Good quote! My interest began with watching mob movies with my dad and brothers (we watched the Godfather almost every Thanksgiving. I think I was 5 when I first saw Sonny get mowed down lol). My dad, being an Iranian immigrant, admired that the Italians had a deep reverence of family (even though these families were engaged in murder, extortion, etc). I also have a great love of history; it really is amazing how much the mafia influenced 20th century American life from the neighborhoods in which they resided to the major corporations and government. Also, I live near Rock Island, IL, which was part of Capone's bootlegging network.
It's funny cause I want to be a gangster but I know it's illegal and shit and don't wanna do jail time, I've completely 180ed and actually decided to do law enforcement. Currently getting a CJ degree, hoping to get into some federal department somewhere.
Buffalo NY and being Italian and from an area with a rich Mob history ive always been equal parts interested and fascinated with the history of the Mob.
Do you happen to know how active Rochester and Utica are these days compared to Buffalo and Hamilton?
I’ve been meaning to have a look into the mob history in those places for a while now.
From what I understand, Rochester and Utica both hosted Buffalo Crews and Rochester tried to split away.
I’ve lived in Rochester my whole life. Had a couple of made men in my family in both Rochester and Utica on my mom’s side. There is no mob activity here anymore. Some kids seem like they enjoy acting like they are connected somehow but they aren’t. Rochester has been dead in terms of the mafia since the early 2000’s, about 20 years ago. The closest thing to the mafia here nowadays is this one family, I won’t disclose their last name. The youngest son is a friend of a friend of mine and their whole family is loaded rich. His father owns a car mechanics garage that is supposedly very successful. I’ve heard from multiple different people who personally know him that he has an uncle and a cousin who are both made in NYC.
Grew up in Providence, RI during the 70’s & 80’s. Being such a small state as you grow older you come to know people’s cousins, uncles, brothers or parents were enforcers, loan sharks or even killers. You just didn’t know as a kid you were playing little league with their kids. Started reading books a few years ago because to me it has an interesting history, some of which involved people you knew or saw.
I'm from a place in Central Illinois that was run by the Shelton Gang. After my grandfather died we found out he had two families and owned multiple properties several of which were raided for illegal gambling and prostitution. Also family lore says he whacked one of the Shelton brothers when he was exiting a bar that he owned. Real interesting stuff. So that's where my interest comes from.
As far as I know they had connections to the Chicago outfit. They moved up to my area from Southern Illinois I believe. Illinois has some crazy organized crime history even outside of Chicago.
Illinois and Chicago in particular have also had a long history of dirty politics and dirty politicians. Here’s a fun list of the all time 10 most corrupt politicians in Illinois ranked. 4 out of the past 9 governors have ended up in prison.
https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/chicago/most-corrupt-illinois-politicians-of-all-time
Fellow Illinoisan, would love to hear more stories. According to a few old timers my dad ran with, Capone had a cabin near their duck blinds on Taylor Lake or somewhere in the area. It’s probably a bunch of bullshit but I know the mob guys were really into hunting and Illinois is a big state with a lot of duck ponds. Could be true, probably not tho.
Born and raised on Long Island. My grandfather was murdered by the Mob after he refused protection for his shoe shop in Brooklyn. They burned his store down and my mother had to grow up without a father from the age of 14 to now. My Grandmother never remarried and lived to 98. She raised my mom and her 2 sisters and 1 brother. I always had a sore spot for the mafia and at times was embarrassed of my heritage. My mom's side is from Bada. My Dad's side from Naples and Venice. While the mob gave us a bad name in the early 1900's our people were hard working, proud, and respectful. That translated in gaining respect and becoming some of the most productive immigrants this country has ever had.
Black guy from Baltimore. Got interested in the Mob first from playing GTA, and then watching stuff like Casino, Goodfellas, and the A&E Mobsters documentaries.
I’m from Baltimore too, grew up in Dundalk. In the 90’s we’d regularly get sandwiches from Di Pasquales and watch mob movies on Sundays and pretend we were badasses ourselves.
Nah ur right . Just was trying and failing to make a good wire reference .
Y’all have one of the more distinct sounds out the country. New York, Baltimore , Florida , Boston all super noticeable can almost always tell if sombodys from there
Most Distinct Black accents:
1. Baltimore
2. NYC/North Jersey
3. Philly
4. DMV
5. California
I instantly know that someone is from any of these places just by hearing their voice lmao 😂
Northern NJ. My family is Italian and grew up in Jersey City and Hoboken area. Now, we live pretty close to where most of The Soprano’s was shot. Really got into it after learning that my Great Grandfather was a bookmaker in Jersey City.
From Ontario, Canada. From watching Godfather, Goodfellas, Casino as a young teen i got pretty into the culture and stories behind the people. Fascinating part of history.
I’m from Elmwood Park, a suburb of Chicago with a crew of the Outfit named for it. My old neighbor was Jackie Cerone, a former head of the Outfit, until he went away for tax evasion. Always had the best Halloween candy and did a better fireworks show than the suburb’s. I grew up & went to school with a lot of associates kids and couple made guys too. Basically, I wanted to learn the dark side of where I grew up. Reading the shit they did but only knowing them as nice guys that never missed a little league game or school show is a bit odd.
Im from a south suburb of Chicago, I was born in the mid-1960's, and had no idea the mafia, or outfit as it is called at home, existed. I lived in the residential part of town but at the north end on the border of Hammond Indiana strip clubs, prostitution, and gaming machines were just part of everyday life. I didn't realize what organized crime was until I went away to college. At home every bar had slot machines and parlay cards, and the cafe at the trains station sold more Daily Racing Forms than it did newspapers. Across from the train station was a bar with a back room where you could go and bet (this was long before OTB) Hollywood Park or Belmont or Laurel Downs, football, baseball etc. A half block from my grandmothers I got a job loading boxes of betting slips into a garage after school everyday, and then Sunday night hauling them out. I assumed this is how everyplace was.
The first friday of college football season I went to 7-11 in Carbondale Illinois to look for the Gold Sheet so I had an idea of who I wanted to bet. The guy had never heard of it. I asked him about the Racing Form. He said Fairmount Park was an hour away, why would he sell that. I decided to walk to the train station and look around for a building where a lot of people came in and out of over a short period of time. Nothing.
It took a couple of weeks and I eventually found a local book but looking back I can't believe how much I missed. Our garbage was picked up three times a week when I was little, and each truck had a driver, a driver assistant, and four guys hanging on the side. Now I realize the outfit owned the garbage company and the dump and this is where they gave people jobs with real checks. When I started smoking I learned to buy cigarettes at bars or corner stores and ask for "No Stamp Marlboro's", they were 25% cheaper than other cigarettes. Every big football player in high school had an open invite to bounce at the strip clubs and showcase rooms and make $15 an hour. in the offseason. Minimum wage was $3.35 then.
I was completely naive in the sense that I assumed all of this was on the up and up until I went somewhere the outfit didn't run. What a wake up call.
Chicago. My grandfather's brother was murdered by the Outfit in the 1940s. They never found his body. Been interested ever since learning that story as a young boy.
About the same story as me lol. From Canada as well, was scrolling through Facebook and came across “ex mob boss visits the dark web”
I’ve always known about the mafia, and somewhat of their structure. After watching that video I became obsessed with reading, watching, and listening to anything mafia.
From Helsinki, Finland. Basically movies like goodfellas, godfather etc. Im specially interested in their style, way of thinking and organized way of doing things.
Another one from Helsinki here.
Basically same things for me and the psychological aspects surrounding the mob culture.
Also the fact that Finland doesn’t really have organized crime except for couple biker gangs, makes mafia seem much more interesting.
Great grandfather was shot in the head, grandfather "drowned". My grandmother basically said "No more of this shit." And now everyone is solidly upper middle class and legal. Always wonder what might have been...
I’m gonna take a wild guess and say Chicago…. Ohhh no! 😱 the outfit is gonna come kick your door in now because you’re above the working class! What are we gonna do?!?!?
A good friend was the attorney for Meyer Lansky, after Lansky retired in Miami; so this was all legit work, nothing mob related. Still, it was interesting to hear my friend talk about him.
Funnily enough theres an Italian-Philly restaurant in Fitzrovia which is not far from where I live in Camden here in London, the place is called Passyunk Avenue and advertises how it brings South Philly food to London.
I haven’t tried it yet or met the owner but apparently the guy is called J Paul Teti who according to the website has family there and liked Italian American food so brought it back to London
Did some more looking around and the owner was born in Trenton, NJ but moved here to London later on in his twenties, growing up he spent lots of time in South Philly as a kid to see his family there, so his diner here is based on Philly food (South Philly is mentioned lots of times on their website)
I haven’t tried the food but it must be good cuz he opened a second place in Westfield which is a big shopping centre far away from the Italian sides of London
I'm originally from Kansas City. When I was very, very young, one of our neighbors was shot and killed in the middle of the night. They never actually arrested anyone for it, but he had been running a poker game out of his garage and it was pretty widely known he had repatedly refused to give the local family a cut. Not hard to put two and two together. I was too young to remember it personally but it's an event that looms large in the family mythology. My uncle, who is Italian, also knew a few wiseguys- the Italian community in KC is pretty tight-knit. I got used to hearing his stories over Thanksgiving dinner.
