HELL GETS A LITTLE MORE CROWDED :

Mob Boