Corona, Queens Lucchese Soldier: Eugene (Little Gene) Giannone

In this newly expanded and revised bio, we explore the life of Eugene "Little Gene" Giannone, a key soldier and top-level aide to capo Giuseppe (Joe Brown) Lucchese, the brother of legendary Mafia boss Tommy Lucchese . Giannone was known to mostly operate as a gambler. Over the years, he was tied to various major horse bookmaking and numbers operations the crew operated in the Corona, Elmhurst, Rego Park, Flushing and Jackson Heights sections of the borough. Little Gene was known to be a gambling specialist for their Lucchese regime who operated and controlled lucrative “wire rooms” on behalf of himself and the Lucchese crime family.

Eugene John (Little Gene) Giannone -- aka Gene Giannone, Gene Ginnone, Eugene Gianonne, Eugenio Giovanni Giannone (TN) -- was born in New York City on March 20, 1911 (alternate dob, March 16, 1911.) He was the oldest of four children — three sons and a daughter — born to Rosario and Mary Giannone. His siblings were named Antoinetta, Paolo, and Giuseppe.

For a time, the family was thought to have resided on 29th Street in the Astoria section of Queens. By 1920, they had relocated a few miles east to the Corona section of the borough, residing at 47-24 98th Street. By 1930 they had moved a few blocks down to 97-56 Corona Ave.

Eugene "Little Gene" Giannone

By the age of nineteen, young Eugene was already working. His first recorded job was as a machinist working for a local Corona company.

It was around this same point in time he met and started dating a local Italian girl from the neighborhood. Three years younger than him, Edith Maria Mirro was born in 1914 to parents who had immigrated to the U.S. from the Campania region of Southern Italy. After a short courtship, Gene and Edith decided to get hitched.

Marriage records indicate that she and Eugene were married on August 22, 1934. The marriage certificate lists Vita Mirro as his bride. (Vita may have been Edith’s official baptismal name.)

The newlyweds rented a small apartment in Astoria before quickly relocating back to Corona a short time later. In the coming years, Edith and Gene were blessed with three children — two sons and a daughter, who were appropriately named according to old Italian custom as Raymond (Roy), after the boy’s grandfather Rosario, Dora Ann, and Eugene Giannone Jr., after his dad.

"Little Gene"

Early police files physically describe Eugene John Giannone as standing about 5 feet 4 inches in height and weighing 130 pounds. He had black hair, brown eyes, and a dark ruddy complexion. By the time he reached middle age, he weighed about 160 pounds. Giannone got his nickname because of his small frame and stature — hence his lifelong underworld moniker, “Little Gene.”

FBI #972673-D

By 1940, he and Edith were renting an apartment in a brick two-story, multi-family home located on a quiet block at 96-36 46th Avenue, Corona.

World War II was in full swing, raging in Europe. So, like any other patriotic red-blooded American boy, on October 16, 1940 Gene went down to the nearest U.S. Draft Board Office and registered. On the intake form Giannone stated his civil occupation was that of a photographer. During his time in the Army, he was assigned to the Signal Corps. He served as a Private 1st-Class.

By the time Giannone joined the military, he was already a twenty-nine year old married man and the father of three small children. He served a short stint in the Army before being discharged, immediately returning back home to his wife and kids.

Once Gene got back home to the neighborhood, he soon made contact with all his old friends and quickly resumed his activities — legal and otherwise.

He also made it his business to start showing a legitimate source of income by listing himself on the books of the American Bronze Company, located at 40-24 22nd Street, Long Island City, where he was ostensibly employed as a metal worker.

But by this stage of the game, Giannone wasn’t fooling anyone, especially the beat cops who paroled his Corona neighborhood and the plainclothes detectives connected to the 110th Precinct which had jurisdiction over the area.

He also wasn’t fooling investigators with the Queens County District Attorney’s Office whose job it was to suppress illegal gambling rackets within the borough. They knew the name of Eugene Giannone very well. They also knew that he was deeply enmeshed in illegal gambling activity.

Queens County "Little Italy"

As mentioned, by at least 1920, the Giannone family had already settled in the Corona Heights section of Queens County.

At the time, and for many decades to come, Corona was considered to be a major destination point for newly arrived immigrants hailing from Southern Italy’s Calabria region and from the Island of Sicily. As the years passed, the neighborhood became more and more of an Italian stronghold and was recognized as one of the premier “Little Italy” styled neighborhoods dotting Queens County.

While Gene and his siblings were growing up the family lived in several homes around the neighborhood, one of which was 95-34 41st Avenue, in nearby Elmhurst. They later moved into an apartment house on Corona Avenue in the heart of Corona Heights, directly across from William Moore Park.

Initially named for a local World War II hero, and later nicknamed “Spaghetti Park” by neighborhood residents, William Moore Park was a little triangular park popular in the neighborhood that first gained its moniker because of all the Italians that resided in the area at that time.