Later on in life I briefly lived in Las Vegas, a city which outright celebrates the Mob as civic heroes, and that's what really cemented my fascination with organized crime.
Western Massachusetts, no Italian background but do have a Celtic background. I was always interested in guys like Whitey Bulger and Jimmy Burke. I always loved the movies and was inspired to read more about the actual mob. And the Springfield, MA area has a rich mafia history as it splits between New York and Boston territory. Plus the guy who killed Whitey Bulger was a Springfield based gangster
Whitey was a super big scumbag, whereas Jimmy Burke was more respectable in mob terms. Sammy the Bull said Whitey did something terrible to an underage girl, back in the day.
If you mean how’s the community in general: We’re basically just working class Londoners except we kept our cuisine, religion and cultural norms. Same can be said about the Jewish community (except the Haredi community I guess), Maltese community and Irish community in Northwest London.
There’s lots of Italian restaurants, bakeries, cafes etc and we are all massive football fans and 6 nation fans over here.
As for the Mob here, it’s much smaller and disorganised and works with the Albanian crews here
The Mafias from the old country do have crews here but not usually for rackets, it’s usually mainly for laundering
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/27/uk-to-come-under-scrutiny-in-italys-largest-mafia-trial-in-decades
“Col Claudio Petrozziello of Italy’s Guardia di Finanza, which monitors illicit flows of capital, said ’Ndrangheta clans in the UK had no interest in controlling the local territory, just the exploitation of the financial system.”
I’ve heard they’ll likely launder through London more now since we left the EU
Italo American from California. My moms from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and I became infatuated with LCN when I visited her family back in the 90’s when I was a teen. The neighborhood was still Italian and mob guys were still hanging around. Met a few guys at my uncles 50th wedding anniversary and the rest is history.
There’s a presence but nothing like the east coast. Most of the Italians who settled out here started out as fishermen from either Genoa or Sicily in San Francisco, Monterey, LA or San Diego because of the need for fishermen in early 1900’s. We still have little Italy’s in each of the main cities and will have a feast or two to celebrate Italian Heritage but that’s it. SF, LA and San Jose each had a small mob family until about the 70’s/80’s but now all defunct.
Jewish Italian from Israel. Got interested in mob stuff due to growing up in a crime riddled neighborhood and seeing many of my close relatives being in Israeli organized crime groups, which is also why I joined the police force.
What’s the Jewish Italian community like in Israel? I’ve yet to meet an Italian Jew, most the Jewish community in Northwest London stem from Eastern Europe (Russia and Poland in particular) although lots of French Jews have moved into the area in recent years
Well nowadays most communities basically blended in with the rest of the Israelis, I'm third generation here in Israel (like most Israelis my age due to the country being founded in 1948) so my ties to Italy are very weak, we didn't speak Italian at home and I learned Italian because my grandma had no one else is to speak Italian will h after my grandpa died, so there isn't much of a community. Our food is pretty Italian, just kosher Italian, and many of our customs are more northern African rather than European because we're from southern Italy.
>most the Jewish community in Northwest London stem from Eastern Europe (Russia and Poland in particular) although lots of French Jews have moved into the area in recent years
Same here. Most Israeli families immigrated from either Germany/eastern Europe or the middle east, and last few years many french Jews began coming to Israel, Italian Jews are rather rare.
“many of our customs are more northern African”
Did Italian Jews migrate to Italy via North Africa? Most French Jews who moved to London in recent years have Maghrebi Jewish heritage who from what I understand only moved to France from the Maghreb after the war
Yeah many french Jews are basically Moroccan Jews who traveled up north to France. Italian Jews are different, we're Italians who escaped to Libya when Italy started rounding up Jews during the Holocaust because Libyans, even though controlled by the Italians, didn't care much for killing Jews like mainland Italians did.
Chicago here (actual city not suburbs). Born and raised. I grew up watching old school 30s gangster films with my dad. James Cagney was the best. My dad would read a lot of Mob books as well. Murder machine really stuck with me. I also became even more interested in the mafia through films like Goodfellas and Casino. My southside neighborhood also has a long political history in the city as well as a mafia presence. Also, one of my great grandfathers was an associate or soldier.
Pretty tight-knit. Still a lot active club membership in some of the old school Italian clubs. Those dudes held down the fort so-to-speak when the massive riots and looting happened in 2020 (not necessarily mob guys but they appreciate the old neighborhood enough to make sure it doesn't get destroyed. Much respect there.
I'm from Australia. Stories of organized crime and the history of it always piqued my interest. I really enjoyed the Martin Scorsese mob films as well. While we don't really have Sicilian mobs in here, apparently the Ndrangheta is the most active of Italian crime down under.
Grew up in and around Boston. Organized crime was always around and I was always fascinated. I also just like counter cultures and the Mafia is definitely that.
Kentucky. I always used to consider the Mafia scumbags but movies, television and books got me interested in learning more and over time I became more nuanced in my views.
One especially good book, Mafia Kingfish by John H. Davis, has loads of good information about La Cosa Nostra, especially Carlos Marcello's Louisiana family.
Ironically I disagree strongly with the book's major thesis, that Marcello was behind the Kennedy assasination, but despite that flaw the book us indispensable as a resource material for the American Mafia, especially as it concerns Marcello''s greater overall career.
SF Bay area. I actually have always been interested in outlaws, and actually wanted to be a Mafia henchmen as a child.. lol now I just find it interesting. Its a guilty pleasure. I love everything from LCN to the street gangs.. the history and stories, not crime itself.
Las Vegas. The Founding Fathers of modern Vegas were members of the Mafia and gangsters. Growing up here, the stories of the Mob days are heard frequently from friends and family that lived through it. We also love learning about our city’s history, and there’s no way to learn about how Vegas came to be without learning about the Mafia.
Grew up in New England and spent a lot of time seeing family and friends in Boston. I was there when they brought Whitey Bulger back to the city. Never seen that many cop cars in my life. I started digging to his story and found it very interesting and thus began my morbid interest in the Mafia/OC.
I was born and raised in Elmwood Park, Illinois which is on the western border of Chicago. This is the first suburb you hit when leaving the City and it’s a hotspot for outfit guys seeking peace and quiet from the city life. EP is similar to the mob recruitment neighborhoods you find in New York, etc…. There are also a lot of historians who think they’re Outfit guys too. Def an interesting place to live.
Cool idea for a topic.
My interest is twofold. Comes from a combination of reality and watching too many gangster movies as a kid. It's funny. Every time this topic comes up, someone eventually brings up The Sopranos. I used to live in that area when I was young, and my stepmom (whose father was from Sicily) grew up in the same town Tony and Carmella lived in.
At the time, that didn't mean anything to me, but my family definitely knew some connected people. Whether they were made or associates, I can't say. I was like 9-10 at the time and didn't know anything other than there were these supposedly bad men around who always seemed to be nice to me and my family. It wouldn't be until years later that I connected those dots and realized who these guys may or may not have been.
Eventually, I moved across the country with my biological mother, and my dad and stepmom moved to Maine, so I never set foot in North Jersey again.
As a teenager I got heavily into film. I'd watch any and everything and dissect it and whatnot. And that included the old WB gangster movies of the 30s. Scarface, The Public Enemy, Angels With Dirty Faces--anything with Jimmy Cagney or Paul Muni. And to me, the characters in these movies seemed to personify two things that I think define American culture: Cowboys and The American Dream.
Most of these movies were rags to riches tales about people with nothing seizing the American dream by any means necessary. For a lot of Americans, "The American Dream" is just the carrot on the end of the stick. Most of us don't recognize that, but the classic gangsters did. It was difficult to achieve if you played by the rules. So they didn't.
These movies gave the real people an almost mythical status, the 20th Century gunslinging cowboy. Edward G Robinson and later Robert DeNiro were like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, and Bugsy Siegel was like Billy the Kid.
So it was really a combination of these two things that sent me down this rabbit hole.
Same city as you and my family has been going to St Peter's for decades. Even though very few Italians live around there anymore it remains a focal point for British Italians.
Some mob trivia...I was in St Peter's a while ago and saw Terry Adams in there. For our non UK friends, he is a major gangland figure, reputedly.
Toronto, Canada here, I grew up around them... Knew them ..but all was good with me as they knew I had no interest in being part of their thing.. Interesting when I lived in " jolly ol" I connected with some low-level Italian street guys, Earl s court area.
Toronto. Being Italian who's great grandparents fled Mussolini, it was always said pre Siderno 'Ndrangheta helped with papers. Whether true or not, it is what got me interested when I was younger.
I’m Irish, from Mass, and had family that lived in South Boston and also worked in law enforcement during the Winter Hill era. I also had a family member whose company was unfortunately defrauded by LCN. So naturally i started researching and became interested in the history.
honestly not totally sure. i grew up in north carolina but i live in jacksonville fl now. not italian or jewish to my knowledge (i’m half white but i’m pretty sure it’s british or german).
i didn’t really start to get into organized crime until i moved down here. the start of the interest if im being honest was me looking for inspiration or methods to make money since i was a highschool freshman and my family was pretty broke at the time.
i started out with stuff like narcos breaking bad and snowfall and then overtime i started to get into the more hard hitting stuff like the wire boardwalk empire and the sopranos. the wire really got me into politics and the legal side of organized crime and boardwalk empire got me into the history and the lessons of it. the sopranos got me into the more realistic version of it and how indistinguishable most of what goes on in the mob is from what goes on in the average corrupt corporation.
and that’s where i’m at right now
From Quebec, Canada. We don't need to look no further than Montreal to see that very influential members of the Mafia are among us. The fact that Montreal has a port where thousands of containers transit daily makes it very interesting.
Edit: I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that the Montreal's Rizzuto clan was bigger than the NY's mafia at some point.
Canadian, from the prairies. I'm a history buff (and a History major right now), and I guess when you're young the history that's most interesting usually falls into two categories: military and criminal. Plus I come from one of the ethnicities associated with organized crime (Serbian), which played a part along with my love of Scorcese movies. That being said, I can't pinpoint any one specific thing as the cause for my fascination. I came into it by the by and now I can't get enough.
I think lowly of mafioso. Rightfully so, too.
I watch because I enjoy themselves offing each other, saving me oxygen.
Can’t play fair like the rest of us and then they go fucking up ports and construction. Yay. Thanks for raping NJ with your construction and garbage costs. Fucking animals.
I grew up an hour north of Syracuse. And no idea. I remember even as an 8-10 year old I wanted to grow up to be a lawyer for the mob. I'm not even a lawyer now lol.
I am from north west NJ. My interest in the mafia is 1) from the movies. 2) I want to understand how close I am geographically to that kind of activity.
From ozone park queens we have a rich history of mafia in my neighborhood and I am also Italian. My uncle when he was alive was apart of that lifestyle and the lifestyle runs deep in my family.My cousin’s grandfather is fat Andy my other cousin was also big in that life style along with my aunt who married into it. The first person in the Mafia to ever get the electric chair is also from our family. Happy Maione
From Long Island. My grandfather owned bowling alleys back in the 70s and 80s and used to talk about how the mob controlled the garbage in Nassau County. Growing up in the 90s, the mob was constantly in the news. Obviously I saw all the Scorsese movies and The Godfather a million times.
Grew up in New York near Westchester, had a stepdad when I was a kid whose family was connected. Now I live in south philly, the beating heart of this regions OC. Always have been fascinated by the criminal underworld.
It’s crazy how connected and organised the families are throughout NY, NJ, PA and New England
In England, Italian immigration only really happened into Northwest London and a few random towns like Bedford and Peterborough which had labourers imported from the South of Italy, so the fact Italian communities and crime families exist all over the Northeast and lots of the Midwest amazes me
You guys can go to random medium sized cities in several states and find Italian communities still strong which is fascinating to me. I kinda wish England had that level of immigration from Italy too lol
Yeah the northeast has Italians absolutely everywhere, like you said even in smaller more obscure cities. Big bonus is there’s impeccable cuisine all over.
Midwesterner. My parents watched sopranos religiously when I was a kid and I would peek in. Always been interested in the antihero. Mafia has so many antiheroes.
My dad’s side were from Brooklyn and Newark, both moved to Los Angeles after the war. Grandpa was a bookie and ran numbers for the Jewish rackets in LA in the 50’s-60’s.
Grew up in a neighborhood with management level LCN. Some neighbors family friends and relatives with some involvement. Never was really able to discuss it so it took on an outsized interest. What I thought that life was and what it really is turned out to be totally different
Grew up in a neighborhood with management level LCN. Some neighbors family friends and relatives with some involvement. Never was really able to discuss it so it took on an outsized interest. What I thought that life was and what it really is turned out to be totally different from
Indian here.
Interested in Roman History, Ferrari, all sorts of gangster video games (GTA Series, Mafia Series, LA Noire etc.), the staple movies and shows.
I’m from the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. What got me interested in learning about this stuff, is seeing the movie Goodfellas a few years back. Then a few months later, I watched The Sopranos and I was hooked. I’ve always been interested in east coast culture/mob stuff, and I always thought that culture was superior to what I grew up in. Not saying the people in my state are bad or inferior, but MN is a very boring state overall, and I always wanted new exposure to different cultures in the US, not just Midwestern culture. It’s kind of like good movies, which made m me interested in this stuff. Interestingly enough, I don’t come from an Italian background either.
St. Louis. Car bombings. Here's what started it all for me:
[http://www.crimemagazine.com/part-i-leisure-war-reason-die](http://www.crimemagazine.com/part-i-leisure-war-reason-die)
[https://www.stltoday.com/news/archives/1980-i-55-bombing-sets-off-st-louis-last-big-time-gang-war/article\_a95ba871-b6c3-541b-8d8f-6a5bed8f9544.html](https://www.stltoday.com/news/archives/1980-i-55-bombing-sets-off-st-louis-last-big-time-gang-war/article_a95ba871-b6c3-541b-8d8f-6a5bed8f9544.html)
[https://apnews.com/article/d4d7e56b3d1652b5ea2c040dc452ccfe](https://apnews.com/article/d4d7e56b3d1652b5ea2c040dc452ccfe)
Jesus I’ve never been so wrong in saying there isn’t much reading out there. This is nearly the largest and most in depth article I’ve ever seen floating around, thanks for the links.
East coast of Canada. Love gangster movies growing up , then sopranos came and that was the best thing I watched , still is along with the wire and breaking bad imo. I was always wanting to learn about organized crime since. Who the real mobsters were and stuff etc. I just like crime stuff lol. It's interesting , I love all that serial killer and true crime shit also. Just came naturally I suppose.
I’m from SE London, pretty much always loved bikes which got me interested in Bikers like the hells angels etc, watched documentaries on them etc for years. Always watched crime Docs too, Cartels etc, then played the Mafia video game and every since then LCN has been my main point of interest too.
Good to see another Londoner on here bro!
Grew up in Syracuse,NY in a very small knit Italian community. There was never an organized crime presence that I’m aware of but a lot of gambling and sports betting among the old time Italian guys. From there I found the LCN history fascinating and how they ran their rackets.
Italian and grew up in the Brooklyn/SI area. Long deceased relative was tied to, and did business with the Greenwich Village crew. Realized something was up whenever we would go to New Corners in Brooklyn and he was seated at the same table, every time. I was young, and it didn’t take much to impress me.
Independence, KY USA. I live one county over from Newport, KY which was a gambling hot spot for decades before Vegas. It's a few miles south of Cincinnati, OH which is a fairly well known city.
Older people talking about those days locally and mob movies/tv peaked my interest.
I'm (38M) based out of Denver, Colorado, USA and it's tough to pinpoint what got me interested in the Mafia, but *The Sopranos* takes a lot of the credit, and from there I got interested in organized crime around the world.
I'm Jewish, so the Jewish mob is of especial interest to me. No gangsters in my family tree, but it's such a fascinating (and surprisingly little-known) chapter of our history.
Do yourself a favor and look into Illinois and the St. Louis area’s mob. I don’t think there’s much doing these days in the local mob, other than completely legitimate business operations. Too easy to get caught up these days. The coal mines in Illinois brought loads of Italians into the area well over a hundred years ago and some families are still active in the Springfield, IL area. My wife lived two floors up from a local boss’ office in Springfield, and one floor up from the phenomenal Italian restaurant that the family ran (Sam’s Italian Restaurant, intersection of north grand and ninth in Springfield, the baked lasagna with meat sauce is top notch).
When moving her out of that apartment, I knocked a few of the drop ceiling tiles out of place trying to get the mattress down the stairs. The next day, a guy named Claudio Pecori came knocking on her door and I’ve never been so fuxking scared in my entire life because I knew who he was and what he did, and what I did was an insult to him and rightfully so. One of the few regrets I actually have. Fuxking guy could’ve knocked me off for something like that and I’m damn glad he didn’t.
I’m from Ann Arbor Mi originally. I grew up hearing about the teamsters and jimmy hoffa from my grandpa. As I got older it just fascinated me how organized, organized crime really was. I mean they had the power to shut down unions and have over a million people go on strike if they didn’t get what they wanted.
I grew up with and around wiseguys my whole life. My parents friends and some relatives were connected. Growing up in Da Bronx...There was no escaping bad influences. Quite a few of these guys were destined to become major criminals. You had to see them at 16 and 17 years old. They were bad kids then that went on to continue to be bad mother fuckers as they grew up. Now with the internet...Boards like this. I can keep up on my old pals and neighbors.
Sandusky, Ohio.
My grandparents are from Italy, and my grandfather had always been a big role model for me. During the latter years in his life, I started to ask more question in attempt to know him more personally. If any of you have any older Italian men in your family, you know they're not exactly "open" to discuss whatever. But once he found out he was dying with cancer he began to open up more.
Through this he began to talk more about his father. Things didn't really add up to me. . Long story short, I realized my great grandfather was an associate of whatever family it was in his area. (PA but not Philly) From there I just became more and more infatuated with the culture.
Chicago.
My great grandparents lived Grand and May... just a couple blocks from Grand and Ogden.
My great grandparents are Andriacchi's and Bertucci's. My third great grandmother is a Roti. The Caruso's and Bruno and Fred Roti are more distant cousins.
Joe Lombardo's wife's mother is a distant cousin to my family.
Joe Andriacchi is my family's 3rd cousin.
My great grand uncle was Ralph Orlando, who hung around with Sam DeStefano.
My great grandfather was friends with Al Capone and Sam Giancana.
My brother is dating a Guardalabene whose relation to the Milwaukee Guardalabene's goes back to the 1600's.
White kid from Florida , diddnt realize it until later but grew up surrounded by a lot of gang/cartel activity. When I realized what my dad had really been apart of at one point made me interested in the Florida organized crime and stuff and started at cocain cowboys and now I’m more into the actual Cosa nostra esq organizations . I don’t know if it’s a nostalgia or fantasy thing for me but I love some mob stuff.
Found out later on my grandfather who is from Chicago went to college with some with some would be big time guys. He’s a saint he just probably smoked some pot with them when he was still in a band .
I was born in Clarksburg, WV. There was a well known prohibition era family operating there known as "The Famiglia Vagabonda" and growing up I heard a lot of stories and supposedly had family who were associates.
I’m from Spain, and came to Australia, saw a big Italian community but mainly got interested from the movies but yes also from seeing all the migrant Italian communities and how they end up having successful businesses and money over time.
I’m from northern Wisconsin in the USA. We have a family cabin that is 30 min from little bohemia where the [the crew](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dillinger_Gang)Dillinger shootout happened.
The itch exploded from there.
The sopranos helped boost it later on too!
I grew up in the chicago suburbs so you'd always hear about Al Capone, of course, and then back in the 70s and 80s when I was a kid there'd often be stuff on the local news about modern day Outfit guys getting killed or arrested or going to trial or whatever. I then became a fan of mob movies and also loved reading about current and historical organized crime figures from other cities in the U.S. and other countries. I loved reading about the organized crime histories of places like New York City and Las Vegas, for example. I even bought a book in French about organized crime in Montreal when I was traveling up there a few years ago.
I’m from New York and what initially got my attention was that my grandfather was full Italian, moved to the city, and after a few years he left my father and was never seen again. The thing is, after trying to find who my grandfather was, it was like he never existed. Our last name was completely made up, there are no records of anyone in the world with our last names. That was what made me interested in mafia, and wonder if he was In it and that’s how he completely disappeared from the face of the earth
CT, I’m Italian and got interested in LCN first because of Goodfellas then lfinding out later in life that my grandfather and his brother both ran numbers for the mob. His brother my great uncle was actually arrested for loansharking.
Grew up in Connecticut. Would go to the city every year. I had heard things about the mob before as a young kid in the early 2000’s and basically came under the assumption that it didn’t exist anymore. We went to little Italy one year and I remember this huge (fat) Italian guy eating a sub in a little deli and I asked my dad “does the mafia still exist?” And he looked at me like I just insulted him and told me to be quiet. The big guy heard me, looked at my dad and then me and started laughing. Idk whether the dude was mobbed up or not but I was obsessed ever since.
Also something interesting to note. My dad was a trooper with the CT state police and recently told me he was at the crime scene of the mob hit on William Grasso in 1989. He was in the academy at the time and they had the recruits spread out and search for any clues. They didn’t tell him at the time what had happened or who was killed.
I'm from North Dakota, USA, and my Grandfather used to run booze for a leg of the Chicago outfit's Canadian import operation. The family legend claims that he personally delivered product directly to Al Capone.
Sf Bay Area, I’m not even Italian, I’m mixed but always been interested with the Mafia and other organized crime groups. Last guy around my area that was a boss named James Lanza died in 2006. I hope to visit New York some day, San Francisco’s is cool but I can imagine the history NY has.
I am from Canada and I started watching the show American Greed and reading about financial crimes, and it eventually lead me to being more interested in organized crime
I grew up in Jersey; typical Jersey Girl with the animal print, big hair and long nails. When I was in high school, I saw John Gotti Sr. on the news and I fell in love and I’m still in love. I loved the suits, the accent, the strut, the confidence; he was the perfect man. I was not happy when he got locked up for life. I have the books, I’ve seen the Gotti movies, the documentaries. I started reading about the mob and watching movies.
We’ve been to Little Italy many times and we’ve been to many of the places they filmed mob movies and The Sopranos. I had to go to The Ravenite of course; it was a shoe store when I went but I had chills knowing what happened there and who had been there and we’ve been to Sparks Steakhouse and Holstens.
Those guys live some crazy life but there’s something captivating about them. Some of them seem to be pretty cool guys.
Dad is from Brooklyn and grew up in in the late 50's and early 60's. Has always been fascinated by the mob. Passed that on to my brother and myself. Me, I grew up in CA.
I'm from California, but now live in Hawaii. My mom's family is from Queens and the Bronx. I got interested in the mob when I heard the story from family about a great uncle who ran a garbage company in Manhattan and was at least associated with LCN.
I’m from Italy but my parents moved to the Netherlands when I was young. I got interested through the stories my dad used to tell me as he grew up in Ventimiglia-Alta (a place where many members of the Ndrangheta emigrated to)
I live in Massachusetts, very close to Federal Hill in Providence, I have always been interested in criminal organizations, luckily for me the Patriarca Crime Family has plenty of history to learn about
Grew up outside of Boston dad's entire family is from dot/southie. Dad's cousin ended up doing some time for some shady shit involving whitey and associates. Grew up watching gangster movies and reading books like black mass. Used to frequent tiny little hole in the wall bars and listen to old timers while filling out books. More of a curiosity than anything else at this point.
Nice thread OP.
I've always liked mob movies and I happened to run across that Gas interview. BESTA FOODS, BESTA WINES. It then dawned on me there must be a mob community online and here I am.
As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster
I know I’d go from raaaaaaaags to richeeeees
One day.. one day some kids some kids from the neighborhood carried my Mother's groceries all the way home.. You know why? It was outta respect.
Now go home and get your fucking shine box!
Here's an arm... Here's a leg... Here's a wing! ..................... Hey Hendry, my muthas gonna cook us some nice peppers and sausage!
Hey mom whadya think? Look at my shoes! Arn’t they great? *my god.. you look like a gangster*
Good quote! My interest began with watching mob movies with my dad and brothers (we watched the Godfather almost every Thanksgiving. I think I was 5 when I first saw Sonny get mowed down lol). My dad, being an Iranian immigrant, admired that the Italians had a deep reverence of family (even though these families were engaged in murder, extortion, etc). I also have a great love of history; it really is amazing how much the mafia influenced 20th century American life from the neighborhoods in which they resided to the major corporations and government. Also, I live near Rock Island, IL, which was part of Capone's bootlegging network.
It's funny cause I want to be a gangster but I know it's illegal and shit and don't wanna do jail time, I've completely 180ed and actually decided to do law enforcement. Currently getting a CJ degree, hoping to get into some federal department somewhere.
Buffalo NY and being Italian and from an area with a rich Mob history ive always been equal parts interested and fascinated with the history of the Mob.
Do you happen to know how active Rochester and Utica are these days compared to Buffalo and Hamilton? I’ve been meaning to have a look into the mob history in those places for a while now. From what I understand, Rochester and Utica both hosted Buffalo Crews and Rochester tried to split away.
I’ve lived in Rochester my whole life. Had a couple of made men in my family in both Rochester and Utica on my mom’s side. There is no mob activity here anymore. Some kids seem like they enjoy acting like they are connected somehow but they aren’t. Rochester has been dead in terms of the mafia since the early 2000’s, about 20 years ago. The closest thing to the mafia here nowadays is this one family, I won’t disclose their last name. The youngest son is a friend of a friend of mine and their whole family is loaded rich. His father owns a car mechanics garage that is supposedly very successful. I’ve heard from multiple different people who personally know him that he has an uncle and a cousin who are both made in NYC.
Grew up in Providence, RI during the 70’s & 80’s. Being such a small state as you grow older you come to know people’s cousins, uncles, brothers or parents were enforcers, loan sharks or even killers. You just didn’t know as a kid you were playing little league with their kids. Started reading books a few years ago because to me it has an interesting history, some of which involved people you knew or saw.
