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Long before Brooklyn was known as the world's hippos neighborhood, it was the deadliest, the cd dangerous under belly of New York City, where mobsters and gangs could commit murder and dump dead bodies without getting caught. For more than a hunterundred years, the Red Hook section of Brooklyn was
ground zero for organized crime. Whoever controlled the peers controlled everything, from the infamous Irish gang known as the White Hand at the turn of the century to the notorious Italian Gallo brothers who ran President Street and everything else generations later. The blood soaked history of Red Hook is the story of American crime at its most powerful, corrupt, and coldly efficient.
It's all here the brutal mob hits, bullet storms and backstabbings of the most colorful cutthroats to ever terrorize the streets, a rogue's gallery of killers with nicknames like the Mad Hatter, the Executioner, Wild Bill, and peg Lake. The Brooklyn bar fight that gave Al Scarface Capone his legendary scars, The godfather of America's first Sicilian crime family, whose gruesomely mangled
hand good scare men half to death. And to bring it all home, the author's own eyewitness account of multiple shootings growing up as the son of a mafia bodyguard. The book that were featuring this evening is Red Hook Brooklyn Mafia Ground Zero, with my special guests, authors Frank D. Matteo and Michael Benson. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for this interview. Michael Benson and Frank D.
Matteo.
Thanks Dan, thanks for having us, Thank you.
Thank you very much, and congratulations on this new book, Red Hook Brooklyn Mafia Ground Zero.
Thank you, Thanks, thanks a lot. Yeah, it was Frank's idea. First book we wrote together was called Carmine the Snake. Carmi Persico and publisher wanted to know what we wanted to do for an encore and we made a list and Frank's idea to do a book called Red Hook, which was about the neighborhood rather than about any particular gangster. Apparently the idea was ahead of its time because we ended up doing albert Anastasia. But we got around to it, and the second time I had my elevator pitched down
and sold it and it's yeah. It's a book that takes place in a neighborhood in Brooklyn, a very special specific neighbors. It was initially occupied by the Lenape Indians and they were then slaughtered by the Dutch, which sort of the way RedHook stayed the whole time it was. The book has incredible body count for those that like murders. And just before the Civil War, Red Hook was a village.
It was neighbors sharing a town pump, fifteen goats clattering over the cobblestones of Dykeman Street on the way to Grayze. It had feral dog. They weren't coyotes, but the kinrent acted like iotes. Wild dogs never been touched by man, and they were all over the place on the southern part of Red Hook, and they were there for more than one hundred years. It wasn't until Ikea came in with their big department store that they finally wiped out
the very old dog problem. But you know, Frank likes to talk about Red Hook like it's the Old West, and the fact that there are wild dogs running around just seems to make it more atmospheric. Could almost imagine a tumbleweed going by, but they didn't have those in Red Hook. But red Hook, red Hook was where the docks were, so that brought in an organized crime, first the Irish and then the Italians.
And you mentioned the White Hand, so tell us about the Black Hand and the White Hand.
Well that the White Hand was Irish gangs that ran the docks during the first part of the twentieth century. Compared to the Italians that come in there are pretty civilized. But there were an awful lot of murders. Mostly the head of the White Hand would get bumped off by the guy who wanted to be the head of the White Hand, and they just they just ran through leaders
like crazy. From John Moroney in nineteen twelve to while Bill Lovett in nineteen twenty three, peg leg down again in nineteen thirty, it's eighteen years of every guy, I mean, nobody gets to retire. Everybody dies in the line of duty. When you're the head of the White Hand, and it's all internal. I mean there was a White Hand versus Black Hand war as well, which was also bloody, but the White Hand did itself in. They would drink too
much and go out and shoot. There's one scene where there are three guys vying for the leadership of the White Hand standing on a dock and they draw straws to see who will be the boss, and the guy that wins then gets shot by the other two. He was the leader for bight nine seconds maybe tops.
You talk about all the leadership that came and went in this Red Hook, over this enjuring this one hundred years, and you take us to some of the things that the gangs concentrated on, and you talk about the physical girl market. Just tell us a little bit about this.
Yeah, they and that I was pretty shocked by this. In Red Hook, there was like a store where you went to buy girls and they were cheaper than steers, cheaper than cheaper than cattle, and you could go and it was it was an auction, you know. They put them up there on the stage and the girls were
mostly you know, kidnapped and brought there. Most of the ones who were sold in Red Hook were brought in from other places, and girls who were kidnapped in Red Hook were then taken someplace else to be sold because they found it was easier to keep them captive if they didn't know where they were. That's that's the kind of primitive world we're dealing with.
Back then, you write about notorious gangsters like al Capone. He went to school in Red Hook, back in South Brooklyn, and later on his mission was what you write.
He was a catalyst for change. Yeah, al Capone grew up in Brooklyn. He got his he got his famous scars on his face in Coney Island and a knife fight. He insulted some guy's sister and he kicked the guy came up with a knife. He got married in Red Hook. He suffered from syphilis, and his son was born with congenital syphilis. That he was. He went to Chicago for a while because he was, you know, doing things for
the Chicago boys. But they sent him back to make sure that the Irish weren't in charge of the Brooklyn docks anymore. So he's, uh, he's in Brooklyn and his son is getting an operation on his ear, something to do with the congenital syphilis and al Capone's in a in a club just on the other side of the Guanas Canal from Red Hook. In walks peg leg Don again limps in because he's got his nickname because he fell in front of a trolley car when he was eight.
And this is three am on December two, twenty sixth now Marry Christmas, and peg Lake comes in, starts saying some stuff about Italians, and lights go out. It's gunfire. Lights come back on again, places emptied out and peg Lake down again. A couple of his friends are dead on the floor, and after that the black Hand moved in.
I think Frankie Yale was with him that night at that the Donna's Club when they did that kill him.
Try it's called the Adona's Club, that's right.
Yes, I think it was Frankie Yale was dealing with him.
And Frank Yale gets whacked by a crew that includes Frank Costello. So you know, life goes on, Yeah.
That's how it works.
You also write about another figure in this story, the Mad Hatter, m Berto Anastasia.
He was a young man in Red Hook. He killed His first kills were in Red Hook, and he himself was wounded as a young man in red Hook, which, interestingly it happened the corner of Henry and Sacket Streets, where I lived for two years in the late seventies. I lived in red Hook for a couple of years. Real estate agents had renamed the uppermost portions of red Hook to remove the stigma and get better prices for the property. So Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, it's all red
Hook geographically. And yeah, I lived above Mark's Pharmacy, looking right down on the corner across the street from Camerary's Bakery, which is featured in the movie Moonstruck.
What deal was that when you lived down in Theahwood.
The seventy nine and eighty and they used to tell me don't go on the other side of the expressway, And now I know it's because you were there. That's right, whatever you do, don't go over there by President Street. There's tough guys there.
No.
We had Kami's Bakery right a cross street from where you lived, that's right right right right there.
We had a social club, a time social club right next door to.
That, yeah, right, yeah, and your guys used to parade at three in the morning.
Yeah, that was up and.
Down the street, waking everybody up, banging pots.
We don't sleep, and the press and the precinct was right on the corner, right around the corner.
Yes it was.
It was a It was a good neighbor when you lived there.
It wasn't bead.
Oh No, I had a good time.
You mentioned the President Street Boys, and and also we should be talking about the Gallows, the Gallo brothers parents, Albert and Mary Gallo, So tell us about the President's Street Boys and it's relation to Red Hook. Where is the President Street?
Before the Gallows got involved the gall Of brothers, there was always gangs in the neighborhood and there was a crew of you know, young guys called the pressure Sreet Boys well before the Gallup Blaters came there. So when the Gallup Bluter's got there, you know, there was gangs already,
they just organized them a little better. The three tough guys from you know, from Brooklyn that wind up, I think they're from Kenningston, originally part of Brooklyn, and they went downtown because their family had some property on President Street, and they wound up just kept on buying on President and wound up building a little fortress down there, and three brothers that were very influential came up to the ranks with the Joe Pafacci and the crazy guys have made a name for themselves.
Michael, tell us about this what considered crazy Joe Gallo, and you say he was there personified, and tell us about the Profacci crew as well.
The thing about Joey was nobody knew just how crazy he really was. And as Frank once said, and I think he puts his finger on it is, Joey's insanity had its own intelligence. He was kind of a split personality, but both sides were three dimensional in full, and he could switch back and forth. He could be charming, he could hang out with celebrities and be one of the
hip and in crowd, shining like a star. And at the other the other end of the spectrum, he could be just a tremendous sadist, killer, torture, just a tremendously bad guy, a guy who never had any trouble getting people to pay their bills.
You said that crazy Joe made this Profaci very very nervous, and so as a result, what you chronicle, what did Profacci do with Joey Gallo?
Perfacci. Profacci was a successful businessman. He was he had an oil olive oil empire, and he was one of the ran one of the five families of New York. Joey made him nervous. He thought that Joey might be on drugs, so he kidnapped him and held him in a room to get him to see if he would withdraw from whatever, goofballs or whatever he thought he was on and said there weren't any drugs, there was nothing to withdraw from. But by the time they let Joey go,
he hated Profacci's guts. I mean he just hold me captive for three days to find out if I'm using drugs. That's yeah, just check my arms. So and that that that started a war. After that, Joey didn't want to be part of the Profaccis. Want to be his own thing, want to be his own boss, want his brother Larry to be the boss. He would just be the the X factor, the the right hand man who did most
of the moving and shaking. Frank's dad got his start in the in the life being Larry Gello's bodyguard, which tell us about that Frank.
Well, my father was a bouncer in the early late fifties for Tony Bender. Larry and Joey would try and when they were trying to break away from joe Brafacci to we're getting some help from the Genervesi family, and they would go up to the bar to go see you know, to see him. So what happened was my father was bouncing there and he wound up meeting the
Galla brothers. They took a liking to my father, and he wound up coming back to Brooklyn and wound up being a bodyguard for Larry sixty one to sixty eight. They were very, very very close until Larry's death.
How old were you when you saw your first murder, Frank.
I was six. I was six. I was on the corner of Fourth d Avenue and Union Street, coming out of that apartment building. Me and my mother were visiting someone. A couple of guys on the corner got to an argument and one shot the other. You know, Like I always say, I tell the story, it wasn't that dramatic, you know. It was it was bang bang guy from the floor, you know, and I wished away.
I mean, I I got you out of there.
Yeah, my god, idea because the shots being fired. But I found out who the guy was later on that we knew the guy, you know, from a closer street. I didn't know who it was, and it happened so fast, but you know, the next day that find out who it was, and then I know the story afterwards. But it was I always said, it wasn't that. It wasn't that scary or frightening. You know. I just didn't get affected by it at all.
It'd be a better story if you were traumatized. But if that's okay, well, yeah, that's not the only time they were shooting in your vicinity. Twice snipers cut down somebody was standing near you on President Street, right.
