There are two types of leaders - lions and foxes. The former rule by force, act openly and brightly. The latter prefer to remain in the shadows and rely on cunning. Two such psychologies clashed in the Gambino "family" - the Brooklyn faction of Gambino and Castellano and the Manhattan faction of Delacroce and Gotti. The Gotti-Castellano conflict was largely based on personal hostility. They simply did not understand each other and despised.

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Gotti and Castellano have been on a collision course for many years. In fact, the thought of eliminating Castellano probably came to Gotti's mind after the death of Gambino in 1976, when Big Paul was appointed boss, and not Aniello Delacroce.

John Gotti and Paul Castellano

A specific plan matured in the early 80s, but its implementation was held back by a number of factors, not least by Aniello Delacroce, who smoothed out friction between factions in the "family". But after Delacroce's death on December 2, 1985, Gotti and his team decided it was time to act. Castellano himself added fuel to the fire by not appearing at the funeral of the old underboss. In addition, Gotti was afraid that Big Paul now had a free hand, and he would strike first.

The assassination attempt took place on December 16th. Gotti's promptness proves how long he has been preparing for such an important step. One of the masterminds behind the conspiracy was Gotti's close friend, Angelo "Quack Quack" Ruggiero.

So, the liquidation was scheduled for December 16, 1985.
Here's what Sammy "Bull" Gravano recalls in his book Underboss.
“The more I thought about this plan, the better it seemed to me. We figured that 9 days before Christmas, between 5 and 6 pm, in midtown Manhattan, during rush hour, in the midst of all these gift shoppers, there would be literally thousands of people rushing back and forth. The blow will take only a few seconds, and confusion will be in our favor. No one would expect anything like this, least of all Paul. And it will do us good that we can then dissolve in the crowd. So we decided when and where it should happen.”

Gangsters involved in the liquidation

From left to right: Sam Gravano, future underboss under Gotti, Frank De Ciccio, another future underboss, Angelo Ruggiero, supporter of Gotti

On December 16, Frank De Ciccio arranged a meeting at the Sparks Steak House between Big Paul and Aniello Dellacroce's son, Buddy, as well as several caporegime leaders. Castellano was going to personally offer his condolences to Buddy, as well as an apology and an explanation for why he didn't come to his father's funeral.

On December 15, 11 conspirators gathered at Gravano's office on Stillwell Avenue and discussed final details. The roles were distributed as follows:
The four main shooters are Vincent "Little Vinnie" Artuso, John Carnelia, Eddie Lino and Salvatore "Fat Fat" Scala.
Sub-shooter - Anthony "Cockroach" Rampino (will stand on the opposite side of the street).
Three cover the retreat - Angelo Ruggiero, Joseph Watts, Dominic "Skinny Dom" Pizzonia (located on neighboring streets).
Frank De Ciccio will be inside the restaurant along with two caporegimes, James Failla and Daniel Marino, who are not privy to the plan.

The strike team is located in a park in Manhattan. They were all dressed in the same way - long light colored raincoats and fur hats in the "Russian" or "Cossack" style. This was done so that the witnesses would remember the clothes, not the faces. Gravano and Gotti circled the neighborhood in a Lincoln, John at the wheel. Finally, around five, Gotti stopped the car on the street leading to the restaurant. Almost immediately next to them, a black Lincoln Castellano with Thomas Bilotti at the wheel stopped at a red light. They did not see Gotti's car and moved on when the light changed and Gravano warned the others that Castellano was coming.

Bodyguard and chauffeur Thomas Bilotti

Tomas Bilotti on the left, and Paul Castellano in the center

1 Thomas Bilotti 2 Paul Castellano

Bilotti parked the Lincoln in front of the Sparks Steak House and got out of the car. When Castellano began to get out of the back seat, the killers appeared nearby. Big Paul was hit 6 times in the head and died instantly. When the shooting began, unarmed Bilotti watched his boss die, and was unaware that two hitmen approached him from behind. They opened fire, but Artuso's pistol jammed. But the second shooter hit the underboss, and Karnelia, having shot Castellano, ran up to Bilotti and made a control shot.
The killers ran past the pedestrians, who were hiding in terror, to 2nd Avenue, where cars were waiting for them. Gotti and Gravano drove slowly past the Sparks Steak House. Looking at Bilotti's body, Gravano said, "He's gone."

1-3 Killed with six shots to the head by Paul Castellano

4-7 Bodyguard and chauffeur Thomas Bilotti

8 Thomas Bilotti on the left, and Paul Castellano - killed in front of the Sparks Steak House restaurant in New York.

Hearing the shots, the three caporegimes - De Ciccio, Failla and Marino - quickly left the restaurant. They were walking at a brisk pace down 46th Street and came face to face with Thomas Gambino (son of Carlo Gambino and nephew of Paul Castellano) who was on his way to a meeting at Sparks.
"Your uncle was shot," De Ciccio said.
"He is dead?" Gambino asked.
"Yes, and also Tommy."
"God, what's going on?"
"Don't worry, everything else is fine. Get in the car and leave. We'll call you later," De Ciccio assured him.

Police take Paul Castellano's body

Times have passed ... Now, according to the anology with fashionable photos of tourists "supporting" the Leaning Tower of Pisa, this place is also a tourist attraction...

It is fashionable to take pictures in this angle ...

There is something in common, right?

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After making sure that everything was done correctly, the killers quickly and quietly retired: Gotti himself developed the most convenient retreat routes for them. A minute later, no one was left on the crowded street, and only a black Lincoln drove slowly past the corpse and the injured driver, slowing down for a second in front of their bodies. John Gotti personally wanted to make sure that his plan worked for sure. At the back of the car sat his deputy, Sammy Gravano.

The arrival of John Gotti as the new head of the Gambino family was welcomed by all its members. He looked like a triumph, and many said that only Carlo Gambino himself took his place with such chic after Albert Anastasia was killed. Other clans also supported Gotti: everyone else knew how strong he was and how dangerous it was to spoil relations with him. The Families Commission has confirmed that John Gotti is now the boss of the Gambino clan. The press also noted this event: Gotti's portrait graced the cover of Time magazine, as well as the newspaper strips of the New York Magazine and People.

The police just shrugged: yes, Gotti enjoys great prestige in the underworld, and besides, thanks to the active work of law enforcement agencies, he has practically no rivals left. The fact is that in the early 1980s, as a result of a large-scale action to combat crime, almost all influential people and bosses of the city mafia ended up in prison. Everyone but Gotti. In addition, he had an innate charm, attractiveness, he knew exactly how to put pressure on power structures. Not the last role was played by his virtuoso lawyer Bruce Kotler.

In addition, over time, Gotti acquired an almost bestial ability to smell enemies. He knew that many mafia bosses ended up in the dock thanks to the skillful infiltration of the FBI into the ranks of their agent clans. Such an agent turned out to be in Gotti's team. He was considered one of his own and was called Billy Boy; he was in the Gambino clan at a time when John was an ordinary fighter. It was Billy Boy who transmitted the necessary reports regarding the drug business, which Gotti was once engaged in.

As soon as Billy Boy's testimony became public, and several gangsters, including Gotti's brother Gino, ended up in prison, and, apparently, for the rest of their lives, since the 20 years that they were awarded is a long enough period, the agent decided, that now the most reasonable thing for him is to hide. He moved to Brooklyn, where he lived under a false name.

However, Billy Boy was found there without much difficulty. When he went to work one morning as usual, he saw a car parked on the opposite side of the street. What happened next happened very quickly. Three men with pistols got out of the car and started firing at the same time. They only stopped when Billy Boy stopped twitching completely and his body was more like a sieve. This assassination was directed by Sammy Gravano, John Gotti's second-in-command. In this way, Gotti wanted to teach the rest of the agents a lesson, if any remained in the team or if they were just thinking about joining it.

The police managed to arrest John Gotti and Sammy Gravano only at the beginning of 1992. Apparently, the lesson presented to Billy Boy did not work, and in the hands of law enforcement agencies there were documents compromising Gotti, records of telephone conversations. In addition, two agents embedded in the criminal family expressed their desire to testify at the investigation.

Gotti, however, was not particularly worried. He was not used to giving in to difficulties and death, especially since his lawyer was on top. Perhaps this time all charges would have been dropped from him, because this had happened more than once, but then suddenly such a cold-blooded and cruel killer as Sammy Gravano, who was the right hand of the boss and, on Gotti’s orders, sent to the other world so many people that, by his own admission, he "forgot how many." He could only be charged with 40 murders, although in reality there were, of course, many more.

The sight of the electric chair shocked this monster so much that he himself agreed to testify against his longtime friend Gotti and, in general, his entire powerful empire. Gravano was ready to confess everything at once - if only to avoid execution, if only the sentence was commuted, because he voluntarily agreed to help the investigation. Of course, in this case, he was threatened with a life sentence, but Sammy believed that the main thing was to live, and at what cost and how, it didn’t matter.

And now Sammy confessed to the murders he committed, realizing that he was drowning John Gotti, and he himself cringed more and more, became smaller. He looked truly pitiful. And the “godfather” looked at him intently and coldly, who understood that this time death was inevitable. But after all, he was always ready for this, and therefore remained completely calm. Of course, this betrayal of Sammy will not be forgiven, but now all this does not matter to him.

For the announcement of the verdict, John put on his best evening suit - a snow-white, tailored to his special order. Indifferently, he listened to the sentence: life imprisonment without the right to amnesty. “It was a classic two-act performance that ended in a treacherous betrayal according to all the laws of drama,” the newspapers wrote at the time.

Gotti is gone, but his empire remains. It was created so firmly that it could easily wait for the moment when the son of John Gotti, John Jr., would take power into his own hands. According to rumors, he even managed to come into his own. But this is just a rumor...

Today is a story about how the boss of the most influential family in New York was killed. I got a little carried away with the artistic description, so if you only need photos and bare facts, then feel free to scroll towards the end of the post. The rest, I hope, will not be too tired of my little writing experiment.

Castellano was a little nervous. Although it was more likely not nerves, but a slight annoyance from the fact that something was not going the way he had planned. He did not like to be late, and the pre-Christmas fever, which had already swept over the whole of Manhattan that evening of December 16, 1985, and annoying endless traffic jams, did not leave him the opportunity to arrive at his appointment on time. He had just left Macy's on 34th and ordered his former bodyguard, now new deputy, Tommy Bilotti, to take him to Sparks on East 46th. And although the meeting was only with capo Frank DeCicco, and the reason was only an unobserved formality - he did not go to the funeral of Aniello Dellacroce and had to pay respect to the family of the deceased, meeting with his son. But Paul still felt a little uncomfortable. For 9 years he has been at the head of the Gambino family - the most powerful criminal organization in America, and he could not change his habits to the order that had developed over the years. A very difficult year, in which there were ups and downs, was about to end, but it was prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani who exhausted him most of all, who decided to put the whole family behind bars and brought serious charges against many of its members. Now he had to fight back, pay the most expensive lawyers, and deal with Gotti, thanks to whose drug business they were involved in this investigation.

But all this would be later, and now he wanted to finish his business as soon as possible, leave all sorts of talk about problems and just relax after having dinner in his usual surroundings. Sparks was the perfect place for that. Castellano's father was a butcher, he taught his son this craft well and Paul was well versed in meat. And like any self-respecting Italian man, he knew how to cook well, especially when it came to serious dishes. And although he liked to bother in the kitchen in his youth, he could no longer afford it because of the large number of cases. Therefore, he went to his favorite steakhouse, where he could discuss all the problems and eat the best piece of roasted meat in the city, in his opinion. Sirloin Steak with blood and a glass of red Sicilian wine was all he needed that evening. Over time, Sparks became something of a city office for him. It was here that he made appointments with high-ranking people, and it was here that he was used to discussing the most important issues. Here the fate of people was decided and hundreds of thousands of dollars were earned. And although many meetings seemed to be just idle talk, this is how people solved their affairs, who firmly believed that the most important thing is not a gun in your pocket, but correctly established relationships and strong family ties. A good piece of meat and a glass of wine relieved the situation, helped to collect thoughts, isolate the main thing and make the only right decision. When you are 70 years old, you already begin to take these things seriously.

Paul Castellano. February 1985

Bilotti puffed around another traffic jam and finally got stuck on Third Avenue. It was ten minutes before the appointment, and the restaurant was only two blocks away, but the traffic stopped. Christmas songs from the radio merged into one endless melody, where Santa flew into town for the hundredth time to the sound of Jingle Bells. Outside the windows, there were horns of disgruntled taxi drivers and the tedious howling sounds of a siren from an ambulance stuck in a traffic jam. Now they only had to look at the lights of the big city, and at its inhabitants, running along the streets along the luminous shop windows and dreaming of an imminent holiday with a beautiful spruce and large boxes tied with ribbons under it. Suddenly the stream began to move and went slowly, then even faster. Bilotti slipped onto the red light under the disgruntled gaze of the traffic controller waving his arms, and now they are already turning onto 46th. The restaurant he brought his boss to almost every day is in the second building from the corner. It's 6:13 pm and he drives up almost to the very entrance, about 5 meters before reaching the front door. He puts a black Lincoln Town Car right under a no-parking sign. Pulling a police association card from the glove box that helped avoid a fine, he puts it under the windshield in the yellow spot of light falling from a nearby street lamp, turns off the wipers and turns off the engine.

Tommy Bilotti. 1985

As soon as the car stopped Castellano, without waiting for Bilotti to bypass the car, pulled the handle and opened Lincoln's door himself. All he could see was a few men smoking at the entrance to the establishment. After waiting for the passenger to appear in full growth, one of the standing men, dressed in a black long coat, rushed towards the car with a pistol in his hand. A moment later, shots rang out. Two bullets hit the chest and head, causing Castellano to sag and slide to the ground, resting his head against the open car door.

The second shooter rushed towards the dumbfounded Bilotti, who was not even armed and tried to hide behind the car door. He left the gun in the glove compartment and he no longer had a single chance to reach him. A moment later, he was lying on the pavement with his arms outstretched and staring fixedly at the gray New York sky.

Jeffrey Davidson had just finished his job at one of the advertising companies on Madison and was hurrying to his house in time for the dinner that his wife had promised to cook. He often had to stay late at work due to the approaching end of the year and the holidays, when his firm had an especially large number of small orders from regular customers. He turned onto 46th, quickly crossed Lexington, dodging between traffic jams and honking frantically, and hurried past a row of cars parked along the street. As soon as he came abreast of the trees, which were beautifully decorated with luminous garlands for Christmas, he heard loud pops that came from behind him on the other side of the street. At first, he mistook them for the sounds of firecrackers, which hooligan schoolchildren sometimes threw at the feet of gaping passers-by, but as soon as he turned around, he immediately realized that the matter was much more serious than the prank of some teenagers. On the opposite side, right in front of a restaurant, stood a large black Lincoln with the door open. In front of him, on the roadway, a man in an expensive suit lay with his arms outstretched. Three men in almost identical black coats and winter fur hats stood with pistols in their hands. One of them was staring at something on the ground, on the other side of the car, where the passenger was sitting. The second walked around Lincoln, stood over the body lying on the road and shot him three times. After that, he quickly walked towards Second Avenue without looking back, and with him, the other two gunmen disappeared just as quickly in the New York darkness and noise. Jeffrey turned around and with a quick step, trying not to run, headed towards Lexington, where he quickly mixed with the excited crowd, attracted by the sounds of gunfire and dead bodies on the pavement.

A moment later, one of the cars standing on the street turned on its headlights and abruptly pulled away. Having passed the scene of the murder, the driver slowed down for a moment, as if looking at something through the window, and then sharply pressed the gas again. The car skipped the intersection without slowing down and got lost in the stream on First Avenue in the area of ​​the UN building. Only two dead bodies remained on the pavement. Somewhere in the distance, through the noise of the city, the howling sounds of police sirens began to make their way, and a breathless patrolman from the 17th precinct ran towards the restaurant building, pushing the crowd of onlookers as he went and shouting for them to move to the intersection.

On this day, the reign of Paul Castellano ended and the era of John Gotti, who became the last big don of the Italian mafia in New York, began. A man who lived a secretive life in a luxurious mansion on Staten Island was killed on the orders of another man who looked more like a movie actor who liked to joke with journalists and lived in an ordinary house in a bedroom community of Queens, not far from the Kennedy airport.

John Gotti.

A little more time passed, and Ben Benson, the owner of a steakhouse on 52nd Street, hung a homemade poster in the window of his establishment with a photograph taken at the Castellano murder site and a large inscription - "Eat at Ben Benson's. It Won't Kill You."

It was an artistic presentation of events written by me based on the materials I read and a little gag. And now the bare facts:

On December 16, 1985, Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino crime family, was murdered outside the Sparks Steakhouse restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. The murder was ordered by John Gotti, one of the family's bosses at the time. The basis was a long-standing dissatisfaction with Castellano, who, according to many, should not have been the head of the family after the death of Carlo Gambino in 1976. According to the established order, Dellacroce was supposed to be the new boss, but Castellano was able to solve this problem by appointing Dellacroce as his deputy and introducing him to the commission. Gotti also feared prosecution from Castellano for the revealed facts of the drug trade, which his people were engaged in, which led to active actions against the family by the FBI and subsequent accusations against many of its members, including Castellano himself. The sudden death of Dellacroce from cancer only accelerated events, and the fact that Castellano did not visit him in the hospital and did not attend the funeral only gave an additional reason. Castellano was lured into the meeting unaware of a conspiracy. That is why everything went so easily. Four people were directly involved in the murder itself. Three more stood further down the street in case something went wrong. Gotti personally watched the murder while sitting in a car parked on the opposite side of the street. For him, this was the most important day in his life, when his fate was decided and on which his whole future depended. The murder was the loudest in the history of the New York mafia and was committed in violation of the laws and internal ethics of the organization.

If you try to recreate this scene today, it will turn out something like this.

The Sparks restaurant has survived to this day (unlike Ben Benson's) and is one of the most famous steakhouses in New York. It was a Sunday and the restaurant was closed, so we couldn't shoot the interiors.

If you look closely at the old and new photos, you can see that there is not enough pole next to the car. The entrance has moved a bit down the street over the years.

The correct angle looks like this, but the phone booth that has appeared prevents you from shooting normally.

This is where Castellano's car was parked.

If you are in New York, be sure to stop by Sparks to feel like a real boss of the Italian mafia and taste a good steak with blood. They are quite cheap there. Especially by Moscow standards.

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Famous Irish designer, author of excellent clothing collections. He is an entertaining person. His favorite jeans and cotton shirt, as well as a rare appearance in public, do not quite fit with the nature of his work and the fact that Paul is a famous fashion designer of world importance. And, nevertheless, he is a bright personality and extremely prone to creative processes.

Paul Costello was born in 1945 in Dublin, the son of an outerwear factory owner. Perhaps it was this factor that caused the young Irishman to have an interest in the production of a variety of - fashionable - things.

When Paul was sixteen years old, he left school and began working at his father's company. Paul soon developed a very distinct interest in fashion. In fact, even at school, art and any creative activity attracted him most of all. In addition, the field of fashion seemed to him more profitable and promising than other areas of art.

In the sixties, Paul went to Paris and began to learn the real art of creating fashion. His training proved to be extremely effective. In less than a few years, he ended up in a prestigious fashion house - Jacques Esterel. Then Paul was only 23 years old.

After some time, Paul Costello began designing at Marks & Spencer, and soon left to improve his skills in Milan.

After Paul worked in New York and Philadelphia. By that time he was already more than an experienced designer and in 1979 (in Ireland) he created his own brand. Since then, many years have passed, and by 1994 the Costello brand has become very popular not only within Ireland, but also in other countries of Europe and the United States of America.

Paul Costello was never pretentious or pretentious - on the contrary, he was free from any kind of prejudice. For example, the designer took great pride in designing uniforms for Aer Lingus and British Airways pilots.

At all times he was called attractive and charming. Basically, he was such to those women for whom he worked, creating excellent collections of clothes.

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