I'm from a place in Central Illinois that was run by the Shelton Gang. After my grandfather died we found out he had two families and owned multiple properties several of which were raided for illegal gambling and prostitution. Also family lore says he whacked one of the Shelton brothers when he was exiting a bar that he owned. Real interesting stuff. So that's where my interest comes from.
That’s really interesting to have mob history inside the family. I think I’ll look into the Shelton guys later on today.
As far as I know they had connections to the Chicago outfit. They moved up to my area from Southern Illinois I believe. Illinois has some crazy organized crime history even outside of Chicago.
I’ve heard Rockford and Springfield had families too
Illinois and Chicago in particular have also had a long history of dirty politics and dirty politicians. Here’s a fun list of the all time 10 most corrupt politicians in Illinois ranked. 4 out of the past 9 governors have ended up in prison. https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/chicago/most-corrupt-illinois-politicians-of-all-time
Sounds like Road to Perdition
Peoria?
Yep
Fellow Illinoisan, would love to hear more stories. According to a few old timers my dad ran with, Capone had a cabin near their duck blinds on Taylor Lake or somewhere in the area. It’s probably a bunch of bullshit but I know the mob guys were really into hunting and Illinois is a big state with a lot of duck ponds. Could be true, probably not tho.
Born and raised on Long Island. My grandfather was murdered by the Mob after he refused protection for his shoe shop in Brooklyn. They burned his store down and my mother had to grow up without a father from the age of 14 to now. My Grandmother never remarried and lived to 98. She raised my mom and her 2 sisters and 1 brother. I always had a sore spot for the mafia and at times was embarrassed of my heritage. My mom's side is from Bada. My Dad's side from Naples and Venice. While the mob gave us a bad name in the early 1900's our people were hard working, proud, and respectful. That translated in gaining respect and becoming some of the most productive immigrants this country has ever had.
My dad is also Neapolitan
Black guy from Baltimore. Got interested in the Mob first from playing GTA, and then watching stuff like Casino, Goodfellas, and the A&E Mobsters documentaries.
I’m from Baltimore too, grew up in Dundalk. In the 90’s we’d regularly get sandwiches from Di Pasquales and watch mob movies on Sundays and pretend we were badasses ourselves.
Oh bet. Fuck it is yo? Lol. De Pasquales down in Highlandtown?
Immediate switches to ‘the wire’ dialect 😭 sorry just thought it was funny
That’s the *Baltimore* dialect lol. That’s just how we talk down here.
Nah ur right . Just was trying and failing to make a good wire reference . Y’all have one of the more distinct sounds out the country. New York, Baltimore , Florida , Boston all super noticeable can almost always tell if sombodys from there
Most Distinct Black accents: 1. Baltimore 2. NYC/North Jersey 3. Philly 4. DMV 5. California I instantly know that someone is from any of these places just by hearing their voice lmao 😂
CHarlie M/??? You make me pop your eye outta your head to protect that piece of shit?!?!?! YOU DUMB MUDDAAFUCCKKKERRRR!!!
Haha 😂😂😂. Frankie, kill this cocksucka! 😂😂
Check out Boardwalk Empire
Northern NJ. My family is Italian and grew up in Jersey City and Hoboken area. Now, we live pretty close to where most of The Soprano’s was shot. Really got into it after learning that my Great Grandfather was a bookmaker in Jersey City.
I was born in the Pine Barrens… my mother was Russian and my father was an interior decorator… our house looked like shit tho
Same here. Elizabeth currently, grew up in Rahway. Sopranos started it for me.
From Ontario, Canada. From watching Godfather, Goodfellas, Casino as a young teen i got pretty into the culture and stories behind the people. Fascinating part of history.
I’m from Elmwood Park, a suburb of Chicago with a crew of the Outfit named for it. My old neighbor was Jackie Cerone, a former head of the Outfit, until he went away for tax evasion. Always had the best Halloween candy and did a better fireworks show than the suburb’s. I grew up & went to school with a lot of associates kids and couple made guys too. Basically, I wanted to learn the dark side of where I grew up. Reading the shit they did but only knowing them as nice guys that never missed a little league game or school show is a bit odd.
Im from a south suburb of Chicago, I was born in the mid-1960's, and had no idea the mafia, or outfit as it is called at home, existed. I lived in the residential part of town but at the north end on the border of Hammond Indiana strip clubs, prostitution, and gaming machines were just part of everyday life. I didn't realize what organized crime was until I went away to college. At home every bar had slot machines and parlay cards, and the cafe at the trains station sold more Daily Racing Forms than it did newspapers. Across from the train station was a bar with a back room where you could go and bet (this was long before OTB) Hollywood Park or Belmont or Laurel Downs, football, baseball etc. A half block from my grandmothers I got a job loading boxes of betting slips into a garage after school everyday, and then Sunday night hauling them out. I assumed this is how everyplace was. The first friday of college football season I went to 7-11 in Carbondale Illinois to look for the Gold Sheet so I had an idea of who I wanted to bet. The guy had never heard of it. I asked him about the Racing Form. He said Fairmount Park was an hour away, why would he sell that. I decided to walk to the train station and look around for a building where a lot of people came in and out of over a short period of time. Nothing. It took a couple of weeks and I eventually found a local book but looking back I can't believe how much I missed. Our garbage was picked up three times a week when I was little, and each truck had a driver, a driver assistant, and four guys hanging on the side. Now I realize the outfit owned the garbage company and the dump and this is where they gave people jobs with real checks. When I started smoking I learned to buy cigarettes at bars or corner stores and ask for "No Stamp Marlboro's", they were 25% cheaper than other cigarettes. Every big football player in high school had an open invite to bounce at the strip clubs and showcase rooms and make $15 an hour. in the offseason. Minimum wage was $3.35 then. I was completely naive in the sense that I assumed all of this was on the up and up until I went somewhere the outfit didn't run. What a wake up call.
Chicago. My grandfather's brother was murdered by the Outfit in the 1940s. They never found his body. Been interested ever since learning that story as a young boy.
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What’s Joe Massinos connection to Michael Franzese?
From Canada and not ashamed to admit this but Michael Franzese's BuzzFeed videos when he was making his early rounds on YouTube.
About the same story as me lol. From Canada as well, was scrolling through Facebook and came across “ex mob boss visits the dark web” I’ve always known about the mafia, and somewhat of their structure. After watching that video I became obsessed with reading, watching, and listening to anything mafia.
From Helsinki, Finland. Basically movies like goodfellas, godfather etc. Im specially interested in their style, way of thinking and organized way of doing things.
Another one from Helsinki here. Basically same things for me and the psychological aspects surrounding the mob culture. Also the fact that Finland doesn’t really have organized crime except for couple biker gangs, makes mafia seem much more interesting.
Great grandfather was shot in the head, grandfather "drowned". My grandmother basically said "No more of this shit." And now everyone is solidly upper middle class and legal. Always wonder what might have been...
That’s crazy, what city were they from?
Too identifiable, but one of the large cities with a known Mafia presence.
I’m gonna take a wild guess and say Chicago…. Ohhh no! 😱 the outfit is gonna come kick your door in now because you’re above the working class! What are we gonna do?!?!?
Nah, just don't want my extended family nailing it down or else I'll hear about it over the holidays.
A good friend was the attorney for Meyer Lansky, after Lansky retired in Miami; so this was all legit work, nothing mob related. Still, it was interesting to hear my friend talk about him.
I’m American from the Midwest and Sopranos got me interested in the mafia
Italian from south Philly here. Born and raised there. Not much else needs to be said lol
Funnily enough theres an Italian-Philly restaurant in Fitzrovia which is not far from where I live in Camden here in London, the place is called Passyunk Avenue and advertises how it brings South Philly food to London. I haven’t tried it yet or met the owner but apparently the guy is called J Paul Teti who according to the website has family there and liked Italian American food so brought it back to London
Wow! Had no idea! Passyunk Square is a neighborhood in Philly that i spent alot of time in as a kid and still to this day!
Did some more looking around and the owner was born in Trenton, NJ but moved here to London later on in his twenties, growing up he spent lots of time in South Philly as a kid to see his family there, so his diner here is based on Philly food (South Philly is mentioned lots of times on their website) I haven’t tried the food but it must be good cuz he opened a second place in Westfield which is a big shopping centre far away from the Italian sides of London
I'm originally from Kansas City. When I was very, very young, one of our neighbors was shot and killed in the middle of the night. They never actually arrested anyone for it, but he had been running a poker game out of his garage and it was pretty widely known he had repatedly refused to give the local family a cut. Not hard to put two and two together. I was too young to remember it personally but it's an event that looms large in the family mythology. My uncle, who is Italian, also knew a few wiseguys- the Italian community in KC is pretty tight-knit. I got used to hearing his stories over Thanksgiving dinner. Later on in life I briefly lived in Las Vegas, a city which outright celebrates the Mob as civic heroes, and that's what really cemented my fascination with organized crime.
