The Mafia and the Gays

by Phillip Crawford Jr.

The Mafia and the Gays meticulously documents how the mob controlled gay bars for decades in New York and Chicago due to their once illicit status, and relies upon an extensive collection of primary sources including FBI files many of which were not publicly available until acquired by author Phillip Crawford Jr. through the Freedom of Information Act.

Mr. Crawford illustrates how the gay bars historically were integrated into the Mafia rackets. For example, the establishments often were financed through mob-tied coin-op vendors and their related loan companies. Jukebox king Alfred Miniaci funded dozens of gay bars and other joints controlled by the Mafia in the 1950s and 1960s including the Peppermint Lounge. Miniaci supplied slot machines in the 1930s to Frank Costello, and had dined with the mob boss on the May 2, 1957 night he was shot. Gay bars sometimes served as drug drops. Forget about the pizza connection; this was the pansy connection. Club 82 in New York's East Village was a popular club with drag revues, and in the 1950s also was part of the distribution network in the Genovese family's heroin trade for which boss Vito was convicted in 1959.

Gay bars were profit centers for all the Mafia families. Among the powerful mobsters who oversaw vast interests in LGBT nightlife were Gambino underboss Aniello Dellacroce, Genovese capo Matty Ianniello, Colombo underboss Sonny Franzese in New York and Joseph DiVarco who ran the Rush Street crew on the Near North Side for the Outfit in Chicago.

The Mafia had ties to some of the most iconic gay establishments including the Continental Baths in the Hotel Ansonia from 1969 to 1976 on the Upper West Side which received protection from the Colombo family in exchange for installing its vending machines. Continental owner Steve Ostrow – a classically-trained opera singer – developed such close ties with Joe Colombo that he was performing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the June 29, 1970 Italian-American Unity Day rally in Columbus Circle when the mob boss was shot. Other storied LGBT establishments in New York which The Mafia and the Gays takes a look at include Bonnie and Clyde, a lesbian bar managed by Elaine Romagnoli which operated from 1972 to 1981 in Greenwich Village, and the Mineshaft, a gay club managed by Wally Wallace which operated from 1976 to 1985 in the Meatpacking District.

The LGBT community once was married to the mob out of forced necessity but after gay bars became legal the relationship often continued in many establishments out of mutual convenience. Gay bars no longer were busted simply for homosexual assembly but they still risked raids if serving as sex clubs or drug drops. Accordingly, the mob still had both services to provide and protection to offer particularly during the party decades following the Stonewall riots. If a bar had a back room for anonymous sex, operated afterhours or sold drugs or boys, then odds are it was a Mafia joint, and that involved numerous places during the 1970s and 1980s. Indeed, the Mafia hijacked gay liberation for political cover and used so-called Auntie Gays – the Uncle Toms of the gay community – as frontmen for their bars to evade suspicion. The wiseguys allegedly even infiltrated the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee and Christopher Street Festival Committee which ran New York City's gay pride parade and some related events for much of the 1970s and 1980s.

Over the decades there has been a fair number of gay guys in the mob's ranks including cross-dressing Genovese soldier David Petillo who once was a boy prostitute, hitman Vito Arena from Roy DeMeo's Gambino crew and DeCavalcante boss John D'Amato. There is no shortage of bad gays in The Mafia and the Gays, and most disturbing are the allegations of the mob's role in running underage boy prostitution rings.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, LGBT, True Crime, Crime, Historical, Queer

184 pages, Paperback

First published February 5, 2015

About the author

Phillip Crawford Jr. is a retired attorney from the New York bar.

He attended Bates College in Lewiston, ME from which he graduated with a B.A. in English in 1985. At Bates he was President of the Gay-Straight Alliance in 1983, and spearheaded a campaign to oust military recruiters from the campus for their discriminatory policies against the LGBT community.

Following college Phillip attended George Washington University Law School where he was a Notes Editor for the Law Review. After graduating with highest honors in 1988 he clerked for Chief Judge Judith W. Rogers on the D.C. Court of Appeals, and then with Judge George H. Revercomb on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He practiced law for fifteen years in New York City including several years with the plaintiffs' class action bar, and retired after exposing his concerns about billing practices. Professor Lester Brickman characterized him in Lawyer Barons as a "whistle blower."

