Free Manhattan Mafia Guide by Eric Ferrara

shortly before arriving in New York City. Sometime after settling in America, the family adopted the name Gigante.
    The alias Chin (insiders say it was just Chin, not the Chin) was said to have derived from a childhood nickname given to him by his mother, but it also suited him well in the boxing ring. During the 1940s, young Gigante fought in the 170-pound weight class and earned an impressive record of twenty-five wins and four losses (twenty-one wins by knockout).
    Chin’s lifelong loyalty to Vito Genovese was said to have originated from an incident in Vincent’s childhood. Genovese allegedly assisted the Gigante family financially when he heard mother Iolanda needed an operation, and young Vincent was forever grateful. By the time Gigante fought his last professional contest in 1949, he had racked up multiple arrests and formed close relationships with several organized crime figures. His boxing manager was none other than Thomas “Tommy Ryan” Eboli, a Genovese strong-arm and future acting family boss.

    181 Thompson Street today. Courtesy of Shirley Dluginski .

    Vincent “Chin” Gigante mug shot, 1960.
    In 1947, Gigante was arrested and charged with arson and grand larceny, though these charges were reduced to malicious mischief, and he was placed on four years’ probation. In June 1950, while on probation, Gigante was sentenced to sixty days in the workhouse for his role in an illegal gaming scheme, which operated betting pools at several Brooklyn colleges. Twenty-one-year-old Gigante was charged with distributing betting cards at various local campuses, where students gambled on basketball games.
    During the 1950s, Gigante provided muscle for Genovese’s Little Italy crew and “made his bones” on May 2, 1957, by brazenly attempting to murder family boss Frank Costello in a bid by his mentor to take over the organization. Costello survived the hit, and Gigante went underground, as word that he was the triggerman had reached authorities. While detectives were staking out Chin’s apartment at 134 Bleecker, they stopped two of Gigante’s brothers, Mario and Ralph, who had driven by the location. Mario struck one officer who was questioning him and had to be wrestled to the ground. In the car, they found a hatchet and a baseball bat. Mario Gigante was charged with felonious assault, carrying a concealed weapon, driving without a license and vagrancy, but the brothers did not give up the location of Vincent.
    Three months after Costello was shot, on August 19, 1957, Gigante walked into the West Fifty-fourth Street police station with his lawyer and turned himself in. Gigante was charged with attempted murder in the first degree and pleaded innocent. During the May 1958 trial, Costello testified that he did not see who fired the shot that should have killed him and that he had never seen Vincent Gigante before. The prosecutors’ star witness, a doorman at the swanky apartment building where the shooting occurred, was painted as incredulous by the defense, and the case fell apart. (The man apparently suffered from “poor vision in one eye.”) On May 29, 1958, after thanking the jury “from the bottom of [his] heart,” Gigante walked away a free man. He told reporters, “I knew it had to be this way because I was innocent.” 61 He then claimed to be headed back to work as a truck driver and resume a normal life; however, he returned to the courtroom less than a year later for his alleged role in an international narcotics trafficking ring.
    On April 17, 1959, fifteen co-conspirators in the federal trial received a total of 162 years in prison. New family boss Vito Genovese was sentenced to fifteen years, and Natale Evola received a ten-year term, while Gigante only received seven. The judge in the trial granted Chin leniency, persuaded by a “flood of letters from reputable citizens” who testified to Gigante’s “good works for juveniles in the Village.” 62
    Gigante was promoted to capo of the