Spaghetti Park

Although they loved their hometown, by the early 1940s Gene was doing well enough financially that he and Edith decided to move out of their Corona apartment and purchase a home of their own. After looking around, they chose a new development of single and two-family homes being built in the borough’s Whitestone section, located just a few miles east of Corona. They ended up buying a small single-family brick home at 149-12 22nd Avenue. This is where Giannone would live for the rest of his life.

Despite having moved from the neighborhood, in the coming years, Giannone sometimes still listed a 98th Street address as his residence, as indicated on a 1950 U.S. Census form he filled out.

On that same 1950 census form, Gene listed his employment and current occupation as a checker for a dry cleaning store. Through the years, Giannone would also sometimes list his occupation as a bartender and as a nightclub employee.

Giannone’s cabaret license

Suffice it to say, that by that point in his life Little Gene wasn’t lifting a finger to work any legitimate job. He was a devoted gambler through and through.

In the late 1950s or early 1960s, he was also suspected of having gained a hidden ownership interest in the Met’s Lounge. Located just a few blocks away from the famous Mets Stadium, home of The Metropolitans baseball team - better known as the Mets. Located at the corner of 111th Street and 43rd Avenue, Corona, the Mets Lounge was a popular neighborhood watering hole named after the team.

The Mets Lounge, 111th Street, Corona

Although the exact date is not known, by the time he was in his early twenties, it’s known that Giannone already had a police record. What is known, is that during the mid-1930s, he was nabbed on bookmaking charges for accepting bets inside a “horse parlor” he was then operating in Corona. Subsequently, from that time forward, in their files, the New York City Police Department began listing Giannone as a common gambler and “KG” on their list of “known gamblers” who were active in the borough of Queens.

Side Note: His criminal record and unsavory reputation doesn’t appear to have hurt Giannone regarding his ability to secure a coveted Cabaret License for himself as evidenced by the issuing of one on September 25, 1963. That was the date he was issued Permit #587853 to work as a bartender serving liquor and other alcoholic beverages to the public. Issued by the NYC Department of Licenses, the permit was valid for three years, expiring on September 30, 1966.

Such was the influence of organized crime back in New York City — once upon a time.

A Close Friend of "Joe Brown"

Digressing back a bit to his youth, while Gene was growing up in Corona he had befriended another neighborhood youth by the name of Giuseppe Lucchese who would later become better known to local law enforcement and the daily tabloids as “Joe Brown.”

The two young men shared a very important friendship. One that would dictate much of Little Gene’s future life and career.

Giuseppe Lucchese, who’s name was anglicized to Joseph Lucchese during his school years, just happened to be the kid brother of one of New York’s most notorious future Mafia bosses — the infamous Gaetano (Tommy Brown) Lucchese.

Following his older brother’s lead, Joe would also one day gravitate toward the underworld and earn a living in the streets.

Joseph "Joe Brown" Lucchese

The Luccheses had been born back in the City of Palermo, Sicily, but had immigrated to the States as young children along with their parents and siblings. Joe was just a year old when he first arrived in America.

The family originally settled in the East Harlem section of Upper Manhattan. But by the mid-1920s, the Lucchese clan decided to resettle over the bridge to Queens County, to the more open and then-bucolic quiet town of Corona. The family rented an apartment unit on an upper-floor in a residential apartment building along Northern Boulevard, near 99th Street, which back then was a bustling neighborhood filled with Italian grocery stores and salumerias, poultry markets, bakeries, and other retail shops pivotal to the area.

This is how young Gene Giannone and Joe Lucchese first met and became friends. In the coming years, they attended grade school together and hung around together after school in the neighborhood. These early ties are what led them to become close friends and lifelong associates.

Over the next few decades — from the 1930s and 1940s — Gene was picked up several times on gambling-related charges. For instance, he was once arrested for running a large “horse parlor” that was situated inside an innocuous-looking Corona Avenue storefront. One afternoon, police raided the establishment and hauled off dozens of patrons from the place charging them with disorderly conduct or vagrancy charges. Gene was among several other men charged as “common gamblers” for operating the gaming parlor.

The Roaring 1940s and 50s

Beyond being a known gambler, local police soon learned that Giannone was also a Corona-based racketeer who seemed to know and be closely associated with many important members of the local underworld.

In time, through police surveillance and the usual neighborhood scuttlebutt provided by police informants and other people, they uncovered evidence that Giannone was actually closely tied into top members of the Italian Mafia — specifically, members of the Gaetano (Three-Finger Brown) Lucchese crime family, headquartered over the bridge in Upper Manhattan’s East Harlem area.

By the 1940s, they also learned that gambler “Little Gene” Giannone was a direct subordinate and a key top-level aide to Joseph Lucchese himself, who, by that point in time, was generally acknowledged as a top gambling boss in Corona and a man who was suspected of also being a top Mafia figure.

By the 1950s, both men were being viewed more and more by police as important bookmakers and racketeers who operated in the northwestern part of the county.

At this point, law enforcement officials considered Giannone to be among a small mob cadre of approximately a dozen or so close associates of the Lucchese brothers appointed to help Joe Lucchese operate and oversee the various gambling rackets controlled by the Lucchese crime family in the Corona area and in other sections of Queens County.

Giannone was so well known after having been connected on numerous occasions to local gambling activities his reputation was such that his surname had been firmly cemented as a Lucchese Family racketeer of some note.

In fact, two informants in particular, who were given the FBI code numbers NY T-5 and NY T-6 to protect their true identities, named various local mafia figures for the feds. NY T-5 and NY T-6 had specifically named Eugene (Little Gene) Giannone as a “soldier” in the Gaetano Lucchese Family, stating that Little Gene “operated within this particular criminal network.”

Side Note: Years earlier Family boss Tommy Lucchese had reportedly “given” the Corona neighborhood to his kid brother Joe to oversee on Tommy’s behalf. To that end, Joe was formally inducted into the ranks of the Mafia and was then quickly elevated to the formal rank of a capodecina in charge of the neighborhood.

Additionally, in 1963, Genovese Family soldier Joseph (Joe Cago) Valachi, who, by that time had become a top-level FBI informant told his government handlers that Joseph (Joe Brown) Lucchese was indeed a Mafia member who had been appointed an “official” capodecina, or crew leader, within his brother’s crime family.

The Corona Crew

As previously mentioned, during his career, Giannone was mostly known as a bookmaker and gambler. He was also thought to engage in shylocking money to strapped gamblers and small businessmen in need of a quick infusion of cash.

Over the years police had repeatedly tied him into various horse bookmaking and numbers operations that he and his crew operated for decades around Corona and in adjoining towns like Elmhurst, Rego Park, Flushing, Jackson Heights and other neighborhoods within Queens.

Besides running storefront “handbooks” from private “members-only” social clubs and bars and eateries where neighborhood denizens could place a bet on the ponies, over the years, Giannone was also known to also operate more sophisticated “wire rooms” which were set up in nondescript apartments to accept larger wagers on horse-races and other sporting events placed by telephone from their customers.

As far as mob connections go, through the years, Gene was believed to have became familiar with most everyone in the Lucchese Family, as well as a healthy smattering of hoodlums from New York’s other four borgatas who he happened to come into contact with during the course of his activities.

But Gene primarily associated and interacted with other members of his Corona crew. And aside from his good friend Joe Lucchese, among Giannone’s closest criminal associates were men he had grown up with from the neighborhood, which included an important Corona alumni named Joseph (Joe Narrow) Laratro , who was in partnership with Joe Lucchese as co-captain of their Corona-based regime.

Other close associates include Laratro’s brother, Donato (Danny Narrow) Laratro as well as fellow soldiers Frank (Frankie Bell) Campanello , Joseph (Joe Bikini) Brocchini, and Donato (Dempsey) Laietta . Another was Joe and Tommy Lucchese’s younger brother, Family associate Vincent (Jimmy Brown) Lucchese.

Frank (Frankie Bell) Campanello

Several other neighborhood kids — who later grew up to become gamblers and racketeers in their own right — who were also close to Giannone included Leonardo (Leo) Marucci, Nathan (Nat) Colletti, Frank (Yippy) LaPollo, Nicholas (Sam Spade) Del Percio, Michael Cariello, and Diamond Corridine. Two other Corona natives who Gene grew up with were Ralph and Frank Serpico . By the late 1940s, both brothers were later formally inducted as soldiers in the rival Vito Genovese Family.

Each of the above named men were known gamblers who the New York Police Department in Queens and Manhattan constantly kept tabs on.

Federal Investigation Hearings & Other Fun

After years of successfully living in the shadows, things were about to change a bit for Gene. Despite the occasional police raid and arrest, for many years, Giannone largely flew under the radar. Generally speaking, he had been able to dodge the spotlight of the media and had grown comfortable in his anonymity because of it.

In February 1964, Little Gene Giannone became one of dozens of Lucchese family members — from boss Tommy Lucchese himself, right on down through the Family’s top hierarchy to their rank-and-file soldiers and associates alike — to be subpoenaed to testify before a special federal grand jury empaneled by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Morgenthau who was heading up the investigation.

The proceedings were considered to be so important that even United States Attorney General Robert (Bobby) Kennedy took it upon himself to personally fly into New York City to specifically be present for the anticipated testimony that was to take place, and to also finally get a good firsthand look with his own eyes at the notorious Tommy Lucchese. At the time, the federal government was attempting to conduct a deep probe into the affairs of Lucchese and key members of his Cosa Nostra borgata.