Crawford was interviewed for VICE about his first book The Mafia and the Gays. Culture Trip includes the book on its list of 10 Books About the Mafia You Need to Read as "a surprising but essential history of the mob's control over New York's gay club scene well into the 1980s," and Cosa Nostra News says it is "a worthy addition to your library of books about the Mafia." The History Channel website cited The Mafia and the Gays in its excellent overview of the historic role of organized crime in LGBT nightlife, and Professor Marc Stein included the title among "Suggestions for Additional Reading" in his book The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History. Crawford further appeared as a guest on the podcasts Sinister with Josh Zeman, American Made, Crime Beat, Gangland Wire, Mob Queens and GayBarchives, and provided comment for articles about NYC gay bar history by Chelsea News and New York Daily News.

Crawford's second book Railroaded: The Homophobic Prosecution of Brandon Woodruff for His Parents' Murders has been featured by ABC 20/20, OutSmart Magazine, South Florida Gay News, and Dallas Voice.

His most recent books are Queer Joints, Wiseguys and G-Men (2019) and Jersey Queens: Darling & Delightful at the Gay Bars in the 50s & 60s (2021).

Reviews

[bird · Rating 3 out of 5]

i would describe this not so much as a book as a meticulous summary of every old nyc newspaper the author could find that mentions gay bars and the mafia, basically a 200-page list of every gay bar anyone in the mob has ever associated with, and where it was, and what other crimes they did. i didn't mind this. here are some guys i learned existed: eddie "dolls" decurtis, two gun izzy, eddie the blonde, michael "mikey muscles" dicarlo, benny "the bum" de martino, joey the clown lombardo, tim newark, tony bender, johnny the bug, and joe "new york" lisciandrello, who had since moved to chicago. this is really the modern problem with men, is that none of them will consent to getting called johnny the bug anymore.

here are two 50s shorthands for gay bars: "daffodil dens" and "the bird circuit." i learned one of the ways the mafia strategically made money off gays was by always installing a pay-per-song jukebox in the joint. smart. very smart. i'm already putting an unbelievable amount of quarters in this guy. i learned that the guy who organized the first italian american coalition event on columbus day was whacked by the mob at the close of the national anthem on, again, columbus day bcs they were like hey, don't draw attention to us. terrific! this is true italian american heritage. these are the traditions my cousins should be honoring.

i did not learn basically anything about lesbians or about the cultural variance in lesbian and gay bars but i did learn about two separate mafiosi bouncers, one of whom was known for "acting dumb," who fell in love with drag queens. unfortunately i did not learn very much about them because, again, the book is a list of previously published or real estate record gossip more interested in the quantitative extent of mob control and crimes (the author's bio mentions one time someone called him "a whistleblower") than in how this informed people's lives, sense of self, choices, or relationships, and thus it is completely free of analysis, interview, context, or editorializing save for precisely one paragraph when the author suddenly breaks in to say "good men have nothing to do with goodfellas" (verbatim quote). true, i'm sure!

the book is also entirely about new york except one fast chapter at the end about chicago, which i thought was very funny. what else turned out to be very funny is that i was reading this in public on various trains wearing what my aunt calls tony soprano shirts, and it made other people visibly abruptly quite uncertain about me, like maybe i was studying how to do the mafia while being evidently gay.

[Frankie]

This is the intersection of all my interests lol. Despite the dense, name drop and information-filled writing style, it was an enlightening read. An important part of both queer history and criminal history. A treasure for my bookshelf 😉

[bookslayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic book but boring at times, because my knowledge of the American culture and history is a bit limited, and there were many names I felt I should have recognized but didn't. Nevertheless, I learned a lot. This is a great piece of research.

The Mafia’s involvement with gay bars is ironic on multiple levels. Macho guys ruled gangland but supported a subculture for nelly queens. Most mobsters were bad men motivated only by financial self-interest but nevertheless were doing a good thing in providing social spaces for the gay community. The mob was on the wrong side of the liquor laws by serving gay folk but on the right side of the 14th Amendment by arguing for equal protection. Organized crime exploited an oppressed community but otherwise advanced the gay cause.

[Nancy Pretty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you Goodreads for the win! I did several papers on the mafia in college so this was interesting to me. I was bogged down by all the addresses, especially since I'm not familiar with New York, and it didn't add much.

