The Westies
The Westies were a New York City-based Irish-American organized crime gang, responsible for racketeering, drug trafficking, and contract killing. They were partnered with the Italian-American Mafia and operated out of the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan.English, T. J. ''The Westies: Inside New York's Irish Mob'' (1991); St. Martins Press; /. According to crime author T.J. English, "Although never more than twelve to twenty members—depending on who was in or out of jail at any given time— the Westies became synonymous with the last generation of Irish in the birthplace of the Irish Mob." According to the NYPD Organized Crime Squad and the FBI, the Westies were responsible for 60–100 murders between 1968 and 1986. They also had little union influence except for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and Sheet Metal Workers' International Association that Tom Devaney and Dominick Montiglio had belonged to. History Spillane years In the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Time Warner Center
Deutsche Bank Center (also known as One Columbus Circle and formerly Time Warner Center) is a mixed-use building on Columbus Circle in Manhattan, New York City, United States. The building occupies the western side of Columbus Circle and straddles the border between Hell's Kitchen and the Upper West Side. It was developed by The Related Companies and Apollo Global Management, and designed by David Childs and Mustafa Kemal Abadan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Deutsche Bank Center features twin towers, connected by a multi-story atrium. The building has a total floor area of . It contains office space, residential condominiums, the Mandarin Oriental, New York hotel, and the Jazz at Lincoln Center entertainment venue. The Shops at Columbus Circle shopping mall is placed at the base of the building, with a large Whole Foods Market grocery store on the lower level. The building was built on the site of the New York Coliseum, formerly New York City's main convention center ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Italian-American Mafia
The American Mafia, commonly referred to in North America as the Italian-American Mafia, the Mafia, or the Mob, is a highly organized Italian-American criminal society and organized crime group. The terms Italian Mafia and Italian Mob apply to these US-based organizations, as well as the separate yet related Sicilian Mafia or other organized crime groups in Italy, or ethnic Italian crime groups in other countries. These organizations are often referred to by its members as Cosa Nostra (, "Our Thing" or "This Thing of Ours") and by the American government as La Cosa Nostra (LCN). The organization's name is derived from the original ''Mafia'' or ''Cosa Nostra'', the Sicilian Mafia, with "American Mafia" originally referring simply to Mafia groups from Sicily operating in the United States. The Mafia in the United States emerged in impoverished Italian immigrant neighborhoods in New York's East Harlem (or " Italian Harlem"), the Lower East Side, and Brooklyn; also emerging in o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New York Coliseum
The New York Coliseum was a convention center that stood at Columbus Circle in Manhattan, New York City, from 1956 to 2000. It was designed by architects Leon Levy and Lionel Levy in a modified International Style, and included both a low building with exhibition space and a 26-story office block. The project also included the construction of a housing development directly behind the complex. The Coliseum was planned by Robert Moses, an urban planner and the chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA). In 1946, it was proposed to build a convention center within a new Madison Square Garden building at Columbus Circle. This plan was not successful, nor was another plan for the Metropolitan Opera House. After years of delays, the Coliseum was approved in 1953, and construction started in 1954. The Coliseum hosted its first exhibits on April 28, 1956, followed by hundreds of conventions over the next four decades. The Coliseum supplanted the Grand Central Palac ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Loansharking
A loan shark is a person who offers loans at extremely high or illegal interest rates, has strict terms of collection, and generally operates outside the law, often using the threat of violence or other illegal, aggressive, and extortionate actions when seeking to enforce the satisfaction of the debt. As a consistent or repeated illegal business operation or " racket", loansharking is generally associated with organized crime and certain criminal organizations. Description Because loan sharks operate mostly illegally, they cannot use the legal system to collect such debts, thus they often resort to enforcing repayment by terms of blackmail and threats of violence. Historically, many moneylenders skirted between legal and criminal activity. In the recent western world, loan sharks have been a prominent feature of the criminal underworld. Loan sharking is not to be confused with predatory lending with extremely high interest rates such as payday or title loans, which is s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Numbers Game
The numbers game, also known as the numbers racket, the Italian lottery, Mafia lottery, or the daily number, is a form of illegal gambling or illegal lottery played mostly in poor and working-class neighborhoods in the United States, wherein a bettor attempts to pick three digits to match those that will be randomly drawn the following day. For many years the "number" has been the last three digits of "the handle", the amount race track bettors placed on race day at a major racetrack, published in racing journals and major newspapers in New York. In the loosest sense of the word “ racket”, the numbers game is a common racket or ongoing criminal scheme among organized crime groups, especially in the United States. Gamblers place bets with a bookmaker ("bookie") at a tavern, bar, barber shop, social club, or any other semi-private place that acts as an illegal betting parlor. Runners carry the money and betting slips between the betting parlors and the headquarters, ca ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bookmaking
