This is part three of a five-part series on Cosa Nostra and its infiltration into Long Island, New York. This week, we take a little stroll down gangland’s business lane and delve into many of the businesses and other investments mobsters have made over the years, both in New York City and its outer suburbs. We’ll check out who invested what and where, how they did it, and where they did it.
Each of the Five Families is represented here to try and give a balanced look into the mindsets of various individual wiseguys as well as the business structure (or lack thereof) of the different crews they were affiliated with. In keeping with the theme of this series on the mob, we only focused on mafiosi and allied racketeers who either lived and/or operated on the Island; those who, likewise, invested some of their racket money on Long Island soil.
One of the most important and pervasive yet seemingly benign and nearly invisible activities of Cosa Nostra has been their propensity for infiltrating legitimate business and industry.
When most laymen and legitimate folks think of “business infiltration” by the underworld, they most often conjure up dark thoughts and envision gangs of violent knuckle-dragging hoodlums forcing their way into grabbing a piece of a business by threatening and beating the business owner into submission in order to take over ownership of his bar or nightclub, restaurant, trucking firm, or other such business.
And while, admittedly, that situation has sometimes been the case and has indeed happened many times in the past, that scenario is generally very far from the truth of how these types of things actually play out and of how racketeers and connected guys sometimes become an owner, or a “partner,” in a legitimate business venture.
The “bare-knuckled shakedown” approach and blatant extortion tactics certainly make for a more exciting scenario, criminal indictment, or television script in which dangerous-looking hoodlums in black pinstriped suits, black shirts, white ties, and diamond pinky rings approach an innocent businessman demanding to be made partners in his business under pain of death. But as exciting and intriguing as that vision may be, it’s usually very far from the truth of how things actually work and play out.
Admittedly, back in the Roaring Twenties era, that type of thing was more prevalent. But for many decades already, most mob guys acquire businesses the old-fashioned way. They buy them! Funny, yet true.
Pushin’ In and Shakin’ Down
On occasion, certain businesses can, and still do, get shaken down. ‘Extorted’ may be a more appropriate word to use. For instance, back in the 1950s and 1960s era, if you owned a bar and grill or another type of liquor-licensed establishment you might have become a prime candidate for such a shakedown. More often than not, within a few months, if not weeks, or even days of opening your doors for business, you might have gotten a visit from your friendly local neighborhood “hood.” He might have first just casually strolled in for a drink at the bar. The next time he paid you a visit, he might have even struck up a friendly conversation with you to try and become a bit neighborly and to make your acquaintance. But shortly after that, you may have found yourself on the receiving end of a bunch of anonymous young hoodlums who suddenly wandered into your joint one night, ordered a bunch of drinks, and then either refused to pay their tab or busted up the entire joint after starting a phony argument and then a fistfight with other patrons. These little incidents were all designed to get your attention and to eventually get you to acquiesce to them by handing over a weekly envelope to your new underworld friend, under the guise that he would become your neighborhood “patron saint” and “protector.”
After that happened? That guy you met? You know the one, don’t you? That nice fella who got friendly with you over the last few months? He may approach you and offer to help. If you say “yes” to his offer, then instantly you have no more problems. No more hooligans coming into your club starting trouble and refusing to pay the tab. No more vandalism or fights, etc. Because you now have a wiseguy as a potential partner. You were now free to go about your business. He may have even offered to invest in your place. Or he may have just asked you for a few hundred dollars a week, straight out, as a payment for his services to you. For having put you under his “umbrella,” so to speak. But if you were living and operating back in the era where wiseguys and racketeers were as commonplace as the hair on your head, it often became a matter of semantics and the choosing of the lesser of two evils. Because if you didn’t pay him, then right around the corner was another hood from a different crew that was just itching to move in on you anyway.
The Mob is an “Equal Opportunity” Infiltrator
This is a time-honored method and a way for mob guys to “push in” on a business, as the terminology goes. It’s a most prevalent method that’s even used nowadays when they attempt to gain a “piece” of a licensed public venue such as a restaurant, bar, tavern, nightclub, catering hall, or other similar types of high-profile business. Because of the very nature of a business that involves a liquor license, drinking alcohol, women, and nightlife, the “entertainment” and beverage industry has always been susceptible to mob domination. Wiseguys love the nightlife, and they love to hang out at such places to begin with, so it makes perfect sense that those types of establishments would be among the very first industries to fall prey to the underworld.
Remember, too, that nightclubs and nightlife date back to the Prohibition times of the 1920s when liquor was first outlawed across America. It became an early love affair between hoodlums and liquor-licensed (and unlicensed) establishments; a love affair that continues to this very day. It has been a century since booze was first banned in this country. It was the single greatest catalyst that gave the underworld a giant step up the ladder for its future financial success…The wiseguys never looked back!
