NO one can argue that NYC used to be the leading city in America; be it the epicenter of finance, or the top-tier in the cultural arts. Other arenas, alike.
THIS was so despite the lawlessness of the 1980’s, as it segued into the 1990’s. Fueled by the ineffective, latter years of the addled Mayor Ed Koch, then, piled on by the disastorous term of “hands-off criminals” policies via Mayor David Dinkins, well, what else should have been expected!? Rhetorical.
BUT it wasn’t until Mayor Rudy Giuliani took over the helm that the city was restored to its former glory.
IN brief, it was through the uncompromising, no excuse-making application of “Broken Windows” policing by Police Commish William Bratton (under the glorious reign of Mayor Giuliani) that NYC came roarin’ back.
ALAS, as always, it took the election of Comrade Bill DeBlasio to smash law and order into smithereens; further obliterated by “all talk, no action, overblown ego” Mayor Eric Adams.
and, so on and so forth the dismantlements march on.
MIND you, it was the very same Mayor Giuliani who cleaned up NYC in the first place, that is, under the application of the RICO Act.
Heralded under the 6-year reign of Rudy Giuliani (as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, 1983-1989), RICO was utilized as the blessed tool to smash organized crime into smithereerns! A Herculean and most treacherous feat.
Giuliani announced that his top priority as U.S. attorney was to defeat organized crime in New York, where the chiefs of the so-called “Five Families” lived and operated. He read Mob boss Joseph Bonanno’s 1983 memoir A Man of Honor, in which Bonanno described meetings with bosses of the other four families — Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese — a national ruling body referred to as “the Commission.” The Commission, going back to 1931, met secretly to settle differences, consider new members, approve murders and dole out money earned through racketeering. Giuliani received permission from Washington to pursue a case against the Commission. By 1984, 350 FBI agents and 100 New York Police detectives were investigating the Mob. At the time, an estimated 1,000 “made” men and 5,000 Mob associates lived in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and elsewhere.
Giuliani’s probe included the placement of court-allowed recording devices in 1984 in places such as the Palma Boys Social Club in New York, where Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno held court, Paul Castellano’s home on Staten Island, an automobile used by a Colombo family member and a Jaguar car used by Lucchese family associate Sal Avellino to chauffeur various mobsters. From hundreds of hours of recorded conversations, investigators heard the gangsters talk about the Commission, narcotics sales and the contract murder of Bonanno figure Carmine Galante in 1979.
Giuliani decided to prosecute the leaders of the families and their upper-level cohorts together under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, for allegedly conspiring to commit felonies including contract murders, loan sharking, extortion, labor racketeering and drug trafficking. It was the first time RICO, passed by Congress in 1970, was employed to prosecute a major federal case.
He argued the case before a federal grand jury and in February 1985 obtained indictments against a laundry list of New York’s Mob leaders and their lieutenants: Bonanno family boss Phil Rastelli and capo Anthony Indelicato; Colombo boss Carmine Persico and member Ralph Scopo; Gambino boss Paul Castellano; Genovese boss Anthony Salerno and member Gennaro Langella; Lucchese boss Anthony Corallo, underboss Salvatore Santoro and consigliere Christopher Furnari. Soon afterward, Castellano was shot and killed outside a restaurant in Manhattan and Rastelli was tried in a separate RICO case.
NOW that that is clarified and settled, it is more than useful to possess a bird’s eye view, so to speak.
READERS may know (or not) that this writer’s beloved brother, Morty Dzikansky, NYPD Homicide Det., First Grade (for 25 + yrs.), suddenly, passed away in 2022.
A little before his passing, he confided: On his last trip to NYC from Israel (where he lived, from the time that NYPD Commish Kelly assigned him to a Counter-Terrorism posting), in 2022, he had a lenghty confab with the Counter-Terrorism Unit – of which he was an integral part of its initial formation under Commish Kelly, as well as a key member.
IT was a two-part conference; indeed, horrific in nature! Not only are Islamic jihadis running amok throughout NYC (the media hushes it up, censors), but law and order has totally disappeared. Disintegrated. Yes, all “credit” was given to the DemonRats via so-called “bail reform” ala Soros-aligned, radical left prosecutors. A purposeful, sure-fire recipe for disaster.
IN any case, since Det. Dzikansky knew every inch of NYC and all of its hidey-holes, he went on a, sorta, personal look-see. Naturally, he was strapped – recognizing that his beloved city degenerated into the wild west.
IN any case, in retrospect, it is interesting to take a look-back to his last interview (among countless….here, here….), in 2022. And while the city’s break-down was not part of the discussion, much can be gleaned. Moreover, the back and forth “cop-talk” and banter among colleagues – whose professional lives have always been on the line – well, is more than instructive. Yes, it is a crystal clear window into their heroic souls!
WITHOUT further ado, decide for yourselves –