Yeah, And I mean MBO got shot at. We got during the war in the seventies, we got shot at. I lost a beautiful nineteen sixty six Cadillac. They put it about half a dozen bullet holes for us. Thank god, will they shoot well? But yeah, we got shot at. Guys got shot at next to me, you know, down the block for me, or on the same block as us. I was on the corner with the with Punchy Leano Frank Leana when they shot him in the neck. Sniper
from down the block. So you know, that was a little scary and tell you true, you know, because you don't know where the bullets were coming from. You had a duck on the floor and scatter. But you don't get scared, you know, you get the more frustrated mad than scared.
But it's it's an experience.
Well, that's why I think mafia books are different from other true crime books is it's more like armies at war than it is like, you know, murderers and victims. Well, we shoot Juli, you shoot back. That's the way. That's the way it goes.
Yeah, because it's it's a mentality.
It's not just you know, it's really a mentality that this is a business and everything goes when in it murder, beatings, robbing, stealing, whatever you want to call it. And it's they actually believe it's structured that way, and it's right.
There's a big chunk of the book about juvenile delinquency in Red Hook and how the street corner truants of yesterday become the big boyhoods of today. A dis proportionate number of juvenile delinquents in Brooklyn lived in Red Hook from most of the twentieth century schools were a war zone. And you asked earlier about the geographic nature of Red
Hook and where President Street was. President Street was right on the docks, just north of the Battery Tunnel and Redhooks, I think stays the way it is because when Robert Moses cut up Brooklyn, he kind of isolated. It's now an island. It's very difficult to get in and out of Battery Tunnel, Brooklyn, Queen's Expressway going on as Canal, Buttermilk Channel and the Lower New York Bay all border it, and they are all things that drivers and pedestrians have
difficulty getting across. So there's a little bit of a fortress feel with a motor around it to Red Hook, which was not impregnable obviously since the shooters got in there and then did their damage.
Let's talk about the Gallows and the Profacis where the Profacis were assigning the brothers to one of the biggest hits in mob history, and that's the hit on albert Anastasia. So tell us where they're at at that time. You say that Prafaci is afraid of Joey Gallo, but they're employing them to do like as you write one of the most the biggest hits in mob history.
Afraid of him, worried about him. These guys worry about every guy around them because when you're on top, everybody wants your spot. So Joey being out of the box, you do worry about him a little more. But they're very Joey and very useful to Perfacci. So these guys are greedy, they don't They use you as much as
they can. So when they had to do the hit on abananis Asia, the way I get the story by sitting with these guys is that Pafacci gave Joey, Larry, Joe, Jelly, and Carmen Persaco the hit the goal to co kill Albert because those they were young, they were making their bones at the time, and they get the assignment. And that's why Larry, Joey and Calmen persaal got their buttons right after that explained as that Patch wasn't really crazy about Joey, and right after that hit he got Joey
got straightened out. I mean, it's so obvious that he heard his button and that in those days, that's how he had had to earn it. So that's why I you know fully believed it, and then sitting with the guys who to the guys that did the killing.
They never came out said it, but they make them.
Yeah what they call little what's the world? And she went those.
Yeah, you would hate them, yeah.
And or someone else would say that guy did that, you know so I mean, and you.
Don't go around you can't in this life.
You can't go around saying that you did something like that and not do you'll be laughing stock. Or you're good, get yourself in trouble.
So tell that to the Irishman exactly exactly.
So it was a big hit for them and that's how they got straightened out.
Let's talk about how your father, Rick de Matteo comes into the picture after all of this violence in Red Hook.
Well, my father came to picture clothes. They were on the breakaway with Joe Bafacci. They needed more bodies. My father being an xboxer and and a tough guy at the time, they recruited more guys and you wind up, you know, being with Larry and being his bodyguard. And then during the war they wind up fathers one of the shooters on the on a commons hit when they shot him with an event, and when they had a vanda and went to go kill Carmine, he was on that.
So he had to leave for a few months because Carma lived up through that that hit. So he went away to California for about four or five months and lived in clid Clear And it was just very instrumental of being with Larry until Larry died and then he wound up being with Albert Galla.
Now tell us about your childhood and Red Hook and how you became involved with this crew as well.
My father was Larry Gallow's bodyguard. My uncle is Joe Chappani which is Jenny Veci. That was that was with Joe Adonis and and Frank Costello and Lucky and Lucky Luciano. So I mean, and my godfather Bobby bo Giovanni which is Bobby Davio, was straight up murderer hit me in the for the crew. So yeah, being brought up on these guys, you you pick up the trade to pick up their mannerisms even if they're you know, not even purposely.
And then when you grow up, you know, some guys, parents keep guys away from things, and some other parents bring guys in if they see things that they that they notice, things they like about something. I wand up being when I was old enough to start driving, I want to driving my father around.
You're like thirteen, right, thirteen years old?
Yeah, thirteen years old drive my father around. Then I started driving Joe Chepperound and Bobby and my and my godfather Bobby.
That's why I started. You started by driving doing flunky stuff.
You go to the stores, you want to make errands, and then you start picking up money, and then you start, you know, doing stuff that that's not legal. And then being around that life, especially downtown Brooklyn, you get to know people. People come to you, they know you with Joey Gallo or they know you're without, but they come to you with things. They come to you with scores, They come to you with the things that do and try to fence things from you and try to to you.
So you just give them hom deeper, deeper into this life, you know, and being a younger guy, and then when being on these older guys and then you read things about them and then you see their mannerisms and then you see them in action. Either you're gonna run away or you're gonna You're gonna jump in fully. I wind up jumping fully because I was very close to my father. I just took the whole ride.