[Kathleen Hulser · Rating 2 out of 5]

Part of the systematic oppression of gay life for many years included police attacks on gay bars. The Stonewall Riots were supposedly a response to such a raid. But actually that raid was spurred by police investigations into mob control of the gay nightspot. Nightlife was a double-threat proposition in NY. The police raid and pay-off system vied with another protection racket: the mob that controlled much of gay nightlife in New York. Attorney Phillip Crawford's interesting short volume, full of nitty-gritty detail culled from Freedom of Information Act records mostly on court cases, exposes how the system worked. Features that might surprise you include the logical underpinning of the whole system: financing. Since gay establishments were in effect illegal, capital came from another sector of the underground economy, those with plenty of money to launder. Mob control helped shield gay workers, management and patrons from some -- but not all -- police harassment. This was an interesting side effect of protection according to some familiar with the system up until the 1970s when things broke apart in the face of post-Stonewall challenges to the system. One bar tender described "feeling safe for the first time" in the 1950s when he worked at a mob-owned watering hole, and said when he was arrested, he was not charged and soon released when he told the police at the station who he worked for, since they worked for the same people! This is not to underestimate the extraction racket, the bouncers, the watered drinks, the skimming of cash, and the general atmopshere of intimidation that was created and exploited by organized crime syndicates. When society defined normal homosexual gatherings as disorderly, it opened the door to the mob. Crawford disputes the common understanding that the police raid on Stonewall, which was aimed at Mafia owners as much as at the drag queen clientele, ended organized crime influence in NYC. He says that after the 1969 riots, Auntie Gays continued to function as front men for mob control, to evade suspicion even in the era of gay liberation. "Mafia and the Gays" discusses the Continental Baths, and the Haymarket, and gives addresses from the legal records, so you can map the scene all over town. The discussion tends to be smoking gun style, larded with wise guy slang, and police blotter atmosphere. The writer is the author of friendsofours blog which writes timely updates on these issues, and has followed the issues online. It's enlightening to see how clueless the ever-vigilant State Liquor Authority seems to be, since it denies licenses to those with Italian last names but rarely seems able to prevent organized crime businesses from operating successfully for years.

[Vanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mafia and the Gays by Philip Crawford, Jr. is a fact-filled book based on FBI files about how the gay and lesbian bars were owned and run by the Mafia before and after Stonewall.
Before Stonewall, serving alcohol to persons of low moral character was illegal in New York. All homosexuals were considered to be persons of low moral character so having a bar which catered to them was automatically illegal. The Mafia, of course, didn’t care about this and was able to manipulate law enforcement much of the time, but not always, to leave their bars alone.
I was so excited to find a book on this topic to help me with my own work. I had searched and searched for some comprehensive information about the mafia and the gay bars, but all I’d find was a few sentences in a book about the mafia in general or oral history reports with no validation. With Mr. Crawford’s book I had before me all the information I had looked for.
Mafia and the Gays is a well written, gripping book that tells a history that is in danger of being lost. I couldn’t put down. I will return to it often.

Vanda

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting topic that the author did a lot of research on the overlap of Mafia and gay bars in New York City. Unfortunately that’s where it stopped. It mostly reads as a recitation of facts - there is little to no narrative or analysis so it’s fairly dry. I think there is a lot of potential and this is an interesting overlap in US history I just wish it didn’t read like a thesis paper.

[Clifford Browder · Rating 5 out of 5]

A penetrating revelation of the Mafia's ownership of New York City gay bars, confirming what I and other patrons of the bars of long ago were well aware of. Crawford's sources are FBI files now open to the public (with deletions), New York State Liquor Authority records, newspaper columns and articles, and gay memoirs, and they lay it out clearly how the Mafia took over the gay bars, including many in Greenwich Village where I debuted long ago, bars controlled by the Genovese family, whose dominance was tolerated by the Italian immigrant community of the South Village. Crawford makes it clear that the prime target of the authorities, and notably of the FBI, wasn't the gay community itself, but the mafia, and therefore the bars they controlled. For an informed account of mobster control of the shadowy world of gay bars of another time, when bars were the only social scene available to the gay community, read "The Mafia and the Gays."

[Audrey Stars in Her Eye · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really learned a lot by reading this book. I never realize that the mafia had their hands in the gay bar scene. Reading this book, it seemed just to make since. Since the mafa really dug it's claws in supplying illegal liquor and bars during prohibition, it was in thier MO to tackel other illegal behavior. I also learned that they also used the gay population for their own purposes to get laws change instead of advocating for an abused population.
While I learned a lot, the writing style did not impress me. The majority of the book is a paragraph or two written by the author and then larger portions of other people's works. As you get farther into the book, more is written by the author himself and is peppered with jargon and slang. My favrotite parts were the excerpts of the primary source material.
I enjoyed learning from this book, but I don't think I would seek out any of the author's other works.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This suprisingly quick read offered detailed insight into the history of New York and Chicago gay bars, and the corruption they suffered under the control of the Mafia. As many people were debating the veracity of accounts during the 1969 Stonewall rebellion (before the release of the deservedly critiqued 2015 'Stonewall' movie), I realized that Crawford's book is an essential part of that overall history. This should be included in any scholarly collection of American LGBT history.

