Mafia activity in Pittsburgh (Butler, Lawrenceville: real estate, house prices, neighborhood)

[parisi445]

Anybody remember Farrell in its hey day?

More wops than trash cans.

[ExPit]

Originally Posted by parisi445

"I grew up near Sharon and I know about all this stuff."

Holy ****, those are all names I have not heard in years. The Iacino's ran the biggest numbers racket out of western Pa. They were like the Gambino's in New York. After the 80s most of the dispersed down to Florida, Ohio, Indiana...

They were cousins of the Grande's too, Roberto, Giovanni, Angelo, those guys were class acts, ruthless, and GOOD LOOKING.

I bet nobody on this post remembers these days, though, all you wanna be's, ****in mooley's.

What days?

[aveojohn]

Originally Posted by parisi445

"I grew up near Sharon and I know about all this stuff."

Holy ****, those are all names I have not heard in years. The Iacino's ran the biggest numbers racket out of western Pa. They were like the Gambino's in New York. After the 80s most of the dispersed down to Florida, Ohio, Indiana...

They were cousins of the Grande's too, Roberto, Giovanni, Angelo, those guys were class acts, ruthless, and GOOD LOOKING.

I bet nobody on this post remembers these days, though, all you wannabe's, ****in mooley's.

Wannabe's, Bwa ha ha ha ha ha. Sure, win friends and influence family through intimidation, Upstanding group of guys. Never did an honest days work in their lives.

[TheReason]

Never did an honest days work... but they were still paid and rich. Were they stupid or smart?

Like said in the movie Goodfellas "Those guys who worked the 9-5, the were suckers... they had no balls. If we wanted something, we just took it."

[Copanut]

The retirement plan for most wiseguys ain't the greatest.

[TheReason]

The ones who dont go to jail earn till they die....

And the ones who do go to jail have more money pass through their fingers in 1 year than the average joe does in 10 years.

I'm not condoning their lifestyle... but it is what it is, they were paid.

[ExPit]

Originally Posted by TheReason

The ones who dont go to jail earn till they die....

And the ones who do go to jail have more money pass through their fingers in 1 year than the average joe does in 10 years.

I'm not condoning their lifestyle... but it is what it is, they were paid.

I mean, if we're really talking about this, as a possible lifestyle choice, it is one of the worst. First of all, how many of us really would have the stomach to do what they have to do? I know i wouldn't, I like people too much, I like having a clear conscience too much. You may look at some activities and think you would have no trouble living with it, but you are not looking at the whole picture. Even guys that aren't actual made guys have to do things that you may think you could do until you're faced with the reality of bashing a deadbeat's head in or worse. Let's just talk about the gambling end, aruably the most harmless of all their enterprises. So a guy loses big and can't pay, can't even make the weekly juice payments and what are you gonna do? If you let him get away with it then the word will get around and pretty soon nobody's making their payments, and then before long you're not making your payments. I've known guys that I never thought would have the stomach for it surprise themselves, but from the time I was a kid I never wanted that for myself, always thought I could do better and thankfully I was right.

[TheReason]

You'd be surprised what you can do for the right dollar amount.

If there was no poverty, we wouldnt have crime. 'Some' people are criminals because they are true f*cks, most are criminals becasue they did what they had to do to survive.

Thankfully... I am not in that position, but I understand how people can be. We live in a corrupt society, so society has to be corrupt to succeed.

Example... how come in History there is a long list of Police officers who got caught up working with Drug Rings, Mafia people, Political Interests, etc...

I'll tell you why...

Clearly a police officer goes to the academy with the purest and best interests at heart... but when you only make 40K a YEAR, and somebody offers you say 3K a month to do this or that (or just to keep quiet), they just matched your yearly salary. The whole system is corrupt. The police departments, unions, local gov'ts, federal departments....

Money Talks... the rest of us just walk

[ExPit]

Nobody ever walked up to me and said, "How'd you like to be made?" And of course, that's not how it happens. But I was raised around a lot of guys who got into that life, if not actual mob guys then guys who lived the criminal life. I was not an angel when i was a kid, but saw it was not the life for me when I was coming of age. I went to college, barely got in because of how busy I had been in high school, had to take grants and loans to pay the tuition, but did well enough to eventually get into graduate school. Everybody knows that $$$ is what makes the world go 'round. I am the first to admit that you never know what you "can" do until you have to. My point was to say why would you allow yourself to be put in that position if you don't have to? Nobody has to get into that life. Of course it's the easy way, or at least seems that way at first, and if you're having money problems it can be pretty alluring. But once you are in that life in any real, committed way, to the point that you've run out of options, the one thing that you can be sure of is that you will end up in a box. One with bars on it, or one with no ventilation whatsoever; not that you'd miss it in that state.

[TheReason]

Fair enough