This book covers the history of the Mafia in New Haven from the 1930s to the late 1980s. As a largely Italian-American municipality midway between New York and New England's larger cities, and as an open city shared between Mafia families, the Elm City saw considerable illicit activity (and considerable violence) as the fortunes of Mafia factions ebbed and flowed. The author portrays this as another aspect of New Haven's continuous identity crisis: a college town split between regions and divided by class. Partially juxtaposing the story with that of the city's urban renewal programs, Bleakley writes that “Ultimately, this is more than just a garden-variety Mafia tale. It is about how the promise of the Elm City was squandered, both for New Haveners and the organized crime factions forced to share the spoils of the city in the twentieth century” (xvii).There are three main figures of the narrative, depicted on the book's cover. Salvatore Annunziato, who adopted the name Midge Renault during his early boxing career, met the local Luciano Family-affiliated boss during a prison stint in 1945. Renault was put to work after his release in 1949, and took over the Luciano rackets when his predecessor was killed in 1951. Ralph “Whitey” Tropiano, leader of a small New York gang, was forced into Mafia work in 1946 and sent to New Haven by the Profaci Family in the early 1950s. The hotheaded Renault and the retiring Tropiano split control of the city's crime scene for years. Renault struggled with legal troubles and jail time starting in the late ’50s but was free and clear by the time Tropiano and his lieutenant, the third figure, William “The Wild Guy” Grasso, went to federal prison on extortion charges in 1968. After a few violent years of conflict with smaller organizations, Renault was back in prison in 1972, while Grasso, recruited in federal prison by Providence Mafia head Raymond L. S. Patriarca, was released in 1973. Grasso called the shots in New Haven for the next seventeen years, eliminating Whitey Tropiano after his former boss attempted a comeback in the late ‘70s, then ascending to a position of considerable influence in the southern New England organized crime world upon Patriarca's death in 1984. A harsh leader, Grasso was killed in an intrafamily fight in 1989 with the seeming connivance of much of his organization. A legal crackdown ensued, and in subsequent decades, Mafia activity in New Haven has been smaller-scale and far less violent.Bleakley depicts New Haven as a place of overlapping influences: a small celestial object drawn into the orbit of larger New England or New York bodies. This extends to the city's place in the universe of organized crime. For much of the period covered, the most important outside influences were that of the Five Families of New York, the Italian American Mafia organizations that established control after a 1929 conference in Atlantic City divided territory and influence. As noted, Renault and his predecessor, Ralph Mele, were aligned with the Luciano family (later Genovese), while Tropiano was aligned with the Profaci (later Colombo) family. Casualties from a gang war in the late ‘50s allowed power to devolve to local operators like Renault and Tropiano; conflict within the Profaci family brought Tropiano to the position of capo in 1963. By the ‘70s, the Gambino family was on the rise, and they split power in New England with Rhode Island's Patriarca and Grasso, his lieutenant. The later chapters on Grasso's rise broaden the book's focus from New Haven to all southern New England, as fighting between the Gambino and Genovese families over Atlantic City revenue killed Grasso's Gambino counterpart and allowed him to increase his power, pushing the Genovese (with a regional base in Springfield, Massachusetts) out of Hartford. As Grasso expanded, however, he was undermined by the Patriarca organization's setbacks in Boston at the hands of the police, the FBI, and the Winter Hill gang of Whitey Bulger fame. His downfall was masterminded by the besieged Boston leaders of his own organization, fearing he was about to dispose of them.New Haven municipal politics come to the fore in the chapter on urban renewal and the chapter on law enforcement. In the 1950s and ‘60s, Mayor Richard C. Lee acquired a massive amount of federal money for now-controversial highway construction and slum clearance. The Mafia came to feed at the trough, and organized crime wove itself into the city's power structure, including through New Haven Democratic chair Arthur T. Barbieri. Renault was at the peak of his influence in this period, finagling a position as the local International Brotherhood of Operating Engineers business agent in 1952, even calling the shots from a cushy prison cell in 1958. Meanwhile, with the help of an illegal wiretapping operation, the New Haven police's Special Services Division put several of the city's Mafia leaders in prison. However, by 1970, the masterminds of the operation had moved on, and neither they nor an aborted FBI undercover operation were able to prevent Grasso's consolidation of power.The author adroitly manages the complicated web of organized crime connections; numerous individuals are introduced, commit crimes, and die (often violently) within the span of a page or two without derailing the book's narrative. The trajectory of criminal organizations is rendered highly legible, and the book has a tight focus despite frequently backtracking chronologically when switching topics. The only sensationalism comes at the ends of chapters, frequently cliffhangers, some of which are resolved anticlimactically. While the book provides extensive national-level Mafia and law enforcement context, the material on New Haven owes a particular debt to journalist Christopher Hoffman, who wrote a series of Mafia retrospectives (cited extensively within) focusing on the same cast of characters.
Tyler L. Wolanin (Thu,) studied this question.