In the brilliant mafia TV show, The Sopranos, the mobsters from the fictional New York crime family, the Lupertazzis, often make fun of New Jersey. However, in real life, New Jersey was of great importance to the five New York families. Let’s check it out. I’m James Gladwish and welcome to OC Shorts, bringing you detailed historical snapshots of the American mafia and other organized crime.
Feel free to subscribe if you like that sort of thing. I sat down for a fascinating conversation with respected mob historian Scott Deitche, a man who has penned books about the mob in New Jersey, including Garden State Gangland, and his new book, Jersey Boss, which covers the life and times of New Jersey-based Genovese powerhouse Jerry Catena.
We discussed the importance of New Jersey for the New York families. Hi Scott, thanks again for coming on. It’s been a pleasure, always a pleasure speaking with you. Um I’d like to talk a little bit about the importance of New Jersey to the New York families. Because obviously we know that there were some big, you know, some really powerful mobsters who moved out of New York and live in New Jersey.
I’d like Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia. But it’s also very prominent in some mob hits, things like Tommy Eboli, um Willie Moretti. But in terms of the business side of things, you know, we know that the Genovese had quite a prominence on the on the waterfront there. Mhm. And obviously the Bonanno family as well um was quite prominent there.
Were there other kind of other families kind of, you know, dipping their toes into New Jersey? I mean, what’s what’s your understanding of the importance of New Jersey to the New York families? Yeah, so let’s start at like the 100,000-ft view. Why is New Jersey important? Uh New Jersey is the crossroads between Philadelphia and New York for one thing, so uh you have kind of the bedroom communities on both sides, and certainly around New York, you have the economic impact of New York City definitely bleeds over into New Jersey.
Uh and going back to the kind of the foundation of the early years of the mafia the early 20th century, certainly in a prohibition, uh the docks, the ports, the railroads, the Jersey Shore, Atlantic City, these are all, you know, economic drivers for organized crime in their own right. So, it’s only natural that New York would look over to Jersey and and and see, you know, opportunities there.
And sure you had, you know, like seven, eight families operating Jersey. You can kind of debate whether the Buffalinos were really involved in later years, but even in the early years you had the small Newark family, you had the small Elizabeth family, but they were they weren’t that big compared to the larger impact of New York.
So, I I I I think also just the just the proximity. I mean, it’s where I grew up uh where I was born in in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, it’s you know, you can look right across and see Staten Island. So, it’s not a big geographic distance uh to go from New York over to New Jersey. So, that’s why it was attractive for a lot of them to live there, a lot of them have businesses there.
And then you mentioned the Genovese, the Bonannos, the Lucchese family obviously became really big in in New Jersey. They had a couple of New Jersey crews, the Gambinos had operations, the Colombos. So, all all five of the New York families, certainly by kind of the golden age of the mafia 50s, 60s, 70s, were extremely active in New Jersey.
Uh one other thing, too, that’s that’s important to note, especially post World War II with the suburbanization of the United States, but certainly in the New York metro area, uh Jersey was ripe for development. So, construction, unions, all that really started to become big in New Jersey. So, obviously, you know, New York has gone where the money is, and it’s it’s across the bridges.
Well, I think it’s interesting because obviously, for example, the Genovese family is power centric as normally been obviously the the guys out the village or the guys uptown um you know, with the my cobblers from the 116th Street crew. But there was a there was a phase where you had like Tino Fiumara rising through as a a prominent individual and if he hadn’t had his legal issues, then some say that you know, he he could have potentially been a a candidate for boss and that would have kind of shifted a the power centric to
from his although he wasn’t living there at the time. He would move to away, but Yeah, and so take a look at the Genovese family. Who are where are your two big bases of operations? It’s obviously people think of the Harlem you know, the Greenwich Village. They’re they’re two different. So you had like Chin Gigante that whole village kind of scene. There was the East Harlem scene.
But then Jersey cuz you had Catena, you had Genovese living in New Jersey, you had Eboli living in New Jersey. Um you had you mentioned Fiumara in New Jersey. You had John DiGilio in New Jersey. You had a lot of their Richie the Boot New Jersey. Um so the I think the Genovese very very powerful in New Jersey and I and I would say probably their second most powerful base of operations for sure.
So regarding New Jersey as we just been discussing, you know, you you got the big five five New York families, you know, with their presence in there which is strongly felt especially on the waterfront and and things like that. And then obviously you’ve got the DeCavalcante family who who come up. And then obviously in New Jersey you’ve got your your Philadelphia as well.
I mean, it’s interesting like when you look at the Valachi charts, they have um Tony Bananas Caponigro, you know, they they’ve got him listed as a Genovese member incorrectly, you know, but is that cuz of his kind of Newark cuz he was based in Newark? I mean, what was the kind of relationship like within there? You know, where were the boundaries and the borders with regards to obviously Philadelphia, the DeCavalcantes, and then and then the and then the other five families? So generally generally Philly had the kind of the southern tier
of New Jersey. Um And we’ll talk about exceptions in a minute, but they went out to Atlantic City, you know, back in the day. That’s where Nicky Scarfo got his start, cut his teeth. The DeCavalcante family were primarily in the Elizabeth, Middlesex County, Union County area, Linden. Then the New York families kind of spread out among kind of the northern tier of New Jersey, some of the larger cities, whether it’s Fort Lee or Jersey City.
Newark and then Newark had you had representation from several different families there and you had a Bruno Scarfo kind of outpost in >> I was going to say the Philadelphia family. Yeah, they you know, they bring from they you know, they did have a big kind of thing in Newark. Yeah, so they had one and that was kind of an artifact of way back when one of their early bosses actually lived up in that area of New Jersey.
So there was always a crew up there. But then of course like you have the Cherry Hill Gambinos which are right in Philadelphia territory. The Bonannos were kind of over Bayonne, Joe Zicarelli, so kind of the the area around Bayonne. So they had territories, but they weren’t Over time they they kind of blended together and it was it was more about what kind of rackets they were running where the Luccheses had a very strong presence at the Jersey Shore in Ocean County and Monmouth County.
And then there were places like Deal which was kind of a vacation spot where you would have like Longy Zwillman and Russi Russo. All these you know, over the years different guys kind of hanging out there. So Well, what when we went to Longy Zicarelli, I mean I did a piece fairly recently in terms of John Gotti came up under his wing in the Bonannos initially obviously before he became a made man and then there was some kind of falling out and then he moved to the Genovese and you know, there’s it was that kind of there’s still those
rivalries along the way in terms of business interest way? Yeah, and you see that a lot in New Jersey. Guys that start with one family and end up getting made in another. The Amaro, perfect example. You know, he Philadelphia, yes. starts with Philadelphia. Um, and I think that’s because it’s a small state.
People are kind of stepping over each other. Um, but just those alliances are shifting. And certainly in the you know, within associates, you have guys that are associated with three or four families just by virtue of being in New Jersey because that’s where they’re all operating. So, yeah, it’s kind of an interesting situation there.
And that’s why it’s in terms of because of their size. Like obviously Philadelphia and the caliber counties being smaller, they still kind of defer to the New York families in terms of decision like, you know, we we know the battle of the control of Philadelphia, control of the Philadelphia family regarding the the Genovese and and things like that.
Um, and that that is the main reason. It’s because of their size. Even though their presence in New Jersey, they these these the Philadelphia and the caliber counties, they still play second fiddle to a certain extent to the the the New York guys. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And even a boss like Sam DeCavalcante, who was obviously widely respected um, by New York, you know, he could never go to war against the Genovese.
He just didn’t have all these people. In fact, I think um, in one of the wiretaps, he was complaining. Might have been to to uh, Jip DeCarlo or someone about you know, his family’s a bunch of old men. You know, at that point. Uh, so yeah, uh, New York always had a long shadow certainly over Jersey.
Even amongst the kind of the more indigenous homegrown groups. As mentioned, Scott has a new book coming out called Jersey Boss about the life and times of Genovese crime family powerhouse Jerry Catena. So, what can people expect from your book? So, with Jersey Boss, one of the things I wanted to do was was tell the story of kind of Jerry Catena’s rise, his life, and and kind of parallel that with what was going on in the mafia in in New Jersey at the time.
Uh the other thing I did which which I’ve never really done in a book before is I actually have a whole chapter called like who was Jerry Catena. So I talked to family members, people that knew him, just you know uh things on wiretaps, just what kind of person he was cuz cuz sometimes I think when we when we do these mob bios or talk about these mob guys, we we spend a lot of time on the criminal aspects, but you know, I thought he was kind of a really interesting individual.
Uh he was in the papers a ton in the 1940s, but not for any gangster stuff, for golf. He was He was a successful amateur golfer. Uh so you know, these are kind of like little quirks that I thought were interesting. So I I kind of try to flesh it out a little bit more in terms of of not only what he did, but who he was in the context of of organized crime.
