Gotham Unbound: How New York City Was Liberated from the Grip of Organized Crime.

• Author: Ferrall, Bard R.
• Position: Review

JAMES B. JACOBS WITH COLEEN FRIEL & ROBERT RADICK, GOTHAM UNBOUND: HOW NEW YORK CITY WAS LIBERATED FROM THE GRIP OF ORGANIZED CRIME (New York and London, New York University Press, 1999) 329 pp.

The crime organization generally known as Costa Nostra is distinguished from almost every other organized crime group in that much of its activity was directed at infiltration into legitimate business. Beginning in the 1930s, with the end of prohibition, several Italian-American criminal groups (which became known as "families") moved into labor and industrial racketeering. By the 1950s, they were entrenched in 24 major American cities, and had achieved hegemony over much of the underworld's activities. The first part of this book explains how the five "families" in New York infiltrated and exercised power over numerous sectors of the city's economy, including construction, the garment district, the Fulton fish market, and the waste-hauling industry. The authors attribute the racketeers' success to several factors. The groups relied on a reputation for violence, and so had to commit relatively few overt criminal acts. The families exhibited general business acumen, thereby achieving a rapport with legitimate business people. They did not try to take over the businesses, but sought only a portion of the profits. They controlled...