Frank DiMatteo is a lifelong Brooklynite, Mafia “survivor,” and publisher of Mob Candy magazine. He is the author of Mob Candy’s Brooklyn Gangsters and Manhattan Gangsters, and the co-author, along with Michael Benson, of more than half a dozen nonfiction books on the history of organized crime, including his acclaimed memoir, The President Street Boys: Growing Up Mafia. He is a retired gangster and the son of a Mob hit man, with past interviews and appearances that include the New York Post, VICE, Business Insider, Late Night with Johnny P, and One on One with Steve Adubato. He was also an expert source in the HISTORY TV documentary American Godfathers: The Five Families.
Michael Benson is the acclaimed author of nonfiction history and crime books, including Gangsters vs. Nazis, Hollywood vs. Nazis, Evil Season, and Betrayal in Blood, as well as Moguls, co-authored with Craig Singer. He is also one of America’s most accomplished and popular Mafia experts, having co-authored numerous books on the subject, including Carmine the Snake, Mafia Hit Man, Lord High Executioner, Red Hook, Carlo Gambino, and Olive Oil King with Frank DiMatteo and Mafia Secrets with Gianni Russo. He is a regular commentator, appearing on numerous radio and television shows such as 20/20, On the Case with Paula Zahn, and Deadly Sins on the ID: Investigation Discovery channel. A recipient of the Academy of American Poets Award, he can be found on Facebook at /AuthorMichaelBenson.
Long before Brooklyn was known as the world’s hippest neighborhood, it was the deadliest - the seedy, dangerous underbelly of New York City, where mobsters and gangs could commit murder and dump dead bodies without getting caught. This is the real, gritty history the New York mobs in Red Hook, Brooklyn—where the streets ran red with blood—by a Mafia survivor who grew up there . . .
Before Brooklyn’s peninsula, known as Red Hook, became known for its arts and cultural scene, industrial chic, and luxury yachts, it was a dirty pocket of danger. The Dutch named it “Roode Hoek” for its red clay cliffs jutting into New York Bay. For centuries, its location was the perfect combination of physical isolation and waterfront vice that created a cocktail of despair, anger, and violence. And then the Mob moved in…
For more than a hundred years, the Red Hook section of Brooklyn was Ground Zero for organized crime. Whoever controlled the piers controlled everything. From the infamous Irish gang known as The White Hand at the turn of the century, to the notorious Italian Gallo brothers who ran President Street—and everything else—generations later, the blood-soaked history of Red Hook is the story of American crime at its most powerful, corrupt, and coldly efficient.
With wit, street lingo, and an insider’s view, Red Hook sweeps from its Irish Mob to Prohibition’s ruthless bootleggers, from its infamously polluted waterfront to marauding gangs of juvenile delinquents, drunken longshoremen, vacant lots, rotting tenement buildings, and packs of feral dogs. The perfect setting for corruption and crime, the authors closely examine the peninsula’s takeover by Italian tough guys who held onto power at the piers for a hundred years, littering the neighborhood with gunfire and dead bodies.
It's all here: the brutal mob hits, bullet storms, and backstabbings of the most colorful cutthroats to ever terrorize the streets. A rogue’s gallery of killers with nicknames like “The Mad Hatter,” “The Executioner,” “Wild Bill,” and “Peg Leg.” The Brooklyn bar fight that gave Al “Scarface” Capone his legendary scars. The godfather of America’s first Sicilian crime family whose gruesomely mangled hand could scare men half to death. And, to bring it all home, the author’s own eyewitness account of multiple shootings growing up as the son of a Mafia bodyguard.
Packed with jaw-dropping stories of public violence and personal vengeance, vivid insights into the Mafia’s way of life, and shocking portraits of America’s most wanted crime families, Red Hook is a must-read for anyone fascinated by the history of organized crime in America.
Praise for Frank DiMatteo and Michael Benson
OLIVE OIL KING
“I know well the authors of this book, and I can assure you that you’re in great hands. Read on and enjoy, my friends, the story of Giuseppe Profaci, the Olive Oil King!” —Gianni Russo, actor, The Godfather, and author of Hollywood Godfather and Mafia Secrets
“Frank DiMatteo and Michael Benson paint an honest portrait of Joe Profaci, the olive oil importer who hid behind piety and pinched pennies while building one of the original Five Families clans until his own greed lit the fuse on a war that nearly burned it all down. This is the real story behind the Corleone myth, told the way only guys who grew up on those streets can tell it.” —Louis Ferrante, internationally bestselling author of the Borgata Trilogy
CARLO GAMBINO
“Finally, Don Carlo receives a fresh look with his cold and quiet calculations, and his unique mastery of Mafia politics. Frank DiMatteo is the real deal and tells a great story along with co-author Michael Benson.” —Louis Ferrante, internationally bestselling author of the Borgata Trilogy
RED HOOK
“Readers who enjoy stories about organized-crime families will appreciate this book. Give to fans of Five Families by Selwyn Raab and For the Sins of My Father by Albert DeMeo.” —Library Journal
MAFIA HIT MAN
“The authors give a detailed account of the suspected assassins [and] don’t shy away from discussing Gallo’s flaws . . . Fans of true crime and Mafia stories will appreciate the insider’s look at the figures and neighborhoods that comprised New York Mob life in the 20th century.” —Library Journal
LORD HIGH EXECUTIONER
“This title will please Mafia fans looking for gruesome details.” —Library Journal
CARMINE THE SNAKE
“Carmine the Snake, written in a conversational style with street vernacular and sprinkled with Frank DiMatteo’s personal anecdotes and reminiscences, offers another look at the infamous crime boss.” —The Washington Times
THE PRESIDENT STREET BOYS
“Takes me back as if it was a time machine . . . Compelling reading. I loved the book because I was there.” —Sonny Girard, author of Blood of Our Fathers
“DiMatteo tells what it was like to grow up with Mob royalty.” —VICE
“The President Street Boys is nothing like any other Mafia-related book I’ve ever read. I loved this book. I will be reading it again in the future. The level of detail is so high, to me, it requires multiple passes to absorb it all.” —Crimespree Magazine
“At times, this book is unsettling. Other times, it’s humorous. No matter what part you're reading, it’ll remain a tour-de-force.” —Criminal Element