The small font size, however, made for a bit of difficulty. Also, it's too bad that a few historic photos were not licensed to make it more appealing to the general reader.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was grateful to receive this book as part of a Goodreads Giveaway.

It had a lot of really interesting details about a topic I had no previous knowledge of, but I struggled with the formatting of the book. It had a lot of evidence from primary sources, but I felt that the book would have been more compelling with more analysis woven in.

It is very evident that Crawford Jr. did a lot of research for this book, which I greatly appreciated!

[Wayne Clingman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned so much about a subject I knew so little about. The Mafia had a huge role in the Gay Community far far greater then I understood. If you are looking for a book to help your understand on both the Mafia and Gay rights, this be the place to start.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meticulously researched, I picked this up after hearing an interview with the author on the gangland wire podcast. It's a solid read, plenty of facts and some very entertaining information

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

If politics makes strange bedfellows, greed apparently involves even stranger arrangements. Mafia toughs known not just for their hyperviolence, but their hypermasculinity (a dame on each arm) somehow found their way into running, extorting, and sometimes outright owning gay bars and nightclubs. Author Phillip Crawford Jr. even quotes a couple sources who claim that mob guys who spent too much time in prison picked up the habit of situational homosexuality themselves, and were as apt to sample the wares as to collect little envelopes from fearful bartenders.

Much of "The Mafia and the Gays," concentrates on the New York city nightlife between the 1950s and the 1970s, with a short detour in the book's denouement to Chicago. Policemen, both corrupt and upright, are quoted at length, as are the mostly gruff and monosyllabic toughs. Also (and most importantly) we get to hear from the gay men (and some women) who were merely looking for love or companionship, and instead found themselves exploited and harassed by crass and mostly homophobic hoods.

Crawford has done good spadework in assembling his sources, both primary and secondary, but no attempt is made to really integrate the material into some kind of thesis, nor is much analysis provided. He merely presents large unexpurgated whacks of police reports, FBI memos, and stenographic records of interviews between suspects or confidential informants and sources on the one hand, and investigators on the other.

This ultimately means that the book, while full of information, feels disorganized, and shapeless. Each chapter ultimately amounts to a summary of "here's some stuff the mafia did, and here's how cops and gay clubgoers reacted to it." The most fascinating part of this hideous dynamic between extorter and extorted is that people who were already somewhat outcast found themselves preyed upon when they were at their most vulnerable. Crawford shies away from whatever compelling insights he might have about how this must have felt to the principles at the time, and how society's unacceptance of gays made the predations that much easier for the mob to accomplish.

Maybe he found this aspect of the story too painful to fully mine? Perhaps. All I know, though, is that he has lain admirable groundwork and assembled a formidable bibliography for anyone who comes after him, who might attempt to synthesize this material into something greater than the sum of its parts. But here, alas, we have the parts, though unassembled. No photos.

[Sherrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

***I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway***

This short history is written by a former NY attorney and so, unsurprisingly, focuses on the Mafia in NYC. As I'm not a New Yorker and I wasn't there for a lot of this history (taking place in the 50s through 90s) it often felt like this book wasn't written for me. It was written for the folks who were there or who have close ties to NYC. That's OK, just not something I realized when I started reading it.

For such a fascinating topic, the book is pretty dry. There are long sections listing bars and nightclubs and their addresses as they were mentioned in legal documents. The author keeps his opinions close to his chest and does not speculate on the motivations of various players. That can be frustrating at times, but I appreciate the academic honesty.

There were some really interesting chapters in this book. The mafia owned many of the gay bars in NYC for a long time and so seeing the Stonewall uprising as both a fight against homophobia in society (and especially the police) as well as a fight against mafia control of LGBT spaces was really enlightening. Things are never as straightforward as they seem and the author did a good job of showing how opinions were not uniform for the folks who were there at the time.

I found that I know a lot more about LGBT history than I do about Mafia history and now I want to learn more about the mob. Does anyone have any good recommendations?

