A speakeasy in the Roaring '20s, the William Barnacle Tavern, 80 St. Marks Place in Manhattan, was not just a haven for bootleggers during Prohibition but also the bar where the City Council liked to tip back an illegal few. The owner has collected artifacts in the Museum of the American Gangster, above the tavern. Curator Lorcan Otway knows the stories behind his Mafia collection and the tales of the tavern back when organized crime ruled the streets and speakeasies alike.
If you visit the site of the real Dead Rabbits Riot that director Martin Scorsese portrayed in "Gangs of New York," you'll find not Bill the Butcher but a wall of Chinese characters and the signature aroma of Szechuan. On July 4 and 5, 1857, with "an old grudge growing out of the last election," according to news accounts from that time, the Dead Rabbit Party and the Bowery Boys faced off in the old Five Points neighborhood. To follow in the footsteps of this riot, start on Bayard Street at Mulberry Street in Lower Manhattan and walk toward Bowery Street, passing Mott and Elizabeth streets.
At Fifth Avenue and 98th Street in Manhattan, the edge of Central Park lures New Yorkers to its lush greenery. On the other side of Fifth Avenue, crime historians are drawn to the building where a 1727 Stradivarius violin worth $3.5 million was taken from the closet of violinist Erica Morini, 91. There was no forced entry, and the thief used a hidden key to access the prized violin. In ill health, Morini died shortly after the violin was discovered missing on Oct. 18, 1995. She was never told about the crime, and the Stradivarius has never been recovered. As of the date of publication in May 2013, it remained one of the FBI's top 10 art crimes.
Mob history looms everywhere in New York. If you grab a latte at the Starbucks in the Park Central Hotel at 870 Seventh Ave., you're standing where Mafia boss Albert Anastasia was shot in the Park Sheraton Hotel barbershop on Oct. 25, 1957. The Sullivan Street Tea and Spice Company at 208 Sullivan St. used to be the Triangle Social Club, home base for former Genovese crime family boss Vincent “The Chin” Gigante. The De Robertis pastry shop at 176 First Ave. was so popular with the Genovese and Gambino crime families that the Feds bugged the place to track one of John Gotti's underbosses.
When landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport you might not be aware that you're at the scene of a historically huge heist that would become a scene in the movie "GoodFellas," also directed by Scorsese. With the assistance of a Lufthansa cargo supervisor, armed men connected to the Lucchese crime family stole more than $5 million in cash as well as nearly $1 million in jewels in a brazen burglary in the wee hours of Dec. 11, 1978. In just over an hour the henchmen got it, got their stash and got out without tripping any alarms.
