Paul Agresta was believed to have been a formally inducted member of the Calabrian “Honored Society” before coming to the United States. In later years, he was said to have also become a formally inducted mafia member under the flag of the Anastasia/Gambino Family of NY.
Ippolito (Paul the Zip) Agresta — aka The Greaseball, Paul the Greaser, Paul Agresta and Ippolito Paolo Agresta (TN) — was born on June 18, 1906, in the Port City of Gioia Tauro Reggio, Calabria, Italy.
After immigrating to the United States in 1935, he moved to Connecticut and took up residence in the city of Bridgeport. On June 20, 1945, it is documented that he became a naturalized U.S. citizen at Bridgeport.
He stood 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed about 155 pounds. His immigration photo shows Agresta with black-grey, close-cropped hair, brown eyes, and an aquiline nose. He was described as having a scar on his lip.
By the late 1930s, he had met and would later marry a fellow Calabrian-born immigrant like himself named Francesca (nee’ Corica). Only 20 years old at the time they met, she was eleven years younger than Agresta. He and Francesca lived in a small home they owned at 85 Steuben Street in Bridgeport.
He also had a large immediate blood family of six siblings, some of whom had immigrated with him, including four brothers named Joseph, Vincent, Rocco, and Anthony, and two sisters.
Often Imitated. Never Duplicated. Button Guys of The New York Mafia...There's Only One!
