Oct 14, 2009
Mike CoppolaMob informant Joey Cantalupo once stated in a video documentary that organized crime members "like to keep their wives at home, barefoot and pregnant." Mike Coppola handled things quite differently. He liked his wives to be bloodied and beaten and, if a threat to...
Oct 14, 2009
"Dandy" Phil Kastel"Dandy" Phil Kastel was a little-known partner of organized crime heavyweights such as Frank Costello and Arnold Rothstein. Allan May illuminates Kastel in a way that gives you a feel for the ever-changing face of organized crime. by Allan May Phillip...
Oct 14, 2009
Jacob "Yasha" Katzenberga/k/a Jacob "Yasha" Katzenberg played a minor role in the history of organized crime, yet he helped bring down some major mobsters and then disappeared forever. by Allan May Jacob "Yasha" Katzenberg played a minor role in the history of organized crime....
Oct 14, 2009
Arnold RothsteinArnold Rothstein is one of those legends that hang on the tip of the tongue -- "Don't tell me, don't tell me, I know who he is." In "The Last Hours of Mr. Big," Allan May tells us not only who Rothstein was, but why the Big Guy finally shot...
Oct 14, 2009
Thomas A. Aurelio
In August 1943, Thomas A. Aurelio stood at the threshold of a dream. After nine years as an assistant prosecutor and 12 as a judge in New York City, he was about to be elected to a seat on the Supreme Court for the State of New York. Then Aurelio, in a...
Oct 14, 2009
Mont Tennes and the Birth of the Race Wire. Virtually everyone who has ever been to a race track has used the Daily Racing Form, a newspaper that provides comprehensive information on horse races at tracks around the country. In this first of a three-part series, Allan...
Oct 14, 2009
The rise of the Annenbergs. The great Annenberg publishing dynasty that controlled the Daily Racing Form, The Philadelphia Inquirer and TV Guide for decades produced the fortune that allowed Walter Annenberg to establish and endow the prestigious M. L. Annenberg Schools of...
Oct 14, 2009
The conclusion of Allan May's three part series on the rise and fall of the notorious race wire service.by Allan May Part Three: Ragen and McBride and the End of the Race Wire U. S. Sen. Estes Kefauver once called the Continental Press the nation’s Public Enemy Number One. "In...
Oct 14, 2009
September 7, 2007 Salvatore Giancana by Ron Chepesiuk Editor's Note: "Policy" is a form of lottery in which a ticket is purchased and numbers selected, with the winning numbers announced at a drawing. No one knows for sure how the policy game began, but the...
Oct 14, 2009
February 20, 2007 Frank Mathewsby Ron Chepesiuk In May of 1969, detective Joe Kowalski, a seven-year veteran with the New York Police Department, was living at 130 Clarkson Avenue in a quiet, low-to-middle income neighborhood in Brooklyn. One day, the apartment...