Let's just this as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. Now, let's talk about this ongoing. What you mentioned was Carmine Persico and his name was the Snake later on, and you can tell us why he earned that nickname the Snake. Tell us Michael about Carmine Persico.
Well, Carmi Persco is a really smart guy. He was the leader of a gang from the time he was a kid. He ran with the with the guard Field Boys. Not a poor kid. He didn't need to be a gangster. Now Dad had a white collar job. He was a court reporter. Carmine wanted to be a hood and his brothers followed him. He was involved in a gang rumble in Prospect Park in which a kid was shot and killed.
That was probably the incident that led to the movie West Side Story, which is interesting because then later on in life, when he pretends to be friends with the present street boys but turns on them by trying to kill Larry Gallo and earns the name of the Snake. That scene appears in the Godfather so there's some life to have. Things that you did show up in two
major motion pictures like that. It was a trendsetter. He pretended to be with the in the Street Boys right up until the time that there was an attempted hit on Larry Galo's life, which left him with a permanent scar around his neck and a voice that sounded like he was gargling with rocks. And you can't ignore the fact that Larry went on to die of throat cancer. So Carmi might have killed him slowly with that incident,
and from then on he was a target. Carmine the Snake was a target of the President street Boys tried to blow him up, as Frank mentioned, tried to shoot him. He was on the sidewalk spitting out a bullet. He earned the nickname the Immortal. You know, he was still alive when we started writing about him a few years ago.
Tell us more about Carmine Persico and this hunt for Carmine and this vendetta against him by the President of Street Boys.
That's you, Frank.
Well, after Limby got strangled at the Sahara was open hit on anybody, the Pafaccico. So what happened was the guys just laid out for Carmine because you know, Joey and Larry and Albert were very close with the Carmine. Carmine broke away at the end because other big boys got in his ear and says, you were making the win this battle, this war. You go stay with the perfacci and be a smart move. Forget about liking him, don't liking them or liking your friends, and not like
your friends. This is the world you got to be in. And Carmin made the right movie still with the big boys, and that's what happened. So anyway, everybody was upset about that because you know, when your friend betrays you like that, it's a little more upsetting than a stranger come and doing it. So there's there was a hit on Carmine
from the beginning, so they just planned it. And the first time they did it, they went to go kill Carmine and you know, they try to blow him up, and then what happened was the momb went down and staid up. They messed up and he lived though it. You know, he got hurt real bad, but he lived through it. And then the second time, you know, and then it was months and months and months they tried to get close to him, and Tomain was being smart and.
Laying low, having a lot of guys around him.
And then the second time they pulled up in a in a in a van and tried to kill him with the shooter, back door windows, and I mean they hit him a few times, but I mean he lived again hit. I forget who's in the car when him got hit too, but and.
He just he lived through that one too.
And right after that Joey uh got a sentenced and went to jail, and everything calmed down a little bit. Right after that, when I think it was sixty two or sixty three, when Joey went to jail, everything pretty much stopped it. I mean they tried to kill Joey between it, before he went to jail, they tried to hit Joey and they missed. And then Joey again. They thought they had Joey gould Uglage driving somebody was driving Joey's car and it went to hit him, but they
missed that too. I mean, every lot of a lot of guys were missed. I mean that's why the joke with the with the with the guy that couldn't shoot straight over here because it was more Missus than hits.
Well, there was a lot of drinking and shooting going on, wasn't there.
You know, you know, you know, I tell you to shoot. A lot of drinking afterwards.
Oh yeah, okay, yeah, well winners drink after work. Losers drink before work.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know.
I don't know how to say it, but I saw a few things and nah, but then again, these guys a little potheads. The guy should smoke pot like I smoked cigars.
You have a scene with Joey when he pays a visit. He approaches a judge at a restaurant to tell us about this incredible scene.
Michael, Oh yeah, it's it was right, Frank. You may remember the name of the place. It's It was on President's Street. But the black hole fellows, Yeah, yeah, I think yesterday. Yeah. And the judge and who was presiding over Joey's cases, sitting there having having lunch, and Joey walks in, of course, makes everybody very nervous. Joey's comes at him in a very civilized way. Judge, I like you, You're
a strong man. You do what you think, And I think Joey was being sincere hit some demand, the judge said, gave him the legit way to go about getting that done, and Joey said, well, thank you and walked out and apparently got what he wanted out of the deal. But yeah, I'm sure that everybody needed to use the men's room the second that Joey was gone, because that must have just been terrifying.
Yeah. No, Joey was Joey. They they call him crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. Joey was smart as a whistle. I mean he was smart Joey when he you know, they put they portrayed Joey, you know on movies and just shows, and I showed just a wild, no gleaming, crazy man when you sat down with joe joe wasn't like that. Joey sat down and spoke to you in a sentences, I mean, very
strong demeanor. We looked at you, you turn your face, but but spoke really well, you know, crazy as far as his belief were crazy, just like thousands of other guys that were crazy. I mean crazy is when guys chopped people up for no reason, called them crazy, you know. Joey was that was his business. That's how he got brought up and that's what he believed in, you know, within that circle. But he spoke, you.
Know, as normal as anyone anybody else.
Well, later in life he gets along really well with show business figures and literary figures. He's kind of moving with the with the illuminati in Manhattan for a while.
Close to Jerry.
