Throughout the United States, there is no single major metropolitan area more closely connected to organized crime than New York City. With the federal prohibition on alcohol in 1920, Gotham's shadowy underworld began evolving from strictly regional and often rag-tag street gangs into a sophisticated worldwide syndicate that was--like the chocolate egg crème--incubated within the confines of its five boroughs. New York City Gangland offers an unparalleled collection of rarely circulated images, many appearing courtesy of exclusive law enforcement sources, in addition to the private albums of notorious racketeering figures such as Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Al "Scarface" Capone, Joe "The Boss" Masseria, "Crazy" Joe Gallo, and John Gotti.

Get a taste of New York’s underworld by seeing where mobsters lived, worked, ate, played, and died. From the Bowery Boys and the Five Points Gang through the rise of the Jewish “Kosher Nostra” and the ascendance of the Italian Mafia, mobsters have played a major role in the city’s history, lurking just around the corner or inside that nondescript building. Bill “the Butcher” Poole, Paul Kelly, Monk Eastman, “Lucky” Luciano, Carlo Gambino, Meyer Lansky, Mickey Spillane, John Gotti—each held sway over New York neighborhoods that nurtured them and gave them power. As families and factions fought for control, the city became a backdrop for crime scenes, the rackets spreading after World War II to docks, airports, food markets, and garment districts. The streets of Brooklyn, swamps of Staten Island, and vacant lots near LaGuardia Airport hosted assassinations and hasty burials for the unlucky. The bloodlettings, arrests, and trials became front-page fodder for tabloids that thrived on covering Mulberry Street. Chinese, Russian, and Greek mobsters rose to prominence and wrought bloody havoc as well. Each of the book’s five sections—one for each borough—traces criminal activities and area exploits from the nineteenth century to now. Everyone knows about Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy, but now you can find Scarpato’s restaurant in Coney Island where Joe Masseria was killed by henchmen of Salvatore Maranzano, who in turn died in a Park Avenue office building at the hands of “Lucky” Luciano a few months later. From the Bronx to Brighton Beach, from New Springville to Ozone Park, here is a comprehensive, on-the-ground guide to mob life in the Rotten Apple.

Organized crime and the mob figures who run it have long captured the imagination of the American public, appearing since the early twentieth century as characters in a host of popular books, movies, and television programs. But often what the public knew of such figures and their criminal careers was as much myth as fact. This book offers highly readable, carefully researched biographies that dispel the the myths but preserve the fascination surrounding 10 infamous New York mob leaders of the twentieth century. Each in-depth biography will help interested readers understand how and why each of these men achieved special notariety within the world of organized crime. Each biography describes the early years of each man, assessing how he came to a criminal career; his rise to prominence within the mob, providing reaction from those who knew him and witnessed his actions; and the last years of his career, assessing why it ended as it did. Each biography is illustrated with a picture of its subject and concludes with a listing of additional information resources, both print and electronic. A detailed subject index provides further access to the large amount of information contained in each biography. A timeline allows readers to quickly and easily track the birth, death, and important events in the life of each mobster.

“A comprehensive account of the legendary 1978 heist . . . impressive.” —Kirkus Reviews The crime that inspired the movie Goodfellas. The rest of the story that couldn’t be told—until now. One of the biggest scores in Mafia history, the Lufthansa Airlines heist of 1978 has become the stuff of mafia legend—and a decades-long investigation that continues to this day. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Anthony DeStefano sheds new light on this legendary unsolved case using recent evidence from the 2015 trial of eighty-year-old mafioso Vincent Asaro, who for the first time speaks out on his role in the fateful Lufthansa heist. This blistering you-are-there account takes you behind the headlines and inside the ranks of America’s infamous Mafia families—with never-before-told stories, late-breaking news, and bombshell revelations. Praise for Anthony D. DeStefano’s TOP HOODLUM: Frank Costello, Prime Minister of the Underworld “An engrossing chronicle of the life of notorious Mafia boss . . . DeStefano’s canny insight into the don’s mind and motivations set this biography apart from others on Frank Costello.” —Publishers Weekly “DeStefano tells Costello's story well.” —Kirkus Reviews

In 1987, seasoned journalist Jerry Capeci was hired by the New York Daily News to cover the crime beat. His reporting on the Mafia proved so popular that he was given a weekly column, which was tagged "Jerry Capeci's Gangland." "Gangland" was an immediate hit with New Yorkers and continued for almost seven years. Capeci wrote on the everyday trials and tribulations of La Cosa Nostra, putting the mob under a microscope and laying bare the inner workings and day-to-day operations of both mob bosses and low-level street soldiers alike. He reported on such major mob events as John Gotti's murder conviction and Sammy "the Bull"Gravano's testimony that put Gotti behind bars.

Was he New York City’s last pirate . . . or its first gangster? This is the true story of the bloodthirsty underworld legend who conquered Manhattan, dock by dock—for fans of Gangs of New York and Boardwalk Empire. “History at its best . . . I highly recommend this remarkable book.”—Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God Handsome and charismatic, Albert Hicks had long been known in the dive bars and gin joints of the Five Points, the most dangerous neighborhood in maritime Manhattan. For years, he operated out of the public eye, rambling from crime to crime, working on the water in ships, sleeping in the nickel-a-night flops, drinking in barrooms where rat-baiting and bear-baiting were great entertainments. His criminal career reached its peak in 1860, when he was hired, under an alias, as a hand on an oyster sloop. His plan was to rob the ship and flee, disappearing into the teeming streets of lower Manhattan, as he’d done numerous times before, eventually finding his way back to his nearsighted Irish immigrant wife (who, like him, had been disowned by her family) and their infant son. But the plan went awry—the ship was found listing and unmanned in the foggy straits of Coney Island—and the voyage that was to enrich him instead led to his last desperate flight. Long fascinated by gangster legends, Rich Cohen tells the story of this notorious underworld figure, from his humble origins to the wild, globe-crossing, bacchanalian crime spree that forged his ruthlessness and his reputation, to his ultimate incarnation as a demon who terrorized lower Manhattan, at a time when pirates anchored off 14th Street. Advance praise for The Last Pirate of New York “A remarkable work of scholarship about old New York, combined with a skillfully told, edge-of-your-seat adventure story—I could not put it down.”—Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia “With its wise and erudite storytelling, Rich Cohen’s The Last Pirate of New York takes the reader on an exciting nonfiction narrative journey that transforms a grisly nineteenth-century murder into a shrewd portent of modern life. Totally unique, totally compelling, I enjoyed every page.”—Howard Blum, New York Times bestselling author of Gangland and American Lightning