Mob Son Follows in Dad’s Footsteps…Right to the Graveyard!

In the early morning hours of July 7, 1979, a local neighborhood man named John Macchiarole was saddled up to the bar inside The Bright Eyes, a local watering hole that he reputedly owned at 71-23 Eliot Avenue in Middle Village, Queens.

The Bright Eyes was a typical neighborhood joint. A small tavern, similar to so many other local bars that dotted the mostly industrial blue-collar neighborhoods of Middle Village and Maspeth.

Located directly across the street from Our Lady of Good Hope Catholic Church, what differentiated Macchiarole’s place from other local bars in the area was that from the outside it looked more like a candy store or retail storefront than a bar.

The nondescript little drinking establishment had no sign outside to advertise it or any listed telephone number. It was operated more like an illegal after-hours club than a legitimate liquor-licensed business. It was the kind of place that only neighborhood people, who were in the know, would even know about.

The Grim Reaper Says Hello

It was early Saturday morning, just a few minutes before 1:30 a.m. when havoc struck. As he sat at the bar with his back facing the front door, sipping his drink and chatting with several customers and the bartender, when suddenly a ski-masked man strolled into the tavern, walked right up to Macchiarole from behind, and blasted him right off his bar stool.

Eyewitnesses, who New York City Homicide Detectives later interviewed, said that the ski-masked assailant, whom they described as a tall, thin man, didn’t say a single word. He just quietly walked up behind Macchiarole, pulled out a revolver, and shot the unsuspecting, aspiring young mafioso four or five times in the back of the head and upper body.

Then, just as quickly, the gunman turned around and suddenly disappeared, exiting the bar as his perforated victim crumbled to the barroom floor.

Police converge around The Bright Eyes bar where John Macchiarole was shot down.

Police Officer James Redmond of the 104th Precinct was one of the first officers on the scene. After speaking to several patrons who were inside at the time of the shooting, he reported, “As gunfire erupted, frightened patrons dove for cover. And afterward, they either couldn’t or wouldn’t, tell arriving police much about the attack.”

Some other patrons in the bar at the time of the shooting quickly fled out the front door, disappearing into the night. So, the police were later uncertain as to just how many customers had actually been inside to witness the bloody gangland incident.

But police reports said there were at least four customers in the bar at the time of the shooting. Several shocked patrons immediately called the police, while several others rushed to the victim’s aid. They reportedly put the dying man in a car and rushed him to St. John’s Queens Hospital in a vain effort to save his life. John Macchiarole was pronounced dead at 1:54 a.m.

The Fruit Didn't Fall Far From the Tree

The 33-year old victim was quickly identified by the authorities as John (Johnny Mac) Macchiarole. Police said he lived at 77-03 Eliot Avenue, which was located just five blocks from the scene of his murder. They also identified the victim as the owner and operator of the Bright Eyes Bar.

Sources say that Macchiarole was viewed by local law enforcement as an aspiring young hoodlum, and the son of former top Genovese Family power, Pasquale (Paddy Mac) Macchiarole, who was himself slain just one year earlier in March 1978.

Pasquale Macchiarole

The elder Macchiarole reportedly left his home for the last time on March 2. Three weeks later, his bullet-riddled corpse was recovered from inside the trunk of his new 1977 Lincoln Continental, which the killers had been abandoned in the parking lot of a local supermarket.

Sources say that Paddy Macchiarole had originally owned the bar, which at that time was named The Moon Pub. After Macchiarole’s death, his two sons, John and Anthony, were “allowed” to inherit it.

Bodies Dropping All Over

The “Paddy Mac” murder was one of at least eight Genovese Family hoods, and the most important figure among them, killed during a two-week bloody purge in March of that year.

Authorities said Paddy Mac's son, John Macchiarole, ran “a small drug-trafficking operation” and that he may have been killed over a drug dispute. They tied two young Middle Village men, Kevin Aissa, 25, and Cezar Uruslean, 20, to John Macchiarole and his drug ring.

Detectives say these two men were found beaten to death later that same Saturday, and that their bodies were left along a railroad crossing several blocks away from Macchiarole’s Middle Village bar. One detective said that “only seconds before Macchiarole was murdered in his bar, eyewitnesses say he was seen chatting with Aissa.”

They initially interviewed Aissa, who told them he couldn't identify Macchiarole's assassin. But police said they couldn’t directly tie Aissa into the murder. A homicide detective later told newspapers that Aissa and Uruslean "were part of that whole scene,” referring to Macchiarole’s drug trafficking network.

But other police sources theorized that John Macchiarole "had angered the same people we believed had ordered his father killed last year.”

His Eyes Got Too Big

Aside from the Bright Eyes Bar, which mobsters had allowed the boys to inherit, Macchiarole’s two sons then reportedly quickly incurred the wrath of Genovese Family mobsters after they also attempted to take over and operate other businesses that had once belonged to their late father. One of these was the Frigid Trucking Corp., a major frozen seafood transport company, located in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Just months earlier, in late December 1978, a Newsday investigative series had reported that John and Anthony Macchiarole had also become the new owners of a major Jersey City recycling plant that held a very lucrative contract to haul all the glass scraps from the City of Glen Cove on Long Island.

The article identified them as “the sons of the late Pasquale Macchiarole, a high-ranking member of the crime organization once headed by the late Vito Genovese.”

The expose’ went on to state that the founders of the company "had been Pasquale Macchiarole, who was murdered in March, and Frank Tieri , the boss of the Genovese group.” New Jersey police told the newspaper that another mob figure, Angelo Caruso, had worked as the recycling company’s general manager and overseer.

Over a six-year-period, that exclusive city contract held by members of the Genovese Family had only paid Glen Cove a measly $3,339 from its $5-a-ton deal worked out with the Macchiarole company. Clearly, the city had taken a financial beating.

Funzi Makes the Call

Before taking over the recycling company, federal authorities say the Macchiarole brothers had once worked for Frigid Express Co., the company owned by their father and Tieri.

And aside from various labor-racketeering schemes and other fraudulent business transactions the firm was involved in, the FBI had also previously linked Frigid Express to a multimillion-dollar, years-long seafood theft ring operating off the New York and New Jersey piers.

Funzi Tieri

Just before his execution, John Macchiarole and his brother had also recently been among a group of men charged by the Massachusetts State Police with criminal mischief for a series of sabotage attacks targeting a rival trucking firm’s equipment.

Federal authorities said that the word on the street was that Tieri was becoming concerned about what was taking place with the brothers.

A NYPD source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Newsday that, “The word on the street was that there was a murder contract put out on both brothers.”

Further investigation by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies who specialize in organized crime matters, later reported their underworld informant “sources” told them that Genovese Family boss, Frank (Funzi) Tieri, had, in fact, ordered John Macchiarole eliminated after the young man had foolishly made threatening comments and gestures against his father’s perceived killers.

Until next time..."The Other Guy!"

Mob Son Follows in Dad’s Footsteps…Right to the Graveyard!

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You May Also Enjoy

The “Happy” Hood

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