O're back at the end, Yeah, close, because we wound up, we wound up having a few parties with with Jerry and his wife. In fact, Jerry's wife Martha. It was Martha she to Bobby Bobby ELO's wing shower. That's how close we all got, you know. So he was it was well, like listen, they were like Joey too, because Joey was a gangster at first. But then when they got a little frindly and frontier, you know, people started liking each other, you know, and then Joey's mannerisms were
were impressive. You know, I mean it's it's he's got manierisms that if it's something that you don't have, you want, you know, you're trying to emulate. Now.
They were very very you know, trend setters.
When Joey testified before Congress, he did it with sunglasses and a cigarette hanging off his lower He was a trendsetter.
Joey was always a trend setter.
He was ready for his magazine cover.
It was Larry was low key, you know, but Joey was out there.
That's as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. Now you talked about Joey and court and with the sunglasses and his arrogance. But he gets ten years and like you say, it was relatively calm on President Street and in Red Hook while he was gone. But Joey gets released from prison and then the action starts, doesn't it.
Well, joe When Joey goes away, A lot of things happen. Whenin that time when Joey got it, goes away and he gets convicted, Tobefacci dies is on the boss. I think it's uh Magadino. He wants to getting into himself in trouble, having a heart attack and dying. And they put the Joe Colombo in charge of that family. So everything there was a lot of things going on. So things were calming down, and that's why I was coming down because the structure was breaking on deb on their end.
None a time go looking shoot people because things were happening. So what happened was right after they appointed joe Colombo as boss, they tried to sell it, sell everything. Joey was in jail, Larry was in the street running the gallow crew, and Larry was you can speak to him and negotiate with him, and they pretty much calmed everything down.
They let the gallows alone, let them go earned on the docks, or let them go on Red Hook.
Let's stop Brooklyn Atlantic gavernor go do go, do your numbers, go do whatever you're doing. We'll leave you the hell alone. You know what I mean. It was get get, get them out of here. Colombo's hair. And that's why it was quiet until Joey got home. So from sixty to three to seventy one, it was quiet because Larry had no Larry had no problem with the with Colombo. And then after Larry died, Albert Albert didn't have Albert Gato had no problem with Colombo. And then when Joey came out.
You know, Joey was actually the head of the If the lobby died, Joey was in charge, but being in jail, Albert was in the streets, so he was one of the true wings fact.
Joey to get out. So once Joey gets out, he takes over the rains again.
Joey didn't like Joe Colombo being made in that, you know, as a boss, so he never sanctioned. In his mind, he never sanctioned it. He started arguing as soon as he got out of jail. He started arguing with Joe.
Tell tell a story about you're on the block with Gumby and the big car pulls up.
Oh yeah, well when Joey got when Joey first got to jail, you know, us being younger guys, we're always on the block. We'll always you know, on that block Preasutry between uh you know, Columbia van Brunt. Almost half the block was ours, you know, restaurant, lunch and nets, barber shops, candy stores, clubs, clubs, clubs, clubs, and empty lots. So we're down there a lot. So we were, me and Boomba Deer, which is another kid from the neighborhood living on the block.
We were there just hanging around and big club pulls up.
It has to be Joey. Joey comes out of the car with Pete the Greek, and I think it was Bobby bow Yellow picked him up. It might even be his nephew Stevie that just passed away. I think he might have went there too. Anybody pulled up and Joey gets out of the car and it's speaking for a minute, and mean Booby is right there. And he turns around to me and goes to Ricky's son. I said, yeah, he goes, where's daddy, And I said, I have no idea where he is right now, because okay, and he
turns around. He goes to me. He goes, don't forget everything ever happens, you know, dude, this club is your is your home. He pinched my cheek and he runs inside. He turns around, he goes, oh, by the way, do me a favorite. Make sure you clean the car, and me and goomb had to wash the car down. That's and that's how that we met Joey that day coming out of jail.
And he looked bad read he had no hair and his eyes were sunking into his head.
Yeah, he was thin.
It was thin at the time, but he had those eyes. He had those eyes and that and those facial expressions that never go away. But he was thin. And when he was I was like eight when he left, eight eight nine when he left, so and he you know, he looked bigger than but you know, everybody looks bigger than. They fattened him up real pretty quick.
And he's he's trying to put a lot of life into the next year.
Well, his first thing the front, I think the next week he came in there.
I mean a lot of meetings going on when Joey first came out, a lot of guys coming down Present Street, a lot of the guys that was in the crew coming down every day, and Joey was coming down every night to to have these conversations about being with the joe Colombo. I mean, his argument was that he didn't say it's okay. He don't like it. He wants everything that was taken away while he was while he was gone,
he wants back, you know. And then the story goes that Colombo sent one of the guys down I think I got who was at the time, to give Joey some money. And you know, he first came home and Joey looking out and back at him and says, you gotta give me a hundred grand that whatever it was, they say, Colombo came down himself. Joey didn't come down nowhere, somebody down I can't do his name right now. And he told Joe sent back the words of Joe that
he better send one hundred thousand over. It was gonna be a problem.
And then I think the next two days after that, he turned around and says, you guys got to start.
Get ready to go get some guns. He says, because if they don't do what I say or give me what I want, He goes, we'll go to war. That's why he you know, he did what he had to do. A couple of months later, it was a crazy time. Uh it's hot to explain it. You got it, you have to you have to live it, do it.
I got putting up, the putting up the mattresses.
Yeah, well right after, right after they killed the Colombo.
It's a hit on everybody.
Joe Joey pretty much got blamed.
Joey got blamed. Yeah, Joey got blamed.
He might have done it.
Well, that's another book.
That's another that's right right.
It's another book.