Among those subpoenaed over the course of several weeks for their testimony was the crime family’s number two man, underboss Stefano LaSalle, and the Family consigliere, Vincent J. (Vincey) Rao . A number of top capodecina were also called in, including Tommy’s brother, Joseph (Joe Brown) Lucchese, Vincenzo (Jimmy Doyle) Plumeri , Joseph (Joe Palisades) Rosato, Andimo (Tommy Noto) Pappadio , Carmine (Mr. Gribbs) Tramunti, and Anthony (Tony Higgins) Castaldi .

Gene was in very good company — or very bad company as it were — depending upon your point of view of course.

During the U.S. Government’s inquiry into the myriad of racket activities operated by the Thomas Lucchese Family, tabloids across the country reported about the committee and the various other underworld figures who were called in to testify.

News of the crime hearings spread like wildfire across the metropolitan area, making the front pages of New York newspapers and other tabloids across the country. Giannone’s name appeared in local newspapers for weeks.

Among some of the other underworld luminaries reportedly summoned to appear before the committee — each of whom clammed up after being sworn in, refusing to talk — included Family soldiers Thomas (Tommy Dio) Dioguardi, Salvatore (Sally the Blond) LoProto , Calogero (Charlie) Rao, Joseph (Joe Bikini) Brocchini , and our boy, Eugene (Little Gene) Giannone.

Many lesser mafia figures were also subpoenaed for their testimony, including dozens of other soldiers and associates from Lucchese Family strongholds in Queens, Harlem and the Bronx. They all pled the Fifth Amendment to any questions asked of them by U.S. Attorney Robert Morgenthau. Most were given ‘return’ subpoenas for court dates later in the month.

For his part, Giannone appeared before the committee on February 14, 1964. He was one of several dozen reputed members and associates of the Family who were ordered to appear that particular day.

After placing his hand on the Bible and taking an oath to tell the truth, Little Gene stuck to his guns and honored his “other” oath — that of Omertà — by refusing to talk, citing his U.S. Constitutional Privilege. He took the Fifth Amendment to every single question asked of him by the prosecutor.

Nearly every other underworld figures did the same, successfully frustrating the efforts of law enforcement officials to make headway against Lucchese and his men.

A Successfully Quiet Career

Despite his uncanny ability to avoid scrutiny for what many in law enforcement believed was a very active and successful underworld career, this was one of the only times in his life that Giannone was ever publicly “outed” in the newspapers as a Mafia figure.

Up until that point, he had generally operated as a virtual “shadow” figure who was only known to local police from the nearby 110th Precinct which covered the Corona and Elmhurst areas of the borough, the Queens DAs Gambling Squad, and to local residents of his Corona neighborhood.

Although he and all the others subpoenaed appeared before the investigative body several times, Giannone and each of his “friends” clammed up before the committee after citing their constitutional privileges against self-incrimination. Subsequently, little valuable information was ever produced from his appearance.

Through the years, Gene had also appeared before several other local and federal grand juries with the same results.

Yet, through it all, he seems to have faded back into the shadows where he preferred to operate.

Little Gene remained unscathed.

An Abrupt, but Quiet Ending

Unfortunately, despite a lifetime of careful planning as he quietly established himself within the local underworld while taking care of his wife and children, Little Gene was not long for this world. He would die a relatively young man.

Eugene John Giannone passed away on April 4, 1970 (alternate date, April 14, 1970).

The Grim Reaper came just a few weeks after Gene had just celebrated his birthday with his wife and kids. Unknowingly, it was to be his last.

Gene was only 59 years old.

He was waked locally and then given a Mass of Christian Burial, before being interred just a few miles away from his hometown of Corona at the nearby Mount St. Mary Cemetery, located on Booth Memorial Avenue, in the town of Flushing.

Although his life was cut short, during his underworld career, for the most part, Gene had enjoyed a shadowy and profitable career as a mob-connected gambling racketeer and a pivotal member of the Lucchese Family’s Corona regime.

Best of all, Little Gene was never known to have ever served a single day behind bars.

Postscript: Gene’s devoted wife Edith survived her husband by nearly thirty-five years. Edith Marie (nee’ Mirro) Giannone died on June 18, 2005. She was 91 years old.

Until next time…”The Other Guy”

Corona, Queens Lucchese Soldier: Eugene (Little Gene) Giannone

Newly Revised and Expanded

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Corona, Queens Lucchese Soldier: Eugene (Little Gene) Giannone

*Newly Revised and Expanded*

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You May Also Enjoy

Michael (Charlie Monti) Fiermonti: Lucchese Family Associate

Thomas (Red) DiMaio: Lucchese Family Hoodlum

Joseph (Joe Brown) Lucchese

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Newly Revised and Expanded