Manhattan Mafia Guide (5 page)

125 Sullivan Street today.
Courtesy of Sachiko Akama
.

According to the Wop himself, he managed a Havana, Cuba casino “in the good old days.”
¹²
By the end of the 1950s, Cataldo operated several wildly popular and successful nightclubs and restaurants in New York City, like Chandler’s, the Camelot Supper Club and Tony Pastor’s. (He is also said to have been tied to the famous jazz club Birdland.)
¹³
The Camelot became the unofficial headquarters for powerful star-broker George Wood of the William Morris Agency, the man responsible for the careers of superstars like Frank Sinatra.
¹⁴
In 1962, George Wood and Joseph Cataldo partnered in a downtown Vegas casino called Pioneer Club.
¹⁵

Cataldo gained some national notoriety in 1963 when the FBI traced back to him a phone call thought to have been placed by Jack Ruby on July 7 of that year, just four months before the murder of Oswald. When questioned on December 11, 1963, Cataldo denied knowing Ruby, but an informant told the FBI that Ruby booked “talent”—all of whom turned out to be gangsters—for his Dallas nightclub through Cataldo.

In August 1968, Cataldo and five others were indicted for stock fraud,
¹⁶
and in February 1980, he was accused of being involved in a plot to disrupt what was known as the “Black Tuna” trial by paying off federal witnesses and assassinating a district court judge. Cataldo died of a heart attack during the trial.

C
INQUEGRANA
, B
ENEDETTO

122 Mott Street, 1920; 209 Grand Street, 1930s;

166 Mulberry Street, 1950s

Alias: Benedetto DiPalo, Vincent Grande, ChinkBorn: January 6, 1913
,

New York City

Died: August 17, 2002, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Association: Genovese crime family

Cinquegrana grew up in the heart of Little Italy, where his butcher father, Luigi, operated a meat market at 156 Mott Street. His parents were married in 1908 in Cesa, Italy (mother Concetta’s hometown), and immigrated to New York City in 1910 with their eldest son, Francesco. Here, they settled at 122 Mott Street, where Benedetto was born in 1913. The future gangster would spend most of his life in his native neighborhood and held interest in several local businesses, like the mob hangout Caffe Roma on Broome Street, where he was listed as vice-president of the corporation. (Fellow wise guy Eli Zeccardi, a future Genovese underboss, was president.)

122 Mott Street, the childhood home of Benedetto Cinquegrana, today.
Courtesy of Shirley Dluginski
.

Convicted of armed robbery by the time he was sixteen years old, Cinquegrana racked up a few arrests for bookmaking in the 1930s and 1940s before turning his attention to narcotics in the 1950s.

Cinquegrana may have earned one of his nicknames because of his associations with Chinese drug smugglers, like Wong Gum Hoy, with whom he was arrested on February 17, 1956, after feds seized from them a half pound of opium.
¹⁷
In 1962, forty-nine-year-old Benedetto Cinquegrana was one of several men (including Angelo Buia) arraigned as members of an international narcotics ring that was suspected of trafficking tens of millions of dollars’ worth of pure heroin into the country over a nine-year period.
¹⁸
Charges were dismissed after appeal.

On December 13, 1972, Cinquegrana was called to testify before the Waterfront Commission during an investigation into possible mob racketeering at a Port Elizabeth stevedore company; he pleaded the Fifth and refused to answer any questions.

On December 15, 1981, Cinquegrana did plead guilty to “conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States” and was sentenced to a five-year suspended sentence.
¹⁹

His last known address was 57 Sherwood Avenue in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, where he passed away in August 2002 at eighty-nine years old.

C
IRAULO
, V
INCENZO
J
AMES

88 Second Avenue, Manhattan, 1950s

Alias: Jimmy Second Avenue, Jimmy Ninety-two, Jimmy East, Jimmy Fischetti

Born: September 8, 1919, New York City

Died: September 26, 1997, Palm Beach, Florida

Association: Lucchese crime family

The FBN identified Ciraulo as a “trusted and important member” of a Lucchese crew headed by Carmine Locascio. He operated the Stage Bar on East Fourth Street in the 1950s while living at 88 Second Avenue.

By the 1970s, Ciraulo was a respected Mafia veteran on the lam from New York authorities for outstanding loan-sharking warrants. While a fugitive in Florida, he used the name Jimmy Fischetti and worked closely with Tampa mob boss Santo Trafficante Jr. Ciraulo’s luck ran out when he was arrested by FBI agents on a holiday visit to New York City on January 22, 1980.
²⁰
This arrest caused a small rift between the New York and Florida FBI offices, since Ciraulo was at the center of a long sting operation called Coldwater, in which undercover feds established a gambling casino called King’s Court in Pasco County, Florida.

In the summer of 1986, sixty-eight-year-old Ciraulo pleaded guilty to conspiracy and extortion in connection with the Coldwater operation and was sentenced to two years in prison. His codefendant, Santo Trafficante, refused a plea deal and died during a lengthy trial just hours after receiving open heart surgery on March 17, 1987.