You can't get every secret out.
Then we have nothing left.
I just said, maybe I don't know.
Joey was blamed right away, because a black guy shot him.
No, you know, you know the whole story and stuff like that. Black guys shot joe Colombo and Joey Galla was in jail with the black guys and and so bright the way they blame Joey.
Yeah, president is color coded and Joey sided with the with the blacks instead of the lights.
Yes, so they put a hit on Joey and the crew. Bobby and my father hit was putting out billing right away. So yeah, I hit the mattresses so we couldn't leave.
Well, explain what that means.
Well, we had a stand up.
We had a couple of billions and clubs on the block, so we couldn't leave the black no more. We had We turned the apartments into a foot actually stood at the apartment and that went nowhere until unless you had to go somewhere. And we had bob wire on the windows. We had guys with guns snipers around, not in our building because the cops were watching. We had them on other buildings. But the cops weren't watching that, would you know, they were watching the bed guys coming. So it was
a lot going on. Like I didn't leave the block for six almost six months, except if they had to go, do I have to do something? But otherwise you were there twenty four hours on the block man during that seventy one to seventy two days.
Well did you get stir crazy? And the first time you left they shot at the car.
The first time, yeah, Bless Albot wanted to want the pizza, so they wanted They said, go get the pizza. A couple about half a dozen pizzas at Queen's Petia. Of course, you very good pitch pizzeria. Bless told us to go. Luis Seai and said don't go. So Bless turned them. I said, who's going to the young guys? MS will go after them. You're supposed to go after us, and we're getting the car to go there, and boom, we
got up. We made the corner of President and the van front and the car ran up on us and a half a dozen shots. I bust the car into a Johnny pump, destroyed the car.
That's a fire hydrant for the rest of my night.
And then, uh uh, that was a common coming night with something going on. I was there right after Joey got killed, going on what was going on again? And we're sitting in front of Albuts Club, and my future wife was with me, and and all of a sudden, guy a car comes running, running, running down Presiding Street. And it's funny because it's supposed to be a cop on the corner. But you know, with barricades, how they got through it, I don't and three a hand grenade
at us. It didn't go off. My wife ducked one way, I ducked another way and blessed uh, grabbed the girl at the time, and and and pulled her into the club. The thing didn't go off. And a couple of guys, Joe rathers jumped in cars and one after that, you know what I mean. So it was it was a hairy time. It was harry time.
Somebody should make a movie of it.
I remember the first time, you know, my wife comes, my girlfriend at the time, I couldn't leave the black and I just met a girl about a week before this should happened. The stuff happens, I mean, the girl and I could see it because I was I was stuck on President Street now during this walk. So my mother found out about it, and she went and picked this girl up and brought her to President Street and at the time, there was a police barricade. Had to go through police line with a with a couple of
cops on the corner. Next day, actually where you're going, and you would say, you're going to roil Roy's Club, Alberts Club, a Mondo's Club or whatever it was. So she comes in. I was in Railroays Club, Wilroid Musical. He was one of the members, and we were sitting there and we were talking to him, and oh, your mother brought me down. My mother went to the cross street at Albert's Club and we were sitting in there, and all sudden she's sitting there. I usually do to
the Railway Musical. And then one by one some of the guys, of course street came across and like you guys, really character guys. I mean there's strong personalities. You know, some are huge and some they talk really really rough, you know. Bobby Boy Yellow came over, introduced himself. This guy was a massive guy. You know what I mean, you're looking but massive, you know, a little intimidating me,
you know. Preston came over, and then all of a sudden, the midget comes over, a Mondo comes over, and the mono comes over and kisses her. So my wife is a girlfriend seeing this guys that gangs done Mitchell come in and the Mimsic coming over and kissing. It's it's I guess for a young girl it would be you'll be a little taken back. You know, I was used to it, but you know, I think she was shaking up a little bit.
She got used to it, and.
That's how she met the Galla crou.
And she's still around, grandmother to your grandchildren.
That's right, you're still around.
That is as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. Now, let's get to a very dramatic scene in this book. And you call it your dream, and you're eighteen in this dream supposedly in nineteen seventy four and yeah, nineteen sixty five Cadillac, and you're at a bar and there's some Puerto Ricans tell us about this altercation and this dream.
Well, the story goes, we're in a press box of flat pushit Avon on seventh Brooklyn. Apparently I didn't know there's some guys over there shaking down the bar and selling drugs out in the place.
I didn't know the press box. Call Chris yep. What they were doing.
They were they were selling drugs out of place and they were trying to shake the owner down. The owner of the place was pretty much with us that you know under you know, our help if we need He didn't even need help. So we're in one night, how many a couple of drinks, and my father noticed that these two guys were in the place. They were really huge, really guy for Spanish guys who were gigantic.
And what happened was he knowed something, so he wound up walking.
Into the bedroom. The guy followed him. The next guy knows that my father cracked him and actually hit him and they broke the door off the hinges. The other guy that was there started making a move to to my father another guy, and I wanted up. I wanted up hitting him breaking my hand and my father jump off that guy and wanted to knocking him out and then told me to go get the costs. I got
the cast so we can get out of that. The dream was that these two guys were picked up and one was beaten to debt, and I dreamed that I shot him and then my father cut him up and him in suitcases and dropped him back off of where they lived. That was a dream.
We were going to call the chapter Statute of Limitations, but we decided the dream would be trust me, it's a yes.
Now, Michael, let's talk about how the President Street Boys. What's the fate of the President Street Boys, the Gallow Gang? What does it? What happens with the Gallows? Tell us about insummation? Here? What happens with this crew and Red Hook?
