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Vincent “Chin” Gigante-------- Sometime during 1976, a few weeks after his uncle disappeared, my acquaintance Xavier Eboli paid Vincent “Chin” Gigante a visit. He had known The Chin all his life. More than friends, they were famiglia. An Eboli had married a Gigante, a Gigante had christened an Eboli baby, and the two families took turns sponsoring confirmations. Which is [...]
On April 7, 1972, New York mobster, Joey Gallo, was murdered while having a celebratory late night dinner at Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy. It was his birthday. On July 13, 1977, three friends and myself made the trek from the Upper East Side down to Umberto’s. We all craved what was widely known as the best spaghetti and [...]
When I moved to Little Italy in the fall of ’82, my ground floor studio on Mott Street was directly next door to the Café Espresso. This did not appear to be a fact that bore much significance, as the café was a broken down mess of a place, with faded gold letters peeling off a window crusted with dirt [...]