Ciraulo died at age seventy-eight while living in Royal Palm Beach, Florida. His funeral was held in the Bronx.

C
OSTELLO
, F
RANK

115 Central Park West, Apartment 18F, 1950s

Born: January 26, 1891, Calabria, Italy (b. Castiglia, Francesco)

Died: February 18, 1973, New York City

Association: Luciano/Genovese crime family

Frank Costello was one of the most successful gangsters in U.S. history and partial inspiration behind Marlon Brando’s role in
The Godfather
. This crime kingpin lived in a luxury building at 115 Central Park West when, on May 2, 1957, he was shot in its lobby by Vincent “Chin” Gigante. He survived but got the message sent by Gigante’s boss, Vito Genovese: it was time to retire.

Born in a small Calabrian village, the young Costello immigrated to New York City in 1900 at about nine years old. He arrived with his mother and older brother, to join their father, Luigi, who had established himself as a small grocery store proprietor in East Harlem before sending for the family back in Italy.

The future criminal icon skipped school and got into trouble early, racking up a slew of petty charges as a youth. He worked for the Morello-Terranova gang in Harlem and made friends with other rising street thugs across the city as teen. By the time Prohibition hit, Frank Costello had made a name for himself in certain circles of the underworld and joined forces with Charlie Luciano, Vito Genovese, Meyer Lansky, Benjamin Siegel and others running booze locally in an operation funded by Arnold Rothstein.

Mug shot of a young Frank Costello.

In 1929, he played an important role in establishing the National Crime Syndicate, and during the Mafia restructuring of 1931, Costello earned the consigliere position in the new Luciano crime family, making him third in command behind Luciano and underboss Vito Genovese. Costello proved to be one of the most business-minded gangsters of the era, and he made the Luciano family a fortune in the slot machine, race wire, loan-sharking and casino rackets.

By 1937, with boss Luciano behind bars and underboss Genovese in Italy evading murder charges, Costello became acting boss of the family. Under his direction, the organization acquired a near monopoly on various gambling enterprises across the United States. He had become so wealthy and powerful that virtually every crooked politician and city administrator of the era was either installed by Costello or in his pocket.

Costello was said to be one of the last of the old-timers who did not promote the sale of narcotics; he felt it was not worth the risk. Too many low-level criminals and associates outside the family had to be involved, and potentially long prison sentences made people talk. In what would be proven by the 1950s, a single street pusher turned informant had the potential to put an entire crew behind bars.

If it weren’t for murder, graft, extortion and otherwise illegal practices, Costello would have been remembered as one of the most prominent and ingenious businessmen of the era, and he wanted to be respected as such. Costello worked hard to maintain a clean image; his social circle included the highest-level politicos, entertainers, industrialists and socialites of the generation.

Well liked and highly respected, the crime lord’s only real threat came from inside his own family. When Vito Genovese returned to America, he believed the boss position was his, only found that it was extremely difficult to gather any support for an overthrow. Costello simply made everyone too much money and had too many powerful allies.

Genovese was the opposite of Costello. He was said to be brutish and violent and had made many enemies in his career. He did allegedly promote narcotics trafficking and had none of the business or social savvy that made Frank Costello so successful. It didn’t appear that Costello had anything to worry about; however, things started to unravel for him in the early 1950s.

Luciano family underboss Guarino “Willie” Moretti—Costello’s blood cousin and most trusted associate—was murdered in a Clifton Park, New Jersey diner on October 4, 1951. It was a major personal and professional setback for Costello.

Then, in 1952, he served his first prison term in over thirty years: eighteen months for refusing to answer questions during the infamous Kefauver hearings on organized crime. There was little his high-powered friends could do—the entire proceedings were televised to the world.

In 1954, he spent another eleven months behind bars before a five-year tax evasion sentence was overturned. While in prison for a third time in 1956, another important ally, Joe Adonis, was deported to Italy. Genovese realized he had an opportunity to stage a coup and began to garner support from his young stable of street soldiers, including Vincent “Chin” Gigante.

One last major obstacle stood in the way: Mangano family boss Albert Anastasia. The former Murder, Inc. hit man was now leading one of the most powerful crime families in the country and was a staunch ally of Costello’s. Unfortunately for Costello, Anastasia fell into bad terms with many top mobsters, including Meyer Lansky, when he began establishing competing gambling rackets.

With the go ahead from the top bosses, Anastasia was involuntarily retired in October 1957. Now, Genovese, after a decade of plotting patiently, was clear to make a move against Costello.

On May 2, 1957, seven months after the murder of Anastasia, Vincent Gigante followed Frank Costello into the lobby of his apartment building. As Costello approached the elevator, Gigante yelled out, “This is for you, Frank!” and fired a shot at the boss’s head from just a few feet away.

The warning was a blessing for Costello, who reacted just in time, and the bullet only grazed his skull. Gigante fled the scene, convinced that he had just killed the most powerful criminal in America; however, Costello recovered. But the incident was enough to force Costello into relinquishing his position as boss. Genovese had killed and manipulated his way to the top of the family that would come to bear his name.