Downtown New York Mafia History and Food Walking Tour

We begin in the East Village at an historic NY "red sauce joint" frequented by Lucky Luciano plus many others. Multiple films created at the restaurant such as "Boardwalk Empire" "Sopranos" "Get Gotti" and more. This is where in 1931 Luciano creates the mafia Commission. The HBO series "Boardwalk Empire filmed here as well as Sopranos, Get Gotti and most recently documentary to be released shortly "After Goodfellas" starting once of our tour guides.

John’s of 12th was established in March 1908 by another John, John Pucciatti. Pucciatti Immigrated from Umbria, Italy to the present-day East Village, where there was a thriving Italian American community centered around 1st Avenue. John’s’ current owner, Lowell Fein now owns the restaurant with partners Paul Dauber, Robbie Rundbaken, and, continuing the namesake’s legacy. The Italian neighborhood where Pucciatti moved to in the East Village existed even before Little Italy. We are the only Mafia experience allowed to enter the joint.....

The Village has been a NYC Mafia stronghold since 1900 together we visit key Mafia locations where all 5 families operated.

Burial place of New York's political elite and John C COlt brother of famed gun manufacturer Samuel Colt

The first public cemetery in NYC Marbel Hill is below ground vaults demanded by NYC in order to protect its citizens from diseases. The site is also open to the public every first Sunday of the month

This is where Cosa Nostra "Our thing" began.

The Orpheum Theatre, formerly Player's Theatre, is a 299-seat off-Broadway theatre on Second Avenue near the corner of St. Marks Place in the East Village neighborhood of lower Manhattan, New York City.

There may have been a concert garden on the site as early as the 1880s, but there was a theatre there by 1904.[1] During the heyday of Yiddish theatre in the Yiddish Theater District in Manhattan, the venue was the Player's Theatre, and was part of the "Jewish Rialto" along Second Avenue.[2] By the 1920s, the theatre was exhibiting films, but was converted back to dramatic use in 1958,[1] with the first production, Little Mary Sunshine, opening in November 1959.[3]

Significant productions include the revival and revamping of Cole Porter's musical Anything Goes in 1962, Your Own Thing in 1968, The Me Nobody Knows in 1970, The Cocktail Party in 1980, Key Exchange in 1981, Broken Toys! in 1981, Little Shop of Horrors in 1982, Sandra Bernhard's Without You I'm Nothing

once the famous Club 188 run by Charlie "Lucky" Luciano we talk about the Genovese crime families powerful influence over the nightlife scene in NYC from the 1920's through today

Considered the oldest community garden in New York, Liz Christy Community Garden was established in 1973. In late 1973 and early 1974, the community activist group the Green Guerillas, among them an energetic member named Liz Christy, cleared the lot at the northeast corner of the Bowery and East Houston. In late April 1974, the New York City Office of Housing Preservation and Development agreed to rent the site for a $1 a month to the Bowery Houston Community Farm and Garden. The land where the Liz Christy Garden now stands has seen many changes in its history.

The oldest butcher shop in NYC that welcomed Sicilian immigrants since the 1800's and a frequent destination for Martin Scorsese and Robert Dinero. In fact this is where "Marty" filmed his first film.

The Basilica of Saint Patrick's Old Cathedral is the original Cathedral Church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. Since its opening over 200 years ago on the corner of Mott and Prince Streets in the Nolita section of lower Manhattan, its spiritual mission continues to be the great beacon for the Catholic Faithful and an American symbol of the triumph of religious freedom. Originally the worship center for a largely impoverished Irish community, St. Patrick's, over decades, expanded to provide for the spiritual and material needs of a diverse community, including Italian, African American, Chinese, and Vietnamese Catholics. The Godfather was filmed inside

Headquarters of the Gambino crime family and John Gotti we visit the place where the most powerful "family" operated their elusive and often deadly business. Being a local kid from Little Italy I offer the real inside details tour companies get wrong.

Chinese traders and sailors began trickling into the United States in the mid eighteenth century; while this population was largely transient, small numbers stayed in New York and married. Beginning in the mid nineteenth century, Chinese arrived in significant numbers, lured to the Pacific coast of the United States by the stories of "Gold Mountain" California during the gold rush of the 1840s and 1850s and brought by labor brokers to build the Central Pacific Railroad. Most arrived expecting to spend a few years working, thus earning enough money to return to China, build a house and marry.

As the gold mines began yielding less and the railroad neared completion, the broad availability of cheap and willing Chinese labor in such industries as cigar-rolling and textiles became a source of tension for white laborers, who thought that the Chinese were coming to take their jobs and threaten their livelihoods. Mob violence and rampant discrimination in the west drove the Chinese east.

Little Italy is a neighborhood in New York City that began developing in the 1840s when Italian immigrants began to settle in the area1. The area was first home to Dutch settlers and the Lenape tribe during the 1600s2. The neighborhood was popular amongst immigrants because of its population of local Italian speakers and traditional Italian culture1. Originally, Little Italy spanned from Lafayette Street to the Bowery and from Kenmare to Canal, but today it takes up roughly three blocks on Mulberry Street