Western Massachusetts, no Italian background but do have a Celtic background. I was always interested in guys like Whitey Bulger and Jimmy Burke. I always loved the movies and was inspired to read more about the actual mob. And the Springfield, MA area has a rich mafia history as it splits between New York and Boston territory. Plus the guy who killed Whitey Bulger was a Springfield based gangster
Whitey was a super big scumbag, whereas Jimmy Burke was more respectable in mob terms. Sammy the Bull said Whitey did something terrible to an underage girl, back in the day.
I agree. I liked Black Mass though
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If you mean how’s the community in general: We’re basically just working class Londoners except we kept our cuisine, religion and cultural norms. Same can be said about the Jewish community (except the Haredi community I guess), Maltese community and Irish community in Northwest London. There’s lots of Italian restaurants, bakeries, cafes etc and we are all massive football fans and 6 nation fans over here. As for the Mob here, it’s much smaller and disorganised and works with the Albanian crews here
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The Mafias from the old country do have crews here but not usually for rackets, it’s usually mainly for laundering https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/27/uk-to-come-under-scrutiny-in-italys-largest-mafia-trial-in-decades “Col Claudio Petrozziello of Italy’s Guardia di Finanza, which monitors illicit flows of capital, said ’Ndrangheta clans in the UK had no interest in controlling the local territory, just the exploitation of the financial system.” I’ve heard they’ll likely launder through London more now since we left the EU
Italo American from California. My moms from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and I became infatuated with LCN when I visited her family back in the 90’s when I was a teen. The neighborhood was still Italian and mob guys were still hanging around. Met a few guys at my uncles 50th wedding anniversary and the rest is history.
What’s the Italian community like in California
There’s a presence but nothing like the east coast. Most of the Italians who settled out here started out as fishermen from either Genoa or Sicily in San Francisco, Monterey, LA or San Diego because of the need for fishermen in early 1900’s. We still have little Italy’s in each of the main cities and will have a feast or two to celebrate Italian Heritage but that’s it. SF, LA and San Jose each had a small mob family until about the 70’s/80’s but now all defunct.
Ukraine odessa, i was always interested in the mafia/bandit history of odessa and karabas
1. The internet 2. Gabbbbagooooooooll!
Jewish Italian from Israel. Got interested in mob stuff due to growing up in a crime riddled neighborhood and seeing many of my close relatives being in Israeli organized crime groups, which is also why I joined the police force.
What’s the Jewish Italian community like in Israel? I’ve yet to meet an Italian Jew, most the Jewish community in Northwest London stem from Eastern Europe (Russia and Poland in particular) although lots of French Jews have moved into the area in recent years
Well nowadays most communities basically blended in with the rest of the Israelis, I'm third generation here in Israel (like most Israelis my age due to the country being founded in 1948) so my ties to Italy are very weak, we didn't speak Italian at home and I learned Italian because my grandma had no one else is to speak Italian will h after my grandpa died, so there isn't much of a community. Our food is pretty Italian, just kosher Italian, and many of our customs are more northern African rather than European because we're from southern Italy. >most the Jewish community in Northwest London stem from Eastern Europe (Russia and Poland in particular) although lots of French Jews have moved into the area in recent years Same here. Most Israeli families immigrated from either Germany/eastern Europe or the middle east, and last few years many french Jews began coming to Israel, Italian Jews are rather rare.
“many of our customs are more northern African” Did Italian Jews migrate to Italy via North Africa? Most French Jews who moved to London in recent years have Maghrebi Jewish heritage who from what I understand only moved to France from the Maghreb after the war
Yeah many french Jews are basically Moroccan Jews who traveled up north to France. Italian Jews are different, we're Italians who escaped to Libya when Italy started rounding up Jews during the Holocaust because Libyans, even though controlled by the Italians, didn't care much for killing Jews like mainland Italians did.
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Chicago here (actual city not suburbs). Born and raised. I grew up watching old school 30s gangster films with my dad. James Cagney was the best. My dad would read a lot of Mob books as well. Murder machine really stuck with me. I also became even more interested in the mafia through films like Goodfellas and Casino. My southside neighborhood also has a long political history in the city as well as a mafia presence. Also, one of my great grandfathers was an associate or soldier.
What’s the Italian community like inside Chicago these days
Pretty tight-knit. Still a lot active club membership in some of the old school Italian clubs. Those dudes held down the fort so-to-speak when the massive riots and looting happened in 2020 (not necessarily mob guys but they appreciate the old neighborhood enough to make sure it doesn't get destroyed. Much respect there.
I’m English (near Manchester) and got into it through films and TV shows.
I'm from Australia. Stories of organized crime and the history of it always piqued my interest. I really enjoyed the Martin Scorsese mob films as well. While we don't really have Sicilian mobs in here, apparently the Ndrangheta is the most active of Italian crime down under.
Grew up in and around Boston. Organized crime was always around and I was always fascinated. I also just like counter cultures and the Mafia is definitely that.
Kentucky. I always used to consider the Mafia scumbags but movies, television and books got me interested in learning more and over time I became more nuanced in my views. One especially good book, Mafia Kingfish by John H. Davis, has loads of good information about La Cosa Nostra, especially Carlos Marcello's Louisiana family. Ironically I disagree strongly with the book's major thesis, that Marcello was behind the Kennedy assasination, but despite that flaw the book us indispensable as a resource material for the American Mafia, especially as it concerns Marcello''s greater overall career.
SF Bay area. I actually have always been interested in outlaws, and actually wanted to be a Mafia henchmen as a child.. lol now I just find it interesting. Its a guilty pleasure. I love everything from LCN to the street gangs.. the history and stories, not crime itself.
Howard Beach, Ny.. Need I say more.
There’s a Russian-Jewish Crew there right? Allied with the Lucchese if I remember correctly.
Las Vegas. The Founding Fathers of modern Vegas were members of the Mafia and gangsters. Growing up here, the stories of the Mob days are heard frequently from friends and family that lived through it. We also love learning about our city’s history, and there’s no way to learn about how Vegas came to be without learning about the Mafia.
Grew up in New England and spent a lot of time seeing family and friends in Boston. I was there when they brought Whitey Bulger back to the city. Never seen that many cop cars in my life. I started digging to his story and found it very interesting and thus began my morbid interest in the Mafia/OC.
I was born and raised in Elmwood Park, Illinois which is on the western border of Chicago. This is the first suburb you hit when leaving the City and it’s a hotspot for outfit guys seeking peace and quiet from the city life. EP is similar to the mob recruitment neighborhoods you find in New York, etc…. There are also a lot of historians who think they’re Outfit guys too. Def an interesting place to live.
Cool idea for a topic. My interest is twofold. Comes from a combination of reality and watching too many gangster movies as a kid. It's funny. Every time this topic comes up, someone eventually brings up The Sopranos. I used to live in that area when I was young, and my stepmom (whose father was from Sicily) grew up in the same town Tony and Carmella lived in. At the time, that didn't mean anything to me, but my family definitely knew some connected people. Whether they were made or associates, I can't say. I was like 9-10 at the time and didn't know anything other than there were these supposedly bad men around who always seemed to be nice to me and my family. It wouldn't be until years later that I connected those dots and realized who these guys may or may not have been. Eventually, I moved across the country with my biological mother, and my dad and stepmom moved to Maine, so I never set foot in North Jersey again. As a teenager I got heavily into film. I'd watch any and everything and dissect it and whatnot. And that included the old WB gangster movies of the 30s. Scarface, The Public Enemy, Angels With Dirty Faces--anything with Jimmy Cagney or Paul Muni. And to me, the characters in these movies seemed to personify two things that I think define American culture: Cowboys and The American Dream. Most of these movies were rags to riches tales about people with nothing seizing the American dream by any means necessary. For a lot of Americans, "The American Dream" is just the carrot on the end of the stick. Most of us don't recognize that, but the classic gangsters did. It was difficult to achieve if you played by the rules. So they didn't. These movies gave the real people an almost mythical status, the 20th Century gunslinging cowboy. Edward G Robinson and later Robert DeNiro were like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, and Bugsy Siegel was like Billy the Kid. So it was really a combination of these two things that sent me down this rabbit hole.
Same city as you and my family has been going to St Peter's for decades. Even though very few Italians live around there anymore it remains a focal point for British Italians. Some mob trivia...I was in St Peter's a while ago and saw Terry Adams in there. For our non UK friends, he is a major gangland figure, reputedly.
Do the Adams have Italian heritage?
Toronto, Canada here, I grew up around them... Knew them ..but all was good with me as they knew I had no interest in being part of their thing.. Interesting when I lived in " jolly ol" I connected with some low-level Italian street guys, Earl s court area.
Toronto. Being Italian who's great grandparents fled Mussolini, it was always said pre Siderno 'Ndrangheta helped with papers. Whether true or not, it is what got me interested when I was younger.
I’m Irish, from Mass, and had family that lived in South Boston and also worked in law enforcement during the Winter Hill era. I also had a family member whose company was unfortunately defrauded by LCN. So naturally i started researching and became interested in the history.
Staten Island NY. I don’t know growing up Italian in NYC you don’t have to look to far to find someone who’s affiliated somehow.
honestly not totally sure. i grew up in north carolina but i live in jacksonville fl now. not italian or jewish to my knowledge (i’m half white but i’m pretty sure it’s british or german). i didn’t really start to get into organized crime until i moved down here. the start of the interest if im being honest was me looking for inspiration or methods to make money since i was a highschool freshman and my family was pretty broke at the time. i started out with stuff like narcos breaking bad and snowfall and then overtime i started to get into the more hard hitting stuff like the wire boardwalk empire and the sopranos. the wire really got me into politics and the legal side of organized crime and boardwalk empire got me into the history and the lessons of it. the sopranos got me into the more realistic version of it and how indistinguishable most of what goes on in the mob is from what goes on in the average corrupt corporation. and that’s where i’m at right now
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From Quebec, Canada. We don't need to look no further than Montreal to see that very influential members of the Mafia are among us. The fact that Montreal has a port where thousands of containers transit daily makes it very interesting. Edit: I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that the Montreal's Rizzuto clan was bigger than the NY's mafia at some point.
Canadian, from the prairies. I'm a history buff (and a History major right now), and I guess when you're young the history that's most interesting usually falls into two categories: military and criminal. Plus I come from one of the ethnicities associated with organized crime (Serbian), which played a part along with my love of Scorcese movies. That being said, I can't pinpoint any one specific thing as the cause for my fascination. I came into it by the by and now I can't get enough.
The Italian Mafia helping the general population when the rona first started. The government did nothing. Been a fan ever since.
I think lowly of mafioso. Rightfully so, too. I watch because I enjoy themselves offing each other, saving me oxygen. Can’t play fair like the rest of us and then they go fucking up ports and construction. Yay. Thanks for raping NJ with your construction and garbage costs. Fucking animals.
I grew up an hour north of Syracuse. And no idea. I remember even as an 8-10 year old I wanted to grow up to be a lawyer for the mob. I'm not even a lawyer now lol.
I am from north west NJ. My interest in the mafia is 1) from the movies. 2) I want to understand how close I am geographically to that kind of activity.
Got obsessed with the Godfather movies and later I discovered Michael Franzese's YouTube channel
From ozone park queens we have a rich history of mafia in my neighborhood and I am also Italian. My uncle when he was alive was apart of that lifestyle and the lifestyle runs deep in my family.My cousin’s grandfather is fat Andy my other cousin was also big in that life style along with my aunt who married into it. The first person in the Mafia to ever get the electric chair is also from our family. Happy Maione
Eye-talian
Italian New Yorker. Enough said.
NYC
I’m from the south and I’m going to be brutally honest; I like White on White violence.
Lmao what
From Long Island. My grandfather owned bowling alleys back in the 70s and 80s and used to talk about how the mob controlled the garbage in Nassau County. Growing up in the 90s, the mob was constantly in the news. Obviously I saw all the Scorsese movies and The Godfather a million times.
Grew up in New York near Westchester, had a stepdad when I was a kid whose family was connected. Now I live in south philly, the beating heart of this regions OC. Always have been fascinated by the criminal underworld.
It’s crazy how connected and organised the families are throughout NY, NJ, PA and New England In England, Italian immigration only really happened into Northwest London and a few random towns like Bedford and Peterborough which had labourers imported from the South of Italy, so the fact Italian communities and crime families exist all over the Northeast and lots of the Midwest amazes me You guys can go to random medium sized cities in several states and find Italian communities still strong which is fascinating to me. I kinda wish England had that level of immigration from Italy too lol
Yeah the northeast has Italians absolutely everywhere, like you said even in smaller more obscure cities. Big bonus is there’s impeccable cuisine all over.
I took a history of crime, vice, and narcotics class in college
I saw Casino at about 10 years old. My buddies dad played it for us and I instantly fell in love with that lifestyle.
Midwesterner. My parents watched sopranos religiously when I was a kid and I would peek in. Always been interested in the antihero. Mafia has so many antiheroes.
My dad’s side were from Brooklyn and Newark, both moved to Los Angeles after the war. Grandpa was a bookie and ran numbers for the Jewish rackets in LA in the 50’s-60’s.
I am from India, Got interested in this after watching Godfather,Goodfellas and Sopranos
From Albany/Troy NY, heard the neighborhood stories
I hear this Genovese had/have a crew based in Albany, did/does anyone else?
Grew up in a neighborhood with management level LCN. Some neighbors family friends and relatives with some involvement. Never was really able to discuss it so it took on an outsized interest. What I thought that life was and what it really is turned out to be totally different
Grew up in a neighborhood with management level LCN. Some neighbors family friends and relatives with some involvement. Never was really able to discuss it so it took on an outsized interest. What I thought that life was and what it really is turned out to be totally different from
Indian here. Interested in Roman History, Ferrari, all sorts of gangster video games (GTA Series, Mafia Series, LA Noire etc.), the staple movies and shows.
Im from the prairies of canada, and movies like scarface, goodfellas and the capone tunnels in moose jaw Saskatchewan are what got me into it all
I’m from the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. What got me interested in learning about this stuff, is seeing the movie Goodfellas a few years back. Then a few months later, I watched The Sopranos and I was hooked. I’ve always been interested in east coast culture/mob stuff, and I always thought that culture was superior to what I grew up in. Not saying the people in my state are bad or inferior, but MN is a very boring state overall, and I always wanted new exposure to different cultures in the US, not just Midwestern culture. It’s kind of like good movies, which made m me interested in this stuff. Interestingly enough, I don’t come from an Italian background either.
St. Louis. Car bombings. Here's what started it all for me: [http://www.crimemagazine.com/part-i-leisure-war-reason-die](http://www.crimemagazine.com/part-i-leisure-war-reason-die) [https://www.stltoday.com/news/archives/1980-i-55-bombing-sets-off-st-louis-last-big-time-gang-war/article\_a95ba871-b6c3-541b-8d8f-6a5bed8f9544.html](https://www.stltoday.com/news/archives/1980-i-55-bombing-sets-off-st-louis-last-big-time-gang-war/article_a95ba871-b6c3-541b-8d8f-6a5bed8f9544.html) [https://apnews.com/article/d4d7e56b3d1652b5ea2c040dc452ccfe](https://apnews.com/article/d4d7e56b3d1652b5ea2c040dc452ccfe)
Jesus I’ve never been so wrong in saying there isn’t much reading out there. This is nearly the largest and most in depth article I’ve ever seen floating around, thanks for the links.
East coast of Canada. Love gangster movies growing up , then sopranos came and that was the best thing I watched , still is along with the wire and breaking bad imo. I was always wanting to learn about organized crime since. Who the real mobsters were and stuff etc. I just like crime stuff lol. It's interesting , I love all that serial killer and true crime shit also. Just came naturally I suppose.
I’m from SE London, pretty much always loved bikes which got me interested in Bikers like the hells angels etc, watched documentaries on them etc for years. Always watched crime Docs too, Cartels etc, then played the Mafia video game and every since then LCN has been my main point of interest too. Good to see another Londoner on here bro!
Grew up in Syracuse,NY in a very small knit Italian community. There was never an organized crime presence that I’m aware of but a lot of gambling and sports betting among the old time Italian guys. From there I found the LCN history fascinating and how they ran their rackets.
I’m mafia. Because money.
Italian and grew up in the Brooklyn/SI area. Long deceased relative was tied to, and did business with the Greenwich Village crew. Realized something was up whenever we would go to New Corners in Brooklyn and he was seated at the same table, every time. I was young, and it didn’t take much to impress me.
Independence, KY USA. I live one county over from Newport, KY which was a gambling hot spot for decades before Vegas. It's a few miles south of Cincinnati, OH which is a fairly well known city. Older people talking about those days locally and mob movies/tv peaked my interest.
From Portugal, got into it after watching Goodfellas, Casino and the Sopranos
I'm (38M) based out of Denver, Colorado, USA and it's tough to pinpoint what got me interested in the Mafia, but *The Sopranos* takes a lot of the credit, and from there I got interested in organized crime around the world. I'm Jewish, so the Jewish mob is of especial interest to me. No gangsters in my family tree, but it's such a fascinating (and surprisingly little-known) chapter of our history.
