good info, they were as dry as toast and a real chore to get through.


Pogo

She wrote an academic article in the form of a book. Three of them. Academic is an exciting as listening to Ben Stein talk dirty.

I value her work and it's helped me expand on my own researches. But she's not always accurate, especially with her whole formation of LCN thing where she credits Gentile with shit he never came close to saying in his books or interviews.

She has an ego the size of a porn star. But credit where credit's due her Books 1-3 cover Philadelphia 1920-1960 very well. I could split hairs but I won't.

[Ivan]

She writes in the academic style, and it is the worst academic writing I've ever read in terms of how readable it is. It's awful. It reads like she is trying to "sound smart" almost. Good info in the books, but they are almost impossible to read IMO.

I am thankful for making me laugh hysterically for about an hour with her Salvie Testa thing on that Mobsters episode though, that was legendary.

I also like the corkboard format.

[Angelo Santino]

http://mafiatoday.com/wp-content/upload ... o-crew.jpg

Front row, from left: Philip Narducci, unknown, Salvatore “Tory” Scafidi, unknown. Middle row: Lawrence “Yogi” Merlino, Leonetti, Salvatore “Wayne” Grande, Scarfo, Joe Ligambi. Back row: Frank Narducci Jr., Francis “Faffy” Iannarella, unknown, unknown, Joseph “Joe Punge” Pungitore.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/73 ... bbd20e.jpg

[B.]

Morello really sounds full of herself. I read her frst two books and, while they did have some good info, they were as dry as toast and a real chore to get through.


Pogo

You might enjoy the third one more, as it covers the years leading up to Bruno becoming boss and from what I remember the writing is easier to stomach.

There is no doubt that Morello has issues. Despite her academic approach, she isn't objective at all and a lot of what she writes is colored by the fact that she think she's some kind of Sicilian "mafiosa" herself (not unlike some other ladies that we may or may not know...), who is defending the old tradition. I think this mindset did help her get some interviews and info that other people wouldn't have, and she did do a lot of good research, but the way she brings it altogether is rough. I don't think I'd be able to read it if I hadn't already done my own research on Philly, as it's hard to follow what she's saying a lot of the time.

[Angelo Santino]

Morello really sounds full of herself. I read her frst two books and, while they did have some good info, they were as dry as toast and a real chore to get through.


Pogo

You might enjoy the third one more, as it covers the years leading up to Bruno becoming boss and from what I remember the writing is easier to stomach.

There is no doubt that Morello has issues. Despite her academic approach, she isn't objective at all and a lot of what she writes is colored by the fact that she think she's some kind of Sicilian "mafiosa" herself (not unlike some other ladies that we may or may not know...), who is defending the old tradition. I think this mindset did help her get some interviews and info that other people wouldn't have, and she did do a lot of good research, but the way she brings it altogether is rough. I don't think I'd be able to read it if I hadn't already done my own research on Philly, as it's hard to follow what she's saying a lot of the time.

She uses the non-Sicilians to lay off the criminal aspect. If you go by her, the Mafia was purely a benevolent organization until Lucky formed the LCN and brought in all these mainland criminals. In writing off the mainlanders as she did, she also wrote off half of their origins. But that's splitting hairs. The core of the series takes place between 20-59.

Book 3 I highly recommend. It's less academic and more narrational as she spoke with relatives who were sharing. For Philly history it's a must read.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Good pics B.

Assume that's Amuso with arm round Scarfo. Is the picture dated?

[Ivan]

I also liked the third book the best. It reads like either she got better at writing, or she hired a competent editor.

[B.]

I also liked the third book the best. It reads like either she got better at writing, or she hired a competent editor.

I think it might also be because it's the book covering the most recent years and there is a lot clearer information on the family and what they were up to.

She was able to get some good pictures throughout the series at least. For example there's a photo of Cheech Barrale, the original Cumberland County capo. That faction gets covered decently in there. A lot of them were from the same part of Sicily and moved from Philadelphia into rural Bridgeton and Vineland. Morello describes them all as being pretty seasoned killers, which seems to be true with some of the Scafidis. It's a weird area of Jersey that doesn't get nearly the same amount of attention as the rest of the state, especially when it comes to the mob.

[B.]

Just for the hell of it, here is what the PCC had for soldiers on the street in 1989.