Notorious NY Gangster Salvatore (Salvy) Spitale

Aside from all the other unwanted attention he was receiving from law enforcement over the years, probably the most notoriety Salvatore (Salvy) Spitale ever received came after the very public and tragic kidnapping of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby in March of 1932.

Salvatore (Salvy) Spitale Sr. -- aka The Greek and Sam Salvin -- was born on January 2, 1897, in Petralia, Sicily (Palermo Province). He immigrated to the U.S. as a child with his parents and two younger brothers.

He is said to have married a Jewish girl named Irene Ida Firman in a Manhattan ceremony on July 9, 1918. He and Irene would stay together for the rest of their lives. As a young couple, they were known to have resided alternately at various hotels around Midtown and Upper Manhattan during those first early years that Spitale was establishing himself as an up-and-coming racketeer.

Salvatore (Salvy) Spitale

By the 1930s, the couple had moved to Queens County, but Salvy was still known to reside periodically in Midtown Manhattan. In the following decades, he and his wife resided with their two young children, Jayne and Salvatore Jr., in the Long Island City and Sunnyside sections of Queens.

A few years later, they moved again a bit further east to the Flushing section of the borough. By all accounts, Salvy was said to have been a loving husband and a devoted father to his children.

Regardless of any official registered home address he may have listed, Salvatore Spitale was well known to have traveled far and wide during his lifetime, with many part-time residences throughout the years. Among the most frequent locales were the Hotel Richmond in Manhattan and the Shore Park Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida.

Years later, after his release from state prison in the 1950s, he moved out of the area over the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge onto Staten Island in Richmond County. In future years, he listed his home address as 27 Hull Street in an area known as the Grant City section of the borough.

NYCPD #B-104206, FBI #583515

A Notorious Hoodlum!

Salvy Spitale was a notorious and well-known gangster in his time. He stood about 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed in at a solid 200 pounds in his younger days. He had straight jet-black hair with a slight wave, dark brown eyes, and a medium-olive complexion. Hence, one of his nicknames: “The Greek.”

As he aged, he retained his full head of hair, which had turned mostly salt and pepper. In his lifetime, he had a well-earned reputation as a dapper dresser and a big-spending bon vivant around town.

He had started his underworld career by at least the age of fifteen. His first arrest was recorded in 1912 while he was still underage at only fifteen years old. He was picked up for being a delinquent child.

Many further arrests (at least fifteen) would later mark his police record for such offenses as liquor bootlegging (twice), conspiracy, burglary, homicide by gunshot, felonious assault, carrying a concealed weapon, robbery, grand larceny, vagrancy (twice), violating state motor vehicle laws, consorting for an illegal purpose, and parole violations (twice).

Spitale had allegedly gotten his start in the rackets during the advent of Prohibition, which ran from 1920 through 1933. That near decade and a half became a windfall for many fledgling racketeers in the underworld and Spitale was no different. But 1933 was the year Congress finally repealed the Volstead Act, and legal whiskey flowed freely once again.

A Prohibition Bootlegger And Labor-Union Racketeer

It is said that Spitale was originally allied with such notorious racketeers of the era as the notorious Dutch Schultz and Jack (Legs) Diamond in the liquor and beer rackets. But over the years, he was suspected to have met 'em all.

Police noted that dating as far back as the 1920s, a well-known Jewish labor racketeer named Irving (Itzy Bitzy) Bitz had become his longtime partner and an acknowledged subordinate of Spitale.

Two other close associates and aides were said to be top hoodlum Salvatore Arcidiaco and Johnny Ferrone, a major Queens County-based horse bookmaker. Ferrone was listed as one of the biggest gamblers in the city and known as the personal bookie of the iconic Tammany Hall leader James J. (Jimmy) Hines.

Federal authorities later documented he was also close to such mafiosi as Vincenzo (Jimmy Doyle) Plumeri and Anthony (Tony Ducks) Corallo .

It is unknown whether or not Spitale was himself a “made” man of the Mafia. Local law enforcement thought he was not. But whether he was or wasn’t was of little consequence because Salvy seems to have been a major underworld figure in his own right and was a well-respected racketeer by all who dealt with him.

Narcotics And Counterfeit Money

After Prohibition ended, he and Irving Bitz turned their attention to other lucrative rackets. The two hoods soon gravitated to the labor movement, quickly becoming all the rage during the fledgling years of America’s industrial development.

Over the next several decades, law enforcement repeatedly noted Spitale for his involvement in union corruption. He would become deeply enmeshed in labor union racketeering. He was also active as a professional gambler and bookmaker.

Irving Spitz

The Federal Bureau of Narcotics also suspected that he may have engaged in smuggling narcotics from overseas as a financier of opium and heroin shipments. He is actually listed in their 1950s FBN book of major drug violators. His partner Bitz had a previous conviction for running narcotics, so I’m sure the drug agents figured wherever Bitz was, Spitale couldn’t be far behind.

Spitale was also believed to have been the brains behind a massive currency counterfeiting ring that was later broken up with the arrests of six men and a woman by New York City detectives who raided an apartment located at 56 Spring Street in the heart of Manhattan’s Little Italy neighborhood.

The seven suspects were hauled off to the Elizabeth Street Stationhouse by detectives who later searched the rooming house and discovered various molds and steel plates used in making spurious money. With these arrests, police felt they had broken up a major ring that had flooded the East Coast with counterfeits for over a year.

It Paid Off

Whatever rackets he involved himself in over the years must have paid off handsomely because local and federal authorities, including the FBI and the FBN (Federal Bureau of Narcotics), say he also became extremely wealthy from the rackets.

They documented his ownership or traced his hidden interests to numerous legitimate businesses and legal enterprises through the years. These included such significant holdings as the prominent Richmond Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, the Count Casino Nightclub in Miami, Florida, and the Hotel Belmont in Newark, New Jersey.

He was listed as the president and owner of Lucarini Products Inc. of New York City and Richmond Ideal Home-Craft Corporation of Staten Island, NY. Over the years, he had also purchased hidden ownership interests in vast real estate holdings.

By the mid-1960s, he was publicly listing himself as a real estate “broker.” Police also claimed the wealthy hoodlum owned a luxury yacht he regularly docked locally near his Staten Island home.

The Public Enemy

As far as his underworld career went, by the early 1930s, he became so notorious as a bootlegger and racketeer that New York City authorities actually started an aggressive law enforcement campaign specifically targeting Spitale as a “public enemy” and known menace to the city.

Over the next three decades, from the 1930s, well into the 1960s, “Salvy” would get continually harassed and picked up for questioning or be arrested for even the smallest of infractions. Traffic tickets and non-moving violations or summons, violating the Brownell “public enemy” law, disorderly conduct, vagrancy charges (thrice), several parole violations, etc.

It was a directive that came straight from the Mayor right on down to the NYC Police Commissioner to make daily life for Salvatore Spitale as unpleasant as possible.

Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan once actually threw Spitale in the New York City “workhouse” to serve five days for a minor traffic violation. As he stepped into the paddy wagon en route to the city jail for this laughable conviction, the cops actually slapped him with yet another minor vagrancy charge.

It became a never-ending continual headache for the up-and-coming gangster.

A Controversial Law

In 1935, he was only the second person ever charged with a controversial New York State Law named the “Brownell Public Enemy Law,” which made it a crime to even be out and about or seen on a public street by the police if deemed a “public enemy” by the authorities.

His conviction was later challenged and thrown out on constitutional grounds, but Spitale had already spent six days behind bars inside The Tombs serving his ninety-day sentence before this conviction was reversed on appeal.

Back in the late 1930s, the government opened Senate Hearings to investigate racketeering and corruption in the labor union and management field. Among those subpoenaed for their testimony was none other than Spitale and several of his union buddies regarding the pilfering of several union fiduciary funds.

Senate Labor Committee representatives specifically wanted to ask Salvy targeted questions about allegations that years earlier he had successfully penetrated Local #306 of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stagehands Employees Union (AFL-CIO), a union local then active along Broadway’s thriving Theatre District.

Through gangsterism, terrorism, and intimidation, the hoods had also gained control of segments of the New York Motion Picture Operators Union. One of Salvy’s allies, Sam Kaplan, had been deposed as president of the local after he was convicted of coercion and sent to jail for six months. Witnesses said that Spitale and his union-goon gangster buddies had “forced” the local to elect Harry Sherman as the new president after Kaplan had been purged from the union in 1933.

