Mob Ledger

Files on the American underworld

Territory

The ground

Where the families in this archive actually kept their headquarters, and where the things in it happened. Four cities, one tab each. Points, not shaded territory — the record supports addresses far better than it supports borders.

The Bronx Manhattan Queens Brooklyn Staten Island New Jersey The Hudson The East River N 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
A schematic, not a survey. The shapes are drawn to place the addresses in relation to one another, not to any scale or coastline.

  1. Point1

    Ravenite Social Club

    Mulberry Street, Little Italy, Manhattan · The Gambino Family

    The club John Gotti ran the family from after 1985. The FBI recorded it extensively, and those tapes were used at his 1992 trial.

  2. Point2

    Umberto's Clam House

    Mulberry Street, Little Italy, Manhattan · The Colombo Family

    Joseph Gallo was shot dead at the restaurant in April 1972, during the war his family had been fighting on and off since 1961.

  3. Point3

    Sparks Steak House

    East 46th Street, midtown Manhattan · The Gambino Family

    Paul Castellano was shot on the pavement outside on 16 December 1985, six weeks before he was due to stand trial with three other bosses.

  4. Point4

    Columbus Circle

    Upper West Side, Manhattan · The Colombo Family

    Joseph Colombo was shot in the head at his own civil rights rally on 28 June 1971 and never spoke again.

  5. Point5

    The garment district

    Seventh Avenue, midtown Manhattan · The Lucchese Family

    Not an address but a trade. The family controlled the trucking that moved cloth between cutters, sewers and showrooms, and the unions those firms depended on.

  6. Point6

    Palma Boys Social Club

    East 115th Street, East Harlem, Manhattan · The Genovese Family

    Anthony Salerno's headquarters. Recordings made here contributed to the Commission case that convicted him in 1986.

  7. Point7

    Bergin Hunt and Fish Club

    101st Avenue, Ozone Park, Queens · The Gambino Family

    The Queens crew Gotti came up in, and the base he held before taking the family in 1985.

  8. Point8

    Idlewild freight terminals

    Now John F. Kennedy International Airport, Queens · The Lucchese Family

    Air cargo offered the same choke point as the garment trucking, on a larger scale. The family's hold on the terminals is the setting for its best known theft.

  9. Point9

    Motion Lounge

    Withers Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn · The Bonanno Family

    Dominick Napolitano's club, and the crew Joseph Pistone reached as Donnie Brasco between 1976 and 1981.

  10. Point10

    President Street

    Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn · The Colombo Family

    The Gallo brothers' base during the revolt against Joseph Profaci's flat monthly levy, which began the first of the family's three wars.

  11. Point11

    Ribera Social Club

    Elizabeth, New Jersey · The DeCavalcante Family

    Named for a town in Agrigento province most of its members had never seen. The family's headquarters for decades and the address that recurs most in its surveillance record.

  12. Point12

    The Kenilworth office

    Kenilworth, New Jersey · The DeCavalcante Family

    A plumbing and heating supply firm. The FBI's microphone sat here from 1961 to 1965 and produced roughly two thousand pages of transcript.