Lion in the Basement Growing up in the Gallo Crime Family
Page 1
Autobiography
by Frank Dimatteo
Copyright 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the Publisher. Printed in the United States of America for information contact Frank Dimatteo 2920 Avenue R Brooklyn, New York 11229 Suite # 174
ISBN # 9781500893811
First Edition 2015
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Preface
The Publisher of 'MOB CANDY Magazine Brings You The Untold Stories of What life is Really Like Growing Up Inside the World of the American Mafia.
Frank DiMatteo grew up in the Mafia. His new book reveals the true stories behind some of the most infamous mobsters, mob wars and mob hits of the last half century.
Frank takes on the legendary tales that have for years been falsified and grown into urban myth.
As an insider who lived the life, up close and personal, Frank will share his unique perspective. His first-hand accounts and deathbed confessionals that will blow the lid off the secrets that have been confidential for so many years.
In honest and sometimes graphic detail, Frank will take his readers into a world they only thought they knew.
"The sun turned cold over President Street and the town of Brooklyn mourned, they said a mass in the old church near the house where he was born and someday if God's in heaven overlooking his preserve I know the men that shot him down will get what they deserve."
~Bob Dylan
Richard "Ricky" Dimatteo
A 'G' Grows in Brooklyn
It was Brooklyn in the 1960s. My father, Richard "Ricky"DiMatteo, was a bodyguard for crime boss Larry Gallo. Larry and his brothers, Crazy Joe and Albert "Kid Blast" Gallo were defiant gangsters who ran their own crew, their own group of urban outlaws, who defied the Mob's Commission. They played the game by their own set of rules. The Gallos were a different breed of gangster. They had their own style, their own way of operating and they challenged the norms of La Cosa Nostra. They eventually started an all- out war with the old school Dons who didn't like the way they were doing business. But before Joe Gallo went down in a hail of bullets at Umbertos Clam Bar on April 7, 1972, he and his brothers and their crew were among the most feared and ruthless gangs in the history of the American Mafia. This book tells the story of that President Street crew from the inside out by someone who was there. It also explores the result of the Gallo-Profaci war and how it shaped the other New York Crime families for decades to come. Unlike other mob books, this one will be part history lesson, part memoir, from the point of view of someone who grew up on the inside. Through first-hand experience, I will present a detailed account of legendary mafia meetings, harrowing crimes, violent confrontations and bedside confessions to mob murders that have remained a mystery until now. The book includes a who's who of the American Mafia in the second half of the 20th century i.e., dealings with bosses, capos, soldiers, as well as business men and celebrities from all walks of life including the sleazy world of pornography.
My baptism into La Cosa Nostra began in Brooklyn during the 1960's when my father, Richard "Ricky" DiMatteo, was a bodyguard for Larry Gallo. I was reared on the knee of the Mafia, you might say. It was always around me and I was always around it. I knew the ways of the street as well as I knew my ABCs; I knew the street better. I knew all the guys and they knew me, from when I was a baby. It was the world I grew up in. For me, it was normal.
Guys, who now only exist as characters in movies and books and as entries on Wikipedia pages, were my neighbors, my family, and my friends. So this book isn't a history lesson, even though there is history running through it. It isn't a tell-all, even though I'll tell you all I've seen. This book is a first-hand account of what it was like growing up inside one of the most notorious crews in the history of the American Mafia. It is a personal story, my story, and it will detail how working beside my father would allow my life to intersect with some of the most notorious gangsters of our time and how I would unwittingly bear witness to some of the most infamous moments in gangland history.
My father, who everybody in the neighborhood knew as "Ricky", was my idol. I wanted to be just like Ricky when I was growing up. Who wouldn't? He was good looking, well dressed, well respected, made money, drove fancy cars and seemed to have the world by the balls. When you're a kid you don't see everything for what it is. You believe what you perceive to be the truth. You believe what your parents tell you. You believe in mythology: Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Even when you're old enough to know better; old enough to know what's real and what isn't, if you still want the presents, you keep believing. To me, Ricky and the guys who hung out on President Street were Gods, in a world filled with Devils. I believed in the mythology of the Mafia. I can still remember all those President Street Boys and some of their great nicknames: Little Angelo, Cockeyed Butchie, Ralphie Goodness, Stanley the Hat, Mooney, Smokey, Punchy and Roy Roy. Then, of course, there were the Gallo's: Larry, Albert and Joey. When I was a little boy Joey, Larry or Blast would see me they would pinch my cheeks until I had tears in my eyes. They thought it was funny and it was their way of showing affection. I learned to tough it out. When you're around guys like that, on the streets of Brooklyn, you learn early on to be tough. So I got over the hard pinch on the cheeks. Pain was a regular part of this business, I would soon learn.
