John Gotti Essay -- Essays Papers

John Gotti If ever there was an incubator for crime it was the Italian Harlem tenements of the South Bronx. In one of those crowded dirty apartments, a young John Gotti seeked an impoverished existence with his parents and eleven sisters and brothers. His father rarely worked and then, only at menial jobs, risking the money that the family did have on gambling. Eventually the family moved to central Brooklyn, which was known as East New York. In East New York, for a poor boy like John Gotti with nothing in the way of prospects, the Cosa Nostra represented something to which he could realistic aspire to gain the power and respect he craved. He started as many young boys did, running errands for the gangsters, molding himself into a young bully with a future. His first major incident with the police occurred when he tried to steal a cement mixer and it fell on his feet, an injury that affected his gait for the rest of his life. He quit school at sixteen and rose to leadership in a local street gang of thieves called the Fulton-Rockaway Boys, named after two streets in their neighborhood. At an early age he exerted his bad temper, dominance and readiness to engage in fistfights. These were just the right characteristics to develop his potential as a Mafia boss. In the mid-1960's, Gotti's boss Carmine Fatico moved his headquarters out to Ozone Park near JFK Airport. Gotti, his brothers, Angelo and Willie Boy became relatively successful hijackers. That is, until they got caught in 1968 and landed in prison. In 1972, when Gotti got out of prison and went back to Ozone Park, the headquarters had been imaginatively renamed the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club. Two important things happened in his life to significantly lift his status in the Cosa Nostra. The first was that his boss Carmine Fatico faced a loansharking indictment, so Gotti became Fatico's man on the street to keep him informed about what was happening at a grass-roots level. The second was that Gotti met Neil Dellacroce, an important under boss to Carl Gambino. Neil accomplished Carlo's violent dirty work from a headquarters in Little Italy's Mulberry Street called the Ravenite Social Club. Neil, who was disappointed that his only son Armond became a drug addict, saw in Gotti a young protà ©gà © who was a younger version of his own violent, macho self. Lik... ...h as traffickers and as users. As a result, they have become more greedy, selfish, more violent. Many have chosen to forsake omerta, the traditional vow of silence and turn in other family members to save their own skins." Mr.Lombardo himself stated that there were no men of honor anymore. He states: "It has changed since I first joined in the 1940's, especially in the last few years with the growth of narcotics. Greed is causing younger members to go into narcotics without the knowledge of the families. These younger members lack the discipline and respect that made "This Thing" as strong as it once was." Bibliography: 1. Ianni, Francis. Black Mafia. New York : Simon and Schuster, 1972 2. Kelley, Robert J. â€Å"Organized Crime : Past , Present, and Future.† USA Today July 1994 3. Mueller, Tom. â€Å"Cosa Nostra† The New Republic 15 April. 1996: 17-18 4. Reuter, Peter. â€Å"The Decline of the American Mafia† Public Interest Summer 1995 5. http://www.naxs.com/people/mmachi/mafia/ 6. http://www.naxs.com/people/mmachi/mafia/ 7. http://www.pressanykey.com/mafia/history.html 8. http://members.aol.com/whizkid01/hist.html 9. www.ganglandnews.com