Lawrence (Larry Black) Centore: A No-Nonsense Guy

Lawrence (Larry Black) Centore was a no-nonsense Genovese Family capo and longtime member of Jimmy Blue Eyes Bronx crew. Eventually, Larry Black rose to lead Alo’s old regime.

Lawrence (Larry Black) Centore Sr. was born on August 25, 1907, to immigrant Italian parents. He was raised in the Bronx, and it's where he would operate all his life.

He had a kid brother, two years his junior, named Pasquale who was allied with Larry as up-and-coming racketeers. They were known as “Larry and Patty Black” aka the “Black Brothers.”

Lawrence (Larry Black) Centore

The Centore brothers resided for decades in a multi-dwelling apartment house along with their mother at 961 East 224th Street in the Williamsbridge section of the borough near Yankee Stadium.

In true old-fashioned Italian style, even as they got older and started their own lives, Larry and Patty chose to stay close to their familial roots.

By the 1960s, Larry Centore decided to move up to Yonkers, where he first bought a private residence at 20 Secor Place and, years later, moved again and was residing at 10 Terrace Lane.

They were wayward boys from jump street.

Both Larry and Patty were already very active in street crime as fledgling gunmen and heist men by their late teens. They specialized in pulling big-money armed heists all around Upper Manhattan, the Bronx, Westchester, and the surrounding areas.

A favorite was to set up cash payroll heists of large companies such as factories, trucking firms, corporate offices, etc. They ended up getting pinched for a few but overall did very well with it, helping to support themselves all through their 20s and 30s this way.

By the 1930s, the boys were also deeply enmeshed in the policy racket which was running rampant all throughout New York City in those years.

Policy, or the “numbers” racket, is the picking of any three numbers from 1 thru 1000. Depending on the era involved, the payoff odds ran anywhere from 500 to 650, to 1.

It was a game often played in the poorer neighborhoods for pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. But those coins sure added up quickly. Collectively, it was a multimillion-dollar trade for the underworld.

As young men, the Centore boys had ballsy reputations. They let it be known early on in the neighborhood that they were nobody to be trifled with.

They regularly packed pistols, blackjacks, and other tools of the trade as the occasion called for. Other hoodlums generally respected them and gave them a wide berth.

But there are always exceptions to the rule as they say. And the “Black Brothers” were no different.

They had their detractors too, and one evening it would all come to a head down the road a little. But while it lasted, they made sure to make the most of it.

By the mid-1930s-early 1940s, Larry Centore was really starting to move within the New York underworld. He had come to the attention of the neighborhood mafiosi and top racketeers.

He soon affiliated with a faction of the Luciano/Genovese Family who had strong bases both Downtown Manhattan as well as up in the East Harlem/Bronx area.

FBI # 193890, NYCPD # B-73059

Over the years, Lawrence Centore was identified by both the New York City Police Department and the FBI as an old-time veteran “soldier” or formal member of the Mafia.

Authorities are not certain of his date of induction but noted that he had extensive power by the mid-1950s, so they suspect that he was a “made man” by at least that date, if not earlier in the late 1930s. It is believed that he served under iconic “capo di decina” Vincent (Jimmy Blue Eyes) Alo.

Although he was a well-known hoodlum for years in the neighborhoods where he operated, it wasn’t until he was publicly identified as an underworld figure by informer Joseph Valachi in his congressional testimony in 1963 that Centore’s name started being steadily tracked by federal authorities.

Valachi named Centore as being active in gambling and jukebox-vending machine rackets.

By the mid-1960s, he was been carried on all the government’s mafia charts and soon became a prime target of the FBI’s “anti-racketeering” campaign. He was also named in the 1983 and 1988 U.S. Senate Hearings on Organized Crime in America as a Genovese Family “caporegime.”

Among the racket activities he was known to be heavily engaged in were policy-numbers, bookmaking, dice games, loansharking, extortion, strong-arm enforcement, thefts, and receiving stolen property.

He was a well-respected hood who served quietly as a loyal soldier for many years. As he got older, and several senior mafiosi of the Bronx area passed away, Centore was tapped by the hierarchy to fill their shoes.

He was eventually elevated to the position of a “capo” and oversaw one of the larger, Westchester-based regimes of the borgata.

The regime or “crew” that Larry Black commanded had many extremely active and ambitious members. This crew ran a major gambling-shylocking operation throughout several sections of Westchester County, as well as in their old Bronx neighborhoods.

Their large policy network had been developed over many decades. Likewise, Larry Black’s crew were known as prominent shylocks. It was thought by investigators that they had hundreds of thousands of dollars out “on the street” in loans on any given day.

Among the men that served under Centore in his personal crew were two major bookmakers named Michael Yannicelli, and John Pelose. Others included associates Peter Variano, his son Lawrence (Larry Black Jr) Centore Jr., Jimmy La Rocca, Frank Alipo, Frank (Frankie Bear) Calise, Alfredo (Al) Castaldo, Leonard Giordano, Steven Madori, Joseph Tocco, and Dominick Colarusso.

Among the original Alo regime members, and other top members of the Bronx/Westchester factions were many top figures that included: Nicholas (Cockeyed Nick) Rattenni, Battisto (Black Bart) Salvo, John (Gentleman Johnny) Masiello, John (Zackie) Savino, Sabato (Bo) Milo, Louis (Babe) Milo, Tommy Milo Sr., Aldo Mazzarati, Rudolph (Rudy) Prisco, Louis Prado, Gaetano (Kay) Somma, and Nicholas (Bobby Blanch) Belangi, to name but a few.

In his later years, Centore would lead them as the new capo of this regime.

In 1981, Centore was among 31 people charged as members and associates of the Vito Genovese Family in an indictment charging they operated a massive loan-sharking racket in the Bronx and Westchester County. Westchester District Attorney Carl Vergari described the then 74-year old Centore as a mob “executive” who because of his lofty underworld perch as a “capo” was able to avoid arrest for many years by having his many crew members “front” for him, allowing him to stay in the shadows as he aged.

Other criminal counts in the thick-paged indictment included running a large numbers-gambling network and the wholesale distribution of narcotics.

But truth be told, being able to avoid prosecution was never quite the case with Larry. From the time he was a young kid, he was always in trouble with the law. And that unfortunate reality would haunt him all the years of his life.

He had a very lengthy police record. Even as he rose in power and influence and was bumped up to capo, he managed to always get pinched for one thing or another, at least once a decade.

Lawrence M. Centore Sr., died on October 2, 1992, at the comfortable age of 85 years old.

Until next time..."The Other Guy"

Lawrence (Larry Black) Centore: A No-Nonsense Guy

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Lawrence (Larry Black) Centore: A No-Nonsense Guy

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You May Also Enjoy

Genovese Soldier & Waterfront Rackets Boss: Philip “Philly Katz” Albanese

Genovese Capo Frank Iaconi and His Worcester, Massachusetts Regime

Frank (Farby) Serpico

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