Union officials admitted that during this period of time, Spitale, Kaplan, and the others were tied to the local more than $900,000 in funds from the union’s treasury had mysteriously disappeared.

An unexplained check from the local’s operating fund in the amount of $7500 payable to a Salvatore Spitale was also noted into the senate committee’s record.

A Cry For Help To “Salvy the Savior”

Aside from all the other unwanted attention he was receiving from law enforcement over the years, probably the most notoriety Salvy ever received came after the very public and tragic kidnapping of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby in March of 1932.

The notorious event was splashed across the front pages of every single newspaper in the United States and around the world, for that matter. Various “underworld figures” were alleged to have been contacted by police to see if they could help the Lindburghs.

But Salvatore Spitale and his partner Irving Bitz soon became household names after they were formally commissioned by the infant’s parents, Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh themselves, to intervene in the kidnapping. It was a vain attempt to “negotiate” with the kidnappers for the safe return of their infant son after repeated police efforts had failed.

Bitz and Spitale

Acting as potential “go-betweens,” the two hoods attempted to help the Lindbergh family the best they could by using their underworld connections to make contact with the culprits.

With the permission and acquiescence of both the FBI and local authorities, Spitale and Blitz attempted to recover Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., the 20-month-old son of the famous aviator and his wife, while everyone involved hoped and prayed that the baby was still alive.

But alas, the best efforts of the racketeers and law enforcement, and the child’s parents failed. The baby’s lifeless abandoned body was recovered ten days later in Hopewell, New Jersey.

The location of his body was not far from the Lindbergh home in East Amwell, New Jersey where the family lived. Little Charles had been snatched right from his crib that fateful evening only ten days earlier.

Salvy Takes A Fall

By 1939, Spitale’s unsavory reputation had finally caught up to him. That was the year he was arrested, tried by a jury, and then sentenced to State Prison for a term of from 5 to 10 years to be served upstate at Sing Sing Prison for his conviction on grand larceny charges. It was for a relatively minor offense of stealing a mere $1000 from an ex-convict and former pal of 20 years named Benjamin Feigenbaum.

General Judge Charles C. Nott later noted that he sentenced Spitale to the maximum prison term he could for grand larceny after reading a pre-sentence probation report about the defendant’s long criminal record.

Salvatore Spitale

The report also stated that Spitale and Bitz were the prime suspects in the gangland slaying of the notorious bootlegger Jack (Legs) Diamond back in 1931.

Salvy ended up serving more than six years behind bars in Upstate New York at both Sing Sing and Dannemora Penitentiaries before finally being paroled in 1946.

He violated that parole two years later in 1948 and was sent back up the river once more to Sing Sing. Shortly after being released a second time, he was charged yet again with another parole violation for the technical violation of not actually residing at the home address he had initially provided his parole officer.

The parole board said that instead of residing at the Staten Island address he had listed with the authorities, he was actually living under the assumed name of “John S. Russell” at the King Edward Hotel at 120 W. 44th Street in midtown Manhattan.

Palm Trees And Balmy Breezes

In his later years, after making parole for a third time, Spitale chose to finally lower his head and live quietly. By the mid-1960s, he was thought to have been semi-retired and long removed from any underworld activity.

Salvy eventually migrated down to sunny South Florida, where he and his wife Irene bought a home in the Boynton Beach section.

By all accounts, from that point forward, he settled into a permanent low-keyed lifestyle. He had seen and done it all over the course of his long career in New York’s underworld. It was now high time to relax and enjoy his senior years in relative peace.

Spitale's grave.

Salvatore (Salvy) Spitale Sr. died in Palm Beach County on March 10, 1979. He had lived to the respectable age of 82 years old.

Arrangements were made to have Spitale’s body flown back up to New York, where his family gave him a Mass of Christian Burial. He was then interred at Moravian Cemetery, located in the New Dorp section of Staten Island, NY.

His beloved daughter, Jayne M. Carmino (nee’ Spitale), who died some years after her father in 2001, is buried together with him in the same cemetery plot.

Tragically, she was only 50 years old. I think the very fact that his daughter chose to be interred with her dad is a solid testament to the love and closeness his two children felt for him.

Until next time…”The Other Guy”

Notorious NY Gangster Salvatore (Salvy) Spitale

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