New York City has long been associated with crime, in drama and in reality. From early bootlegging and street hustles to stock market frauds that have caused the global financial market to shudder, it's fair to say that the city has had its share of bad actors.
Terence Winter, the creator of "Boardwalk Empire" and a writer for "The Sopranos," has spent many hours looking into the lives of these criminals and the parts of the city they frequented. While growing up in Brooklyn, he got a taste of "the pre- and post-Gotti years."
He also worked on Wall Street, at the same time as Jordan Belfort, the main character of the screenplay Mr. Winter adapted for the movie "The Wolf of Wall Street."
"He worked for L. F. Rothschild, while I worked for Merrill Lynch," he said. "These were vastly more conservative places than what Jordan later created in Long Island with Stratton Oakmont. There was excess, but it was in the form of money and fast cars. Jordan's level of excess was more behavior and drugs and unbridled craziness."
Below are excerpts from a conversation with Mr. Winter about New York criminals and their haunts.
Q. When you think about crime and New York City, which places come to mind?
A. In Lower Manhattan, of course, you have Mulberry Street, in Little Italy. Umberto's Clam House is probably one of the most famous of restaurants that gets associated with organized crime there. In the Bronx, there is a famous section where gangsters would eat along Arthur Avenue, which is basically a Bronx version of Little Italy. If you go to Queens, there's Don Peppe, Altadonna Restaurant and Park Side Restaurant in Corona, all of which were alleged to cater to that world. Those and diners. Pretty much pick any diner in Queens and there was usually someone hanging out there in the middle of the night.
So diners were chosen for their convenience?
Yeah, you go sit in a booth, have coffee for hours and no one would bother you, so long as you left a good tip. A lot times that's where these guys would hang out. That's why, very famously, you'd see diners depicted in movies like Goodfellas.
What about the gangsters from the earlier eras?
Gangsters like Kid Twist and Big Tim Sullivan began to emerge around the late 19th century, into the early 20th. These guys were political fixers. They hung around the Bowery, Park Row and Tammany Hall. Those were the power centers of government, and also where a lot of saloons were. You might find them drinking in McSorley's Old Ale House or Pete's Tavern, down on Irving Place, although Kid Twist mainly hung around Brooklyn.
When Prohibition came in, you have people like Arnold Rothstein and Joe Masseria, who we depict in "Boardwalk Empire." Masseria hung in and around Little Italy. It was his area. That's where he felt comfortable. There were a lot of hotels around Broadway that gangsters would frequent. Living and dining in hotels was very popular back then. Most of them had great restaurants. Ultimately, Rothstein was killed in the Park Central Hotel.
"The Wolf of Wall Street" focuses on white collar crime. How did Stratton Oakmont compare with other firms on Wall Street?
It's important to distinguish that these guys were not on Wall Street. They were in Long Island. The firm that Jordan set up out there was his no-holds-barred version of Wall Street. Take the level of excess and debauchery that was on the real Wall Street and multiply it by a factor of 100 and that's what you got.
What were some of the places these guys hung out?
Since they had to work all day, they were pretty much restricted to the restaurants around Long Island. They had this sushi restaurant called Tenjin. These guys would come in and take that place over, it was basically an extension of Jordan's kitchen. At night the aspiration was to get though the Midtown Tunnel and into Manhattan. For them that was Oz. The meatpacking district was just starting to get big around Jordan's time. They'd also go to places like the Tunnel and the Monkey Bar. And Jordan had an incredible house in Westhampton, where he threw wild parties.
In the movie, there's a scene were Mr. Belfort is eating at Rao's, which had a reputation for being a mafia haunt. Was there overlap between the places white collar criminals and mobsters would go?
Yes, you know, there's something exotic about hanging out in a mob restaurant. Rao's is very famous for that. It's also very famous for being hard to get into. So it's definitely a badge of honor to say that you ate there and got to rub elbows with people who are perceived to be gangsters. Sparks Steakhouse has the same reputation, because it was where Paul Castellano was murdered in 1985. Plus a lot of guys at Stratton Oakmont kind of admired that world. There's a thin line between the way these guys dressed, how they acted and what they aspired to be.
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