Free Manhattan Mafia Guide by Eric Ferrara Page B

was the third oldest.)
    One theory suggests that while growing up at this Broome Street address, young Matty was christened with the nickname the Horse by neighborhood friends because of his stocky, five-foot, eleven-inch frame and impressive physical strength. Another theory claims that he earned the name after being arrested for receiving and selling twenty-two pounds of heroin in 1951, though all charges were dropped. 64

    384 Broome Street, the childhood home of Matty Ianniello, today. Courtesy of Sachiko Akama .

    Matty “the Horse” Ianniello, Seward Park High School yearbook photo, 1939. Courtesy of David Bellel, knickerbockervillage. blogspot.com .
    It is unclear how exactly Ianniello was initiated into the Mafia, but records allude to the fact that he worked as a waiter for his uncle, Joseph Zarrella, in 1940, then in the shipyards of Brooklyn between 1941 and 1943, before joining the war effort. After serving a tour of duty in the South Pacific, Ianniello returned a highly decorated war hero and made his first foray into restaurant/nightlife entrepreneurship when he and Joseph Zarrella partnered to open the Towncrest Café in 1949 at Forty-ninth and Broadway. The Towncrest was a supper club where young Tony Bennett got his start, singing for “coffee and cake.” 65
    By the 1970s, under Ianniello’s thumb were the thriving topless bars and adult theaters of Times Square; tattoo and massage parlors; after-hours nightclubs, casinos and gay bars; restaurants and cafés; vending machine and garbage collection routes; construction and transportation unions; and even the New York public school bus industry.
    With a criminal career spanning several decades, Ianniello spent remarkably little time behind bars as a youth. However, his luck ran out in December 1985, when the sixty-four-year-old veteran gangster was sentenced to six years in prison for “skimming more than $2 million from bars and restaurants” under his control. 66 The federal government took over control of Umberto’s for the following seven years in an attempt to curb organized crime in the Little Italy district.
    While in prison, Ianniello, along with fifteen others, was sentenced to an additional six years on several RICO counts of “labor racketeering, construction bid-rigging, extortion, gambling and murder conspiracies.” 67
    Released from jail in 1995, the Horse took over as acting boss of the Genovese family by 1997, when Vincent Gigante was sentenced to twelve years in prison for racketeering and conspiracy. Freedom did not last long: Ianniello found himself behind bars again by 2005, this time for extorting a medical center. Two more consecutive convictions would keep him incarcerated until his release on April 3, 2009, at the tender age of ninety-four.
    K ELLY , P AUL
315 East 25 th Street, 1901; 421 East 119 th Street, 1908; 345 East 116 th Street, 1910
Born: December 23, 1876, New York City (b. Vaccarelli, Paulo Antonio)
Died: April 1936, New York City
Association: Paul Kelly Association, Morello-Terranovas
    Open up any gangster book or land on any relevant webpage, and you will almost inevitably read the story of how Paul Kelly was leader of the Five Points gang and responsible for breeding the likes of Johnny Torrio, Charlie Luciano and Al Capone.

    345–53 East 116 th Street, the street where Paul Kelly lived by 1910, today. Courtesy of Shirley Dluginski .
    I would like to go out on a limb here by saying that the common Five Points gang story may not be accurate. After years of painstakingly sifting through original source documents, re-creating the timeline and studying all the prominent characters involved, it is my contention that any connection between Paul Kelly and the Five Pointers has been misidentified or exaggerated. The person with the most enduring effect on what was called the Five Points gang was a boxing manager and saloon owner named Jack Sirocco, who somehow has been reduced to a footnote in gangster history.
    I’d