[Sofi]

Phillip Crawford Jr.'s "The Mafia and the Gays" is a groundbreaking and riveting exploration of a little-known facet of history. With meticulous research and a captivating narrative, Crawford delves into the complex and often surprising interactions between the LGBTQ+ community and organized crime. His insightful analysis sheds light on a hidden world, revealing the resilience and ingenuity of those who navigated these dangerous alliances. This book is an eye-opener, offering a fresh perspective on both the mafia and the LGBTQ+ struggle. An essential read for anyone interested in the intersections of crime, culture, and identity.

[FrankieMcFitz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was really looking forward to reading this book based upon the recommendation of a friend. However, the copy I had delivered was practically unreadable, the paperback felt like it was printed from home, a terrible cover and the inside had text off centered with pages that felt like tissue paper. The content of the book, may be ok, unfortunately I wasn't able to make it the whole way through to give my opinion on that. However, the quality of the book itself was so poor it was distracting. If there were a different version I would give it another try.

[Isaiah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got this through goodreads first reads program, or whatever it is called now.

It is mostly quotes from other sources, name dropping, and just nothing really exciting. Not a great book, but one that taught me something new. The introduction and first chapter are probably 80-90% quotes from other sources. Not much is just cited, instead it is huge blocks of quotes over and over again. Reads more like a literature review than anything else.

[Ellenore Clementine Kruger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting piece of culture here. This is not for young and married and religiously ceremonious. These are the outsiders. If you care about oddball pockets of humanity through the years without taking it personally, I recommend this book.

[Sam (Sassyowlreads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won the kindle edition of this book in a Goodreads giveaway and cannot wait to read it!

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and unique read

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reads like a textbook, which is not my favorite, but very informative.

[Ashley Rascoe · Rating 2 out of 5]

The subject matter is interesting but the writing is more analytical and extremely dense.

[Kasey]

Thank you for the opportunity to review this book as a giveaway recipient. I am excited to read it and will update my thoughts on this book soon!

[Mx Phoebe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glimpses into the connections between the Mafia and the Gays.

I love Phillip Crawford Jr. books about LGBTQ+ history because he is always meticulous in his detail. The Mafia and the Gays (Create Space Independent Publishing, 9781508785989, 2015) is a plethora of information from a wide variety of sources such as a dancer’s biography to an article in the New York Times.

I can imagine how many lesbians in the 1960s yelled at their father’s for making them gay as a researcher had stated it was the paternal gene that made women lesbians (laugh). I so want to use that now as a joke.

I have to confess that I had no idea that the Stonewall riots were actually a result of the police wanting the mafia out and the gay community wanting the mafia out also. Nor that the pride parades in the beginning were part of the result of the mafia looking for good relations. The fact that they even started their own gay magazines is hilarious to me.

I also thought it was interesting that a homosexual was defined as a male who called someone “dear” (laugh) - do you know how many men call me “dear”? Especially the scammers? This is hysterical.

I do understand the reality for the LGBTQ+ community. This is why history is so important. Knowledge is so important. I can find humor in these small things because I have to look beyond and see the big picture of how much work we still have to do. As you read Crawford’s book, some of the dates are not that long ago.

Crawford makes history interesting and palatable. You can see the action happening as if it is 1954 or 1985. His research is solid. He uses multiple sources. He takes quotes right from the hearings so you hear right from the accused’s own voice. History. No fake news here. Our history, yet another of Crawford’s books you should read.

I received this book for free in a Goodreads Giveaway and give my opinion without prejudice and voluntarily.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Mafia and the Gays is well researched and provides valuable and interesting information for those wanting to learn more about LGBTQ+ history and culture in New York and Chicago. While much of the information was common knowledge to me, much more was new, and that information helped me understand more clearly what I thought I knew well. I am grateful to have won this book in a goodreads giveaway.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book in a GoodReads giveaway. I had no idea that the mob had such a stronghold over the gay bars in New York City (and Chicago). It was interesting to read the long history of the mafia taking advantage of this minority and using them for their own gains.

[Dayna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thorough & informative, The Mafia & the Gays is a quick & revelatory read. I'm very appreciative to have won a Kindle edition from a Goodreads giveaway, without which I may never have learned about this book.

[Michele Rice Carpenter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well researched

I did not know about how the Mafia used Gay Bars in their business. This book is well researched. If you are interested in mafia history, gay history, or the history of cities, this book is a must read.

[Justin Cascio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Original research on the historical intersection of Friends of Ours and Friends of Dorothy. When being gay was illegal, our scene was a black market.