Related Research Articles
Five Points was a 19th-century neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The neighborhood, partly built on low-lying land which had filled in the freshwater lake known as the Collect Pond, was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street to the west, the Bowery to the east, Canal Street to the north, and Park Row to the south. The Five Points gained international notoriety as a densely populated, disease-ridden, crime-infested slum which existed for over 70 years.
Frank Costello was an Italian-American crime boss of the Luciano crime family.
Marion Hugh "Suge" Knight Jr. is an American record executive and convicted felon who is the co-founder and former CEO of Death Row Records. Knight was a central figure in gangsta rap's commercial success in the 1990s. This feat is attributed to the record label's first two album releases: Dr. Dre's The Chronic in 1992 and Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle in 1993. Knight is currently serving a 28-year sentence in prison for a fatal hit-and-run in 2015.
Brooke Leopold Hart was the eldest son of Alexander Hart, the owner of the L. Hart & Son department store in downtown San Jose, California, United States. His kidnapping and murder were heavily publicized, and the subsequent lynching of his alleged murderers, Thomas Harold Thurmond and John M. Holmes, sparked widespread political debate.
Michael Franzese is an American former mobster who was a caporegime in the Colombo crime family, and son of former underboss Sonny Franzese. Franzese was enrolled in a pre-med program at Hofstra University, but dropped out to make money for his family after his father was sentenced to 50 years in prison for bank robbery in 1967. He eventually helped implement a scheme to defraud the federal government out of gasoline taxes in the early 1980s.
The Gopher Gang was an early 20th-century New York street gang who counted among its members Goo Goo Knox, James "Biff" Ellison, and Owney Madden, born in England of Irish ancestry. Based in the Irish neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, the Gopher Gang grew to control most of Manhattan with their territory covering Fourth to Forty-Second Street and Seventh to Eleventh Avenue.
Crooklyn is a 1994 American semi-autobiographical film produced and directed by Spike Lee, who wrote it with his siblings Joie and Cinqué. Taking place in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, during the summer of 1973, the film primarily centers on a young girl named Troy Carmichael, and her family. Troy learns life lessons through her rowdy brothers Clinton, Wendell, Nate, and Joseph; her loving but strict mother Carolyn, and her naive, struggling father Woody.
Deuces Wild is a 2002 American crime drama film directed by Scott Kalvert and written by Paul Kimatian and Christopher Gambale. The film stars Stephen Dorff, Brad Renfro, James Franco, Matt Dillon, and Fairuza Balk.
The Colombo crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and the youngest of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City within the criminal organization known as the American Mafia. It was during Lucky Luciano's organization of the American Mafia after the Castellammarese War, following the assassinations of "Joe the Boss" Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, that the gang run by Joseph Profaci became recognized as the Profaci crime family.
The Irish Mob is a usually crime family–based ethnic collective of organized crime syndicates composed of primarily ethnic Irish members which operate primarily in Ireland, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, and have been in existence since the early 19th century. Originating in Irish-American street gangs – famously first depicted in Herbert Asbury's 1927 book, The Gangs of New York – the Irish Mob has appeared in most major U.S. and Canadian cities, especially in the Northeast and the urban industrial Midwest, including Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Chicago.
The Wanderers is a 1979 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Philip Kaufman and starring Ken Wahl, John Friedrich, Karen Allen, Toni Kalem, Tony Ganios and Jim Youngs. Set in the Bronx in 1963, the film follows a gang of Italian-American teenagers known as the Wanderers and their ongoing power struggles with rival gangs such as the Baldies and the Wongs.
The Bugs (Bugsy) and Meyer Mob was a Jewish-American street gang in Manhattan, New York City's Lower East Side. It was formed and headed by mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky during their teenage years shortly after the start of Prohibition. The Bugs and Meyer mob acted as a predecessor to Murder, Inc.
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish criminal gang based in the Bowery neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City in the early-mid-19th century. In contrast with the Irish immigrant tenement of the Five Points, the Bowery was a more prosperous working-class community. Despite its reputation as one of the most notorious street gangs of New York City at the time, the majority of the Bowery Boys led law-abiding lives for the most part. The gang was made up exclusively of volunteer firemen—though some also worked as tradesmen, mechanics, and butchers —and would fight rival fire companies over who would extinguish a fire. The Bowery Boys often battled multiple outfits of the infamous Five Points, most notably the Dead Rabbits, with whom they feuded for decades. The uniform of a Bowery Boy generally consisted of a stovepipe hat in variable condition, a red shirt, and dark trousers tucked into boots—this style paying homage to their fireman roots.
Sanyika Shakur, also known by his former street moniker Monster or Monster Kody, was an American author and former gangster. He was a member of the Los Angeles-based Eight Tray Gangster Crips. He got his nickname as a 13-year-old gang member when he beat and stomped a robbery victim until he was disfigured. Shakur claimed to have reformed in prison, joined the Republic of New Afrika movement, and wrote a 1993 memoir called Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member.
John "Sonny" Franzese Sr. was an American mobster who was a longtime member and former underboss of the Colombo crime family.
John Mengatti was an American actor primarily known for his role as Nick Vitaglia, Salami's cousin, on the CBS television series The White Shadow. Mengatti joined the cast midway through the second season and was a fan favorite with his distinctive New York–style accent. In 1982 he had guest appearances on The Facts of Life and CHiPs. In 1984, he appeared in Meatballs Part II.
Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s, when the combined momentum of the civil rights movement, the Black power movement, and the Black Panthers spurred black artists to reclaim power over their image, and institutions like UCLA to provide financial assistance for students of color to study filmmaking. This combined with Hollywood adopting a less restrictive rating system in 1968. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president of the Beverly Hills–Hollywood NAACP branch. He claimed the genre was "proliferating offenses" to the black community in its perpetuation of stereotypes often involved in crime. After the race films of the 1940s and 1960s, the genre emerged as one of the first in which black characters and communities were protagonists, rather than sidekicks, supportive characters, or victims of brutality. The genre's inception coincides with the rethinking of race relations in the 1970s.
Street Dreams is a 2009 American film directed by Chris Zamoscianyk, produced by Rob Dyrdek, Jason Bergh and Sal Masekela and written by Elisa Delson, Rob Dyrdek, and Nino Scalia.
The Purple Gang, also known as the Sugar House Gang, was a criminal mob of bootleggers and hijackers composed predominantly of Jewish gangsters. They operated in Detroit, Michigan, during the 1920s of the Prohibition era and came to be Detroit's dominant criminal gang. Excessive violence and infighting caused the gang to destroy itself in the 1930s.
Penitentiary is a 1979 American blaxploitation drama film written, produced and directed by Jamaa Fanaka, and starring Leon Isaac Kennedy as Martel "Too Sweet" Gordone, a man who deals with his wrongful imprisonment as a black youth. The film was released on November 21, 1979.
References
- ↑ "Knights of the City". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved 26 December 2021.
- ↑ "FRANZESE ENTERS A PLEA OF GUILTY TO RACKETEERING". The New York Times . March 22, 1986. Archived from the original on May 24, 2015.
- ↑ "MEMORIES OF THE MOB, INSIDE AND OUT". Sun-sentinel.com. May 24, 1992.