The beginning of the end is when Joey gets killed. Because guys start deserting. They want to be on the side that's winning, so they go back with the Colombos. And then the remaining President Street Boys feel betrayed by those that left and put out hits on the guys that left, and all of a sudden, Frank's dad is supposed to go out and hunt for a guy who, you know, two years earlier had been a pal and
had been cooking for the gang and everything. And I think, Frank, if I'm not mistaken, this is about the time when the light goes on in your head and you realize that maybe it maybe the cowboys with the white hats and the cowboys with the black hats are really the same.
Is that right, you know, when these guys were very very close over money and stuff like that. These guys turned on each other in nineteen eighty, in seventy four. It was pretty bad watching guys that just one week you're you're helping out, going with and drinking with and going to them their wife's parties and they have little children. And then and the next week you shoot at each other. It's pretty crazy to be involved with that. But that's
what happened. They broke up over money power and like I said, a lot of guys that want to be with Albert, so they went back with the Columbos.
Like I said, right after that, Albert was, you know, friends with Giganti, and they.
Made the deal that if the Columbus, if Joe Colombo's crew a family and Columbo wasn't there anymore. I think it was. I think it was come on, Persico was I think he's in jail. I forget it was acting bost of the time. If you release the crew, they
go with the chin. And what happened was they were so sick that Columbus was so sick of the gallows, with the trouble and the arguments in the fighting, they released the whole crew, and everybody in nineteen seventy five, whoever wanted went with with Chin and the Genericie family and Whoevers didn't want to go go wherever you want to go, and that's what happened. That's how it ended. The Gallo crew. Everybody went with the whomever they want
to go with or Chin. A lot of guys went with Chin to guarantee.
Eventually the block itself goes under because in.
Seventy six, the laws seventy five they wanted they wanted break us up down there, because we had like a fortress down there. They all of a sudden they had to rip the streets out to put new sewer system in. So they put a new sewer system in, they got the whole street dug up, and all of a sudden the pumps didn't work one night, and they underminded all the homes on the block and they condemned the whole block and they got us off, and that's how they
destroyed the present street. And it's funny that was only it was only one block had the whole thing was old. It goes from Hicks to Van Brunt Hicks. They didn't have to fix this just our block, you know. So they wanted to say, figured how to do it, and they did it. When they figured what to do, they do it.
And that's about the end of the story.
And that's about the end of the story. We wandered with Albert with the Chin, and a whole new other story started.
Frank, did you ever meet Chin?
Sure, it's changed. We used to go Chin every week, you know, to go see him. Chin used to drop off Christmas a case of Tangier to my my mother for Christmas. We were close, My father was close with Hin for a little while.
That's the guy walked around Grantede village in his bathroom pretending he was crazy.
Yeah, I think this was just before that. It was just before that, you know. And then after that you didn't see him unless you were you were invited in the club personally. But yeah, we wound up like the whole other story, we wandered with Chin and then we're at it there too, So like that's another story. Chin was another one. Chin crazy, that guy who was smarter than he fooled everybody. Yeah, he fooled dead doctors, he
fooled their lawyers, fooled man. You got to be pretty good man, I don't know how stupid this guy was.
I'd say in this book that you chronicled the murderous life of gas Pipe Casso.
Definitely deadly. Is killer ever to come from Red Hook? And that's saying something.
Yeah, well that was at the end. He really lost it.
But no when I when I was, we used to meet at the eighteenth hole on uh fourteen den on Age sixth Street. I mean it was always a little out of it.
Most guys are out of their minds, but that's about golf course.
Yeah, I think there was be the eighteenth hole on the corner. They were all nuts, but he wasn't. He didn't seem that bad to you too. But at the end, to me, I think they would do drugs. I think that they have a noise set in and they was killing everybody just just to protect himself in case they went bad.
They just lost their mind at the end.
And how did your life? How did your life fare after this as well? Red Hook ceased to exist after a while. What did you morph into business wise.
In your life? Listen, we were always in the pornal business. We used to distribute a screw magazine for our ghosting. That's where we did all our lives. But we went from from President Street to Mulberry Street with Chin and then and then after Chin, we wound up with Would Save Me the Plumber in Jersey until everybody got pinched in nineteen ninety nine, and we walked away in nineteen ninety nine when everybody went bed, And that's how we walked away. If nobody went bed, we probably still doing
what we were doing. If maybe, but when everybody became informant in ninety nine, that's pretty much we walked away. At that time, we still had the pornal business with Screw, so we had legitimate money. Then we had a little restaurant at the time, so we pretty much walked away in two thousand and nineteen ninetety two thousand and from two thousand on, you know, we just got into other business.
Has always been when did Mob Candy start?
Two thousand and seven, that's that's Frank's magazine, Yes, two candy, Mob Candy Magazine started Girls and Mob Stories.
Well, they closed, We closed the school down in two thousand and five.
That was it. About two thousand and five, we were pretty much out of business because you know, with that Giuliani laws, and all that stuff, and we lost all the cases in court. So from two thousand and five to two thousand and seven I stood really low, and then we came in and then I met the Paonner. We came up with the Mob Candy magazine in two thousand and seven. Until now.
In closing, Michael, you talk about red Hook today in the epilogue, and you say that there was a a barge hosted a stage performance of On the Waterfront, screenplay by Bud Schulberg, and you I'd work with Schulberg previously. Tell us a little bit about some of the things that happened celebrating I guess red Hook.