My father's life in the mob began in 1958, shortly after he was discharged from the army. Ricky, a high school graduate from a poor Italian family, bounced around, taking a maintenance job at American Airlines and then discovered that he liked to box, so he embarked on a short-lived middleweight boxing career at Sunny Side Gardens.
Soon after, Ricky hooked up with Anthony "Little Augie Pisano" Carfano and Anthony "Tony Bender" Strollo, who were caporegimes in the Genovese Crime Family. Carfano and Strollo ran nightclubs in the city and were looking for a bouncer. Ricky, who knew how to handle himself and others, got the job. He worked at The Wagon Wheel and The Gold Key clubs in Manhattan. Legend has it that one night Ricky got into a fight with welterweight champ Emile Griffith who had just turned pro. The word on the street was that Ricky floored him twice. Ricky didn't know who he was and threw him out of the club, because apparently Griffith, who was black, he was talking a little too much to a white girl in the club a definite no-no back then. While working as a bouncer for the Genovese guys, Ricky got to know the Gallo brothers, especially Larry and Joey, who at the time were members of the Profaci family from Brooklyn. They came to the clubs a lot since they were friends with Carfano and Strollo. Ricky became especially close with Larry Gallo, with whom he hit it off right away. So in September of 1959 when Carfano got shot in the back of the head in his Cadillac, Ricky began staying with Larry Gallo and his crew. This is how Ricky started his life with the Gallo's.
Ricky began working at The Hilltop Bar on Prospect Avenue and Prospect Park West in Brooklyn. Larry and his crew put him there to run the place. Around the same time, Mike The Bandit brought in a barmaid to work at the Hilltop. Her name was Amelia Fiore, my mother. Larry and Blast called her Dolly, and that eventually led to a shortened form of her nickname, Dee. I think everybody had to have a nickname back then! Anyway, this is how my parents met. Ricky showed Dee how to tend bar and that's when Cupids arrow struck them. If it hadn't been for the Hilltop Bar and the Gallo's, my mother and father might never have met and I might not have been in this world to tell the story. Like a lot of things in life, good and bad, they happen the way they were meant to happen. As a boy, on weekends I would go to the bar to make a few dollars. I
had a shoeshine box. When the guys came in they would laugh because they knew I was going to shine their shoes to try to make some money. They would give me $10 or more depending on who it was. The bigger the gangster, the bigger the tip, I made a good chunk of change. I could bring in $150 on a good Saturday afternoon. Not bad for a kid in the 1960s.
While Ricky worked at the bar, he grew close with the Gallo's and their crew, guys like Nicky Bianco, Bobby Darrow, and the others who hung out there. Also, while Ricky was at the Hilltop, the Gallo-Profaci War had erupted. The Gallo's had tried to overpower then boss Joe Profaci and seize control of the family. They saw Profaci as stingy and imposing unnecessary financial "tribute" which he insisted be paid by all family members. The Gallo's splintered off from Profaci and a civil war broke out. The boys had to "hit the mattresses" on President Street, where they had their clubs and hang-outs. Hitting the mattresses basically means that they were involved in an underworld feud, so key members of the family quickly moved to safe houses and other hide-outs from which they could plan their attack and be secure from rival attacks. The phrase, made famous in the film "The Godfather" refers to sleeping on mattresses thrown on the floor while they were hiding out, which many of them did as the war raged on. Roy Roy had a club there, where the boys could crash and be safe so did Armando The Midget. Armando was a dwarf gangster who worked for Joey Gallo. It was his job to walk Joey's pet lion, which was used to intimidate Gallo victims. There was Gargiulo's Flower Shop and Lefty Big Ears' joint too. They had the street locked down, President Street was their refuge from the bullets and violence of the war.
Ricky, being fairly new to the Gallo gang, was not yet widely known to be a member and could move around fairly easily and unharmed. For this reason, Ricky was able to be one of the shooters on the Carmine "The Snake" Persico hit. Persico had been an ally of the Gallo's but soon betrayed the Gallo crew. Profaci had secretly contacted Persico and offered him some very lucrative rackets if he would switch sides. Persico agreed and attempted to murder Larry Gallo. In retaliation for the botched attack on Larry, gunmen, including my father, ambushed Persico in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn. A panel truck pulled alongside Persicos car one night and he was shot in the face, hand, and shoulder. Persico lived but following that shooting, Ricky became Larry Gallo's bodyguard and right hand man. This was the start of a long and loyal friendship.
This was the start of my fathers and my own life in the mob. This book will take its readers inside the mob life like never before, for a personal, first-person account of what it was like to grow up in the underworld. It will describe in detail two generations of being in the "life", covering four decades. It will reveal the men behind the headlines, in their raw, day-to-day business affairs. It will show the seduction and inner-workings of the mob life in a brutally honest and inglorious way. Be warned, the details in this book will not be pretty at times. This is a no-holds barred account of the inner workings, from the mundane – intimate discussions about the Sopranos TV show with those who the show was based on -- to detailed deathbed confessions from mobsters about unsolved mafia murders. This book is 58 years in the making. The result is the most personal and accurate testament to life in the mafia that anyone has ever read. This book will dispel the myth of that world. It will set the record straight as to the facts in many of the most infamous events of mob history.
Me and Mom on First Place 1958
Table of Contents
A 'G' GROWS UP IN BROOKLYN
1. GROWING UP IN SOUTH BROOKYLN
2. THE GALLO BROTHERS
3. ARMANDO THE DWARF ILLANO
4. THE ORIGINAL CREW
5. WHO'S RICKY AND DEE
6. THE FIRST GALLO PROFACI WAR
7. THE COCO POODLE
8, FREEPORT LONG ISLAND
9, BACK TO BROOKLYN
10. HE MOD SQUAD
11. JOEY'S HOME
12. THE COURT TERRACE
13. SCREW MAGAZINE AND THE WORLD OF PORN
14. JOEY'S KILLING
15. MEETING EMILY 1973
16. THE SHIT HITS THE FAN 1973
17. HITTING THE STREETS
18. ON A ROLL
19. DIS AND DAT LOUNGE
20. THE PINCH
21. ON THE WAY TO NEW YORK
22. REFLECTIONS
"I Would Like To Thank~
the cast of characters~
MY FAMILY
Richard Dimatteo
Amelia Dimatteo
Emily Dimatteo
Kristina Dimatteo
Frank Dimatteo
Matthew Dimatteo
Chris Chairamonte
Valory Dimatteo
Louis and Josephine Floridia
Tony Crispe
Frank Esposito
MY THREE GRANDKIDS
Salvatore
Frank 111
Luciano
CREDITS
Copy Edtior- Carrol Torres
Cover Design- Laura Gordon
www.thebookcovermachine.com
Thank you for being a part of my life."
From the Author
This book is dedicated to Richard "Silver Fox" Dimatteo. We all have parents, some good, some bad and some different. I had Ricky and Dee. I was born into a crazy world of blood, guns, scores and violence and had no say in the matter. But I learned from what I saw, thing's most kids don't ever see, plus living a life most people don't live through. In my story I am not glorifying the life Ricky lead, it was his life to live the way he wanted too. Yet, if I didn't have these parents I would have never seen this world. This family I lived with were people I loved, subsequently I have no regrets. I stand proud to have Ricky and Dee as parents. It took many years for me to learn number one this was a bad life, number two I missed out on so much and number three this was my life too! Ricky has passed on and so has Bobby Darrow, Punchy, Uncle Joe Shep and Roy Roy. Now I am left alone with only memorizes of the life we lead in which I share here in this book with you.
RIP DAD
Red Hook in the Old Days
CHAPTER 1
Growing up in South Brooklyn
Let me start by telling you about my Neighborhood because it helped make me what I am.
The settlement of Brooklyn began in the 17th century as a small Dutch town of "Breuckelen" on the East River. It grew to be a large city in the 19th century, then was consolidated in 1898 with New York City.
Red Hook has been a part of the "Town of Brooklyn" since the beginning. It is named for the red clay soil, and for its (pointy shape into the bay). The Dutch colonists of New Amsterdam settled the village in 1636, and named it Roode Hoek. In Dutch "Hoek" means "point" or "corner". The actual "hoek" of Red Hook was a point on an island that stuck out into Upper New York Bay.