A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays out bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds. History The first bookmaker, Harry Ogden, stood at Newmarket in 1795, although similar activities had existed in other forms earlier in the eighteenth century. Following the Gaming Act 1845, the only gambling allowed in the United Kingdom was at race tracks. The introduction of special excursion trains meant that all classes of society could attend the new racecourses opening across the country. Runners working for bookmakers would collect bets in clock bags. Cash flowed to the bookmakers who employed bodyguards against protection gangs operating within the vast crowds.Dick Kirby, ''The Race Track Gangs'', The Peeler issue 7 July 2002, 'Friends of the Met Police Museum' Illegal betting shops were fined, but some, like Bella Thomasson, ran betting businesses that the police appeared to turn a blind eye to. Range of events ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gambling
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of Value (economics), value ("the stakes") on a Event (probability theory), random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy (game theory), strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three elements to be present: consideration (an amount wagered), risk (chance), and a prize. The outcome of the wager is often immediate, such as a single roll of dice, a spin of a roulette wheel, or a horse crossing the finish line, but longer time frames are also common, allowing wagers on the outcome of a future sports contest or even an entire sports season. The term "gaming" in this context typically refers to instances in which the activity has been specifically permitted by law. The two words are not mutually exclusive; ''i.e.'', a "gaming" company offers (legal) "gambling" activities to the public and may be regulated by one of many gaming control boards, for example, the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thanksgiving (United States)
Thanksgiving is a Federal holidays in the United States, federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November (which became the uniform date country-wide in 1941). Outside the United States, it is sometimes called American Thanksgiving to distinguish it from Thanksgiving (Canada), the Canadian holiday of the same name and Thanksgiving, related celebrations in other regions. The modern national celebration dates to 1863 and has been linked to the Pilgrim Fathers, Pilgrims' 1621 harvest festival since the late 19th century. As the name implies, the theme of the holiday generally revolves around giving thanks and the centerpiece of most celebrations is a Thanksgiving dinner with family Friendsgiving, and friends. The dinner often consists of foods associated with New England harvest celebrations: Turkey meat, turkey, potatoes (usually Mashed potato, mashed and Sweet potato, sweet), Winter squash, squash, maize, corn (maize), green beans, Cranberry, cra ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hughie Mulligan
Hughie Mulligan (died 1973) was a New York mobster and bookmaker who headed criminal activities of the " Irish Mob" in Hell's Kitchen during the 1950s. His protégés included Jimmy Burke, an associate of the Lucchese crime family The Lucchese crime family (pronounced ) is an Italian Americans, Italian American American Mafia, Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey, within the nationwide c ..., and his eventual successor Mickey Spillane. Further reading *Clark, Neil G. ''Dock Boss: Eddie McGrath and the West Side Waterfront''. New Jersey: Barricade Books, 2017. . *English, T.J. ''Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster''. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. *English, T.J. ''The Westies: Inside the Hell's Kitchen Irish Mob''. St Martin's Paperbacks, 1991. Year of birth missing 1973 deaths American gangsters of Irish descent American crime bosses Westies (New York gang ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sheet Metal Workers' International Association
The Sheet Metal Workers' International Association (SMWIA) was a trade union of skilled sheet metal workers. Such workers perform architectural sheet metal work, fabricate and install heating and air conditioning work, shipbuilding, appliance construction, heater and boiler construction, precision and specialty parts manufacture, and a variety of other jobs involving sheet metal. On August 11, 2014, the union merged with the United Transportation Union (UTU) to form the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, known by the acronym, SMART. The Sheet Metal Workers' International Association represented about 150,000 members in 185 local unions in the United States and Canada. History In 1887, Robert Kellerstrass, secretary of the Tin and Cornice Makers Association of Peoria, Illinois—a local sheet metal workers' union—began agitating for the formation of a national sheet metal workers' union. Contacting as many tinsmiths' locals as he could ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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International Association Of Machinists And Aerospace Workers
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) is an AFL–CIO/ CLC trade union representing over 600,000 workers as of 2024 in more than 200 industries with most of its membership in the United States and Canada. Origin On May 5, 1888, Thomas W. Talbot, a railroad machinist in Atlanta, Georgia, founded the Order of United Machinists and Mechanical Engineers. Talbot and 18 others had been members in the Knights of Labor. Talbot believed that a union needed to be formed for railroad machinists that would resist wage cuts. He wanted to provide insurance against unemployment, illness, and accidents but also wanted railroad machinists to be recognized for their craft skill. Unlike the Knights of Labor, who accepted everyone, Talbot's union accepted only white US citizens, preferably native-born. The union excluded blacks, women, and non-citizens, and had secret passwords. Despite the secrecy, the order spread beyond Georgia, thanks in part to "boomers" ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Federal Bureau Of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement agency. An agency of the United States Department of Justice, the FBI is a member of the United States Intelligence Community, U.S. Intelligence Community and reports to both the United States Attorney General, attorney general and the Director of National Intelligence, director of national intelligence. A leading American counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigative organization, the FBI has jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of Federal crime in the United States, federal crimes. Although many of the FBI's functions are unique, its activities in support of national security are comparable to those of the British MI5 and National Crime Agency, NCA, the New Zealand Government Communications Security ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |