Robert KalfusĬarmillo “Carmine” Galante was nicknamed “Lilo,” Italian slang for “cigar,” which was appropriate given his omnipresent stogie. Joe and Mary’s Italian American Restaurantīushwick - JThe body of Carmine Galante is taken out of Joe and Mary’s Italian Restaurant. Sparks continues to serve noteworthy steaks, although the site has emerged as a macabre tourist spot for dedicated mob buffs. Gotti went on to enjoy three straight court victories in a four-year span when he beat federal RICO and state charges of conspiracy, assault and robbery before his Brooklyn federal court conviction on April 2, 1992, on racketeering charges, including the Castellano hit.

Artuso did not fire his weapon because it jammed, Gravano would claim. Gravano, who became a cooperating witness, named the four-member hit team as Vinnie Artuso, a Bronx-based heroin dealer John Carneglia and Eddie Lino, a Gambino soldier and capo, respectively and Salvatore “Fat Sally” Scala, Lino’s brother-in-law.Īccording to Gravano, Carneglia fired the shots that killed Castellano, while Lino and Scala blasted away at Bilotti. Upstart mobster John Gotti and his crony, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, had hatched the plot two weeks earlier. Castellano, 70, was hit half a dozen times Bilotti, 45, took four bullets and collapsed on the sidewalk, next to the driver’s side door.

Upon emerging from their vehicle, the pair were met by four men, wearing long white trench coats and black Russian-style fur hats, who unleashed a fusillade of gunfire. It was a sensational coup d’etat against the head of the Gambino crime family, the biggest and most powerful Cosa Nostra faction in the country.Ĭonstantino Paul Castellano and his bodyguard Thomas Bilotti had just come from their lawyer’s office and the squat and powerfully built Bilotti pulled his Lincoln Continental into a “No Standing Zone,” directly in front of the restaurant, before he and his passenger found themselves trapped in a pincer attack. These are some of the “greatest hits” of this grim genre, where victims were whacked in less time than it takes to uncork a chianti. Legendary restaurants like Sparks Steakhouse and Rao’s have been the sites of some of the city’s most famous mob murders. These guys went from the Big Apple’s fine dining institutions to the great eatery in the sky.įor more than 80 years, city mobsters have gathered at red sauce joints and steakhouses around town to do business - or simply hold court for their loyal subjects.īut sometimes they’ve met a fate far worse than downing a plate of bad clams.

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