Well, yeah, I think one of the nice things about the story is that even the grungiest parts of Red Hook are a little bit on the comeback. I think maybe the gentrification isn't going quite as quickly as some people hoped it would. But there are now hip clubs, and there are places to go with great restaurants you
want lobster, seafood excellent. And one of the places I found was the Waterfront Museum down at the end of Conover Street, southern tip of Red Hook, where Captain Dave has turned a barge into not only his home, but a museum and a show house where once was performed on the waterfront, which was largely written by Bud Schulberg in a bar right across the street which has been there for Everything's called Sunny's. Yeah. I worked with Bud
when I was editing Fight Game magazine. Of course he wrote on the Wall outer Front and was a boxing writer. So yeah, we went to the Evander Holyfield Lennox Lewis fight together. It was great to know him later in his life. He was he was, He was a tremendous guy. But red Hook would seem to be on the comeback, and I think that we don't want to give the impression that, you know, when the lights are off and the Carroll Street bridge, that means they're dumping the bodies.
I think those days are over, definitely.
You know, we used to race down in red Hook, a long dock, raced your cars. We used to race cars alone. That was a quart amount of track.
And on the other hand, I took a cruise with my wife earlier this year and it left and came back from the red Hook docks and getting five thousand people in and out of Red Hook after disembarking was really a difficult task. It was also it was a rainy day. It was the day of the batteries to the tunnel to towers. Race and streets were closed off. It took us three hours to get home, which was considerably longer than it would have taken us to walk it.
And there's still cobblestone down there.
Yes, that's right, it's right, very atmospheric. It was fun going around taking pictures of the Red Hook because it looks the same as it did in nineteen oh five in some places, yeaheah.
Some some places you can really catch it nostalgic.
Yeah, but no more feral dogs, no more.
They're eating them.
They're eating the dogs.
Now they're putting them on the plate.
Yeah, they're eating the cats and dogs.
You're right in the very end, Michael. You say, it's interesting to see artists living in Red Hook performing in Red Hook, But it is to forget how unthinkable these things would have been not that long ago, when warf, rats, human and otherwise ran over the piers looking for one brief moment of glory before a gunshot in the night brought down the curtain.
That's good who wrote that.
Yeah, making life us.
For those that have listened to this program, we didn't go into the personality of Carmi and Persico so much, but you haven't a previous book. Tell us about your previous book talking about Carmi and Persico.
Mine.
Oh, I'll like to tell you this one day. Carmine was a whole of them. Is a tough guy. R Mine was for Carmine. Carmund made a lot of good moves himself on mine, the life in jail. He was dedicated to what he did. Was he not crazy? He was crazy, just like anybody that's in that life. That's for real. Some guys are for real. Some guys like
to play the game. I don't disrespect Carmine, even though we haven't been friends or my family hasn't been friends with him, but you gotta respect the guy this guy was.
He was a tough guy and he was well liked.
His crew stow with him, his family student in true thirty years in jail, they never abandoned him. The guys that were close to whim when he was out, they took bullets with him and for him as a criminal, he's a criminal. What more can you say about the guy. Guy do a life in jail. It's got to be pretty committed. You know, he'll go yeah, yeah, he took it. He took his oath of America.
Seriously.
Oh he took him. Yeah he was, no, he was.
Here's for real. Comma was a real, real, tough real thanks to the tough guy.
Like what he did, and don't like what he did.
You know who said you're on and not is that's that's that's got nothing to do with it. The guy is a tough guy.
Survived several really decent assassin Asian attempts.
And it didn't didn't shake him. You know, most guys who run look at a fact. He was getting killed and he ran to a Florida or he thought that the guy who might get too close to him, and he ran to Florida. See the difference in somebody in the tough guy and some guys just playing the game.
And he never he never rat it on anybody. I just kept his kept his mouth shut and did his time.
Yes, So that's where you got to give him his respect for what he is.
You know what he did.
You know, if you you know, if you like you know, if you.
Admire gangsters and criminals and killers.
I mean, I mean they're very entertaining.
Yeah, I'm not sure we need to admire them to be entertained by them. These are complex characters. Are the most fascinating. Gangsters are the ones who are smart. Sure, you know, I had more trouble writing about Galante than I did about Persico because, uh no, the problem.
Is that most most gangsters, most gangsters, you don't know who they are. You know, we only we we write about who we can. You know who's out there, and you know that the lord now battle got busted or got the court all the time, or somebody had it on. There's so many unnamed gangsters that ran the whole show that has that killed more people than that the guys who got caught doing did the unknown gangsters that you don't about, that you don't supposed to know about.
That's that's how this thing worked, you know what I mean. We just so happened to.
Know these famous names because, like I said, they got arrested or somebody ratted them. But those those thirty forty famous names we can mention right now that you know a lot about. There's hundreds of guys that killed the hundreds of thousands of people that you don't know about. That's that's the untold story that that's that need to be told.
I want to thank you both Frank Di Matteo and Michael Benson for coming on and talking about you're fascinating Red Hook Brooklyn Mafia ground Zero. For people that might want to check out this book and your other books, Michael, can you revert to them, refer them to your your Amazon site and a website if you have one.
Yeah, if you google at author Michael Benson, it'll all come up for you. It's one word at at symbol author Michael Benson. That'll do it.
And Frank, could you give us a link to your.
Marm Kinney meg dot com. Just go there and everything should be up on there.
Got it.
Thank you so much, Thanks so much, Dan, thank you, Thank you very much. Frank, thank you very much. Michael, Red Hook Brooklyn Mafia ground Zero, thank you for this interview, and good night,