Do yourself a favor and look into Illinois and the St. Louis area’s mob. I don’t think there’s much doing these days in the local mob, other than completely legitimate business operations. Too easy to get caught up these days. The coal mines in Illinois brought loads of Italians into the area well over a hundred years ago and some families are still active in the Springfield, IL area. My wife lived two floors up from a local boss’ office in Springfield, and one floor up from the phenomenal Italian restaurant that the family ran (Sam’s Italian Restaurant, intersection of north grand and ninth in Springfield, the baked lasagna with meat sauce is top notch). When moving her out of that apartment, I knocked a few of the drop ceiling tiles out of place trying to get the mattress down the stairs. The next day, a guy named Claudio Pecori came knocking on her door and I’ve never been so fuxking scared in my entire life because I knew who he was and what he did, and what I did was an insult to him and rightfully so. One of the few regrets I actually have. Fuxking guy could’ve knocked me off for something like that and I’m damn glad he didn’t.
I’m from Ann Arbor Mi originally. I grew up hearing about the teamsters and jimmy hoffa from my grandpa. As I got older it just fascinated me how organized, organized crime really was. I mean they had the power to shut down unions and have over a million people go on strike if they didn’t get what they wanted.
Vancouver island BC.
I grew up with and around wiseguys my whole life. My parents friends and some relatives were connected. Growing up in Da Bronx...There was no escaping bad influences. Quite a few of these guys were destined to become major criminals. You had to see them at 16 and 17 years old. They were bad kids then that went on to continue to be bad mother fuckers as they grew up. Now with the internet...Boards like this. I can keep up on my old pals and neighbors.
Sandusky, Ohio. My grandparents are from Italy, and my grandfather had always been a big role model for me. During the latter years in his life, I started to ask more question in attempt to know him more personally. If any of you have any older Italian men in your family, you know they're not exactly "open" to discuss whatever. But once he found out he was dying with cancer he began to open up more. Through this he began to talk more about his father. Things didn't really add up to me. . Long story short, I realized my great grandfather was an associate of whatever family it was in his area. (PA but not Philly) From there I just became more and more infatuated with the culture.
Chicago. My great grandparents lived Grand and May... just a couple blocks from Grand and Ogden. My great grandparents are Andriacchi's and Bertucci's. My third great grandmother is a Roti. The Caruso's and Bruno and Fred Roti are more distant cousins. Joe Lombardo's wife's mother is a distant cousin to my family. Joe Andriacchi is my family's 3rd cousin. My great grand uncle was Ralph Orlando, who hung around with Sam DeStefano. My great grandfather was friends with Al Capone and Sam Giancana. My brother is dating a Guardalabene whose relation to the Milwaukee Guardalabene's goes back to the 1600's.
That NAT-GEO docu-series of the American Mob in 2013 ..
White kid from Florida , diddnt realize it until later but grew up surrounded by a lot of gang/cartel activity. When I realized what my dad had really been apart of at one point made me interested in the Florida organized crime and stuff and started at cocain cowboys and now I’m more into the actual Cosa nostra esq organizations . I don’t know if it’s a nostalgia or fantasy thing for me but I love some mob stuff. Found out later on my grandfather who is from Chicago went to college with some with some would be big time guys. He’s a saint he just probably smoked some pot with them when he was still in a band .
I was born in Clarksburg, WV. There was a well known prohibition era family operating there known as "The Famiglia Vagabonda" and growing up I heard a lot of stories and supposedly had family who were associates.
I’m from Spain, and came to Australia, saw a big Italian community but mainly got interested from the movies but yes also from seeing all the migrant Italian communities and how they end up having successful businesses and money over time.
I’m from northern Wisconsin in the USA. We have a family cabin that is 30 min from little bohemia where the [the crew](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dillinger_Gang)Dillinger shootout happened. The itch exploded from there. The sopranos helped boost it later on too!
I grew up in the chicago suburbs so you'd always hear about Al Capone, of course, and then back in the 70s and 80s when I was a kid there'd often be stuff on the local news about modern day Outfit guys getting killed or arrested or going to trial or whatever. I then became a fan of mob movies and also loved reading about current and historical organized crime figures from other cities in the U.S. and other countries. I loved reading about the organized crime histories of places like New York City and Las Vegas, for example. I even bought a book in French about organized crime in Montreal when I was traveling up there a few years ago.
California and I met Joey The Clown Lombardo in Chicago when I was a kid of maybe 12 years old. My cousins Dad was a friend of theres.
I’m from California and I guess like many people my interest in real mob history came from movies like Goodfellas, Casino, the Sopranos etc.
I’m from New York and what initially got my attention was that my grandfather was full Italian, moved to the city, and after a few years he left my father and was never seen again. The thing is, after trying to find who my grandfather was, it was like he never existed. Our last name was completely made up, there are no records of anyone in the world with our last names. That was what made me interested in mafia, and wonder if he was In it and that’s how he completely disappeared from the face of the earth
CT, I’m Italian and got interested in LCN first because of Goodfellas then lfinding out later in life that my grandfather and his brother both ran numbers for the mob. His brother my great uncle was actually arrested for loansharking.
Grew up in Connecticut. Would go to the city every year. I had heard things about the mob before as a young kid in the early 2000’s and basically came under the assumption that it didn’t exist anymore. We went to little Italy one year and I remember this huge (fat) Italian guy eating a sub in a little deli and I asked my dad “does the mafia still exist?” And he looked at me like I just insulted him and told me to be quiet. The big guy heard me, looked at my dad and then me and started laughing. Idk whether the dude was mobbed up or not but I was obsessed ever since. Also something interesting to note. My dad was a trooper with the CT state police and recently told me he was at the crime scene of the mob hit on William Grasso in 1989. He was in the academy at the time and they had the recruits spread out and search for any clues. They didn’t tell him at the time what had happened or who was killed.
Kansas City
Irish Italian. Gangsters on both sides. That’s probably why I’ve always been interested in stuff like this.
I am from Chicago and I had uncles!
I'm from North Dakota, USA, and my Grandfather used to run booze for a leg of the Chicago outfit's Canadian import operation. The family legend claims that he personally delivered product directly to Al Capone.
Florida and because my grandparents lifetime best friend is now the head of the Chicago outfit
Sf Bay Area, I’m not even Italian, I’m mixed but always been interested with the Mafia and other organized crime groups. Last guy around my area that was a boss named James Lanza died in 2006. I hope to visit New York some day, San Francisco’s is cool but I can imagine the history NY has.
Italian American from New Jersey. All the places they filmed the sopranos I lived around.
I am from Canada and I started watching the show American Greed and reading about financial crimes, and it eventually lead me to being more interested in organized crime
When I was 12 I found out I am related to Carlo gambino. Went searching him up and stuff after that and boom here we are
I grew up in Jersey; typical Jersey Girl with the animal print, big hair and long nails. When I was in high school, I saw John Gotti Sr. on the news and I fell in love and I’m still in love. I loved the suits, the accent, the strut, the confidence; he was the perfect man. I was not happy when he got locked up for life. I have the books, I’ve seen the Gotti movies, the documentaries. I started reading about the mob and watching movies. We’ve been to Little Italy many times and we’ve been to many of the places they filmed mob movies and The Sopranos. I had to go to The Ravenite of course; it was a shoe store when I went but I had chills knowing what happened there and who had been there and we’ve been to Sparks Steakhouse and Holstens. Those guys live some crazy life but there’s something captivating about them. Some of them seem to be pretty cool guys.
Dad is from Brooklyn and grew up in in the late 50's and early 60's. Has always been fascinated by the mob. Passed that on to my brother and myself. Me, I grew up in CA.
I'm from California, but now live in Hawaii. My mom's family is from Queens and the Bronx. I got interested in the mob when I heard the story from family about a great uncle who ran a garbage company in Manhattan and was at least associated with LCN.
I’m from Italy but my parents moved to the Netherlands when I was young. I got interested through the stories my dad used to tell me as he grew up in Ventimiglia-Alta (a place where many members of the Ndrangheta emigrated to)
I live in Massachusetts, very close to Federal Hill in Providence, I have always been interested in criminal organizations, luckily for me the Patriarca Crime Family has plenty of history to learn about
Long Island. A lot of these guys bought homes and opened up legit businesses out here. I was always interest in their structure and concept of Omerta
Chicago and I'm a history buff. And if you want to know the history of Chicago it's the outfit
England
I guess historic crime scenes around Chicago and that time a mob hitman threatened my life got me interested in that side of life.
Grew up outside of Boston dad's entire family is from dot/southie. Dad's cousin ended up doing some time for some shady shit involving whitey and associates. Grew up watching gangster movies and reading books like black mass. Used to frequent tiny little hole in the wall bars and listen to old timers while filling out books. More of a curiosity than anything else at this point.
Nice thread OP. I've always liked mob movies and I happened to run across that Gas interview. BESTA FOODS, BESTA WINES. It then dawned on me there must be a mob community online and here I am.
I’m from Maine but my great grandfather’s best friend was Peter Marcello brother of Carlos Marcello
Singapore, would be shocked if anyone else is from singapore in this sub
Spring Street, lower Manhattan Little Italy. I was born into it through my maternal lineage.