People who lived in the area of Red Hook have referred to their neighborhood as "The Point". In the 1800s shipping companies began to build ports. Those included the Atlantic, Erie and Brooklyn basins. By the 1920s or 1930s the area was poor, where the Red Hook Housing projects is now was the site of run down shacks for the homeless called a "Hooverville".
In the late 1800s the Brooklyn waterfront was worked by Italian, German and Irish immigrants called longshoreman. If you lived in South Brooklyn or The "Hook", you worked on the docks.
The areas are now known as Red Hook, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, and the Columbia Street Waterfront District.
I was born at 113 First Place between Court street and Smith Street, in 1956, I lived there until I was five. When I looked out the window I looked at "Scottos Funeral Parlor" and it was always busy.
Then I moved to Sackett street, between Smith Street and Hoyt Street. When I looked out that window I looked at Saint Agnes church, seeing coffin going in and out, it was an omen.
South Brooklyn was a mixed neighborhood, the blacks stood in the Gowanus projects and the Puerto Ricans were mostly on Smith street. The Irish were scattered around, we got along fine with some bullshit every now and then.
Every
thing was centered around the docks, if you were an Italian immigrant that's where you worked. The stores were mostly owned by Italians.
I have to mention first about "Helen's Candy Store" on the corner of Sackett Street and Smith Street. Helen and her sister ran the place, she was a stern woman. To get a smile out of her you had to do handstands but she had what you wanted, I spent a lot of time there buying penny candies and baseball cards and I truly miss them.
We had a ton of pork stores, fresh vegetable markets, hero shops, bread stores, pastry shops, restaurants, and bars. On Court Street we had "Romeos Deli", they were brother and sister, and their spouses ran it, they always had a smile, a warm word for you and treated you like family. The prosciutto and mozzarella heroes were out of this world. The Romeos got old and closed, a great loss to the neighborhood. "Esposito Pork Store", the owner was a friend of the family for years. I bowled and hung out with Frank Esposito, the father, at the local club. He was one of the nicest men you would ever want to meet. Espositos have the best of Italians imports and sausage in Brooklyn. They had a showcase with all the Italian Formaggio like Asiago, Gorgonzola, Grana Padano, Pecorino Romano, hanging were Prosciutto, Capicola, Salame, Sopressata, Pepperoni. The aroma when you walked in the store was like you would find in Italy. The sons are there now keeping it alive. "Aiellos Pork Store", on Court Street owned by two brothers who were "characters". My friends worked there when they were young. If you needed a job you'd go there cause they always needed someone. It was a huge food store with everything you need from Italy.
"Caputo Bakery", on Court Street, had the best Sicilian bread in a neighborhood that had many bakeries, it stood out. "Cammareri Bakery" on Sackett Street, some say they have the best bread in Brooklyn. They closed the bakery on Sackett Street but reopened elsewhere. "Mazzola bakery" on Union street had the best lard bread what can I say, it's there for Sixty years, they must be doing something right! "Court Pastry", on Court and Degraw Streets, my first cannoli and cheese cake was from there, and I still think they have the best lemon ice around. People who haved moved away are still coming back. "Montelone Pastry", on Court Street changed hands a few times but always kept the same ingredients because the cookies are to die for and they serve espresso while you wait. "Rainbow Vegetable Market", a small family owned market on Court Street and Sackett street, was run by father and sons. They knew everyone by name, and if you need broccoli rabe he had it, escarole had it. The fruits melted in your mouth and they would deliver to your house a two dollar bag of anything, the market is gone but not forgotten. On Smith Street we had "Joes Superette", I never met any one from the neighborhood that didn't say they had the best prosciutto balls and rice balls you ever ate. Joe got sick and passed away, another store lost. "Union Street Market", at Union Street and Smith Street a grocery store that was there forever. If you were Italian and on the Smith Street side you went there, the brothers are still there hanging out. We have "Damico's Coffee", on Court and Degrew streets. Frank and Alex were friends of the family. I grew up with their sons. You could smell the coffee roasting for blocks it was known for the smell of the the Italian coffee. With the neighborhood changing they got a letter from the city to stop the the roasting that people don't like the smell. What a kick in the ass for fifty years we woke up to the aroma, now the newbies don't like it. I would have said fuck you, you came here for the flavor of the neighborhood now you want to destroy it! Again "fuck you." Sal's Pizza, on Court street and Degrew street Johnny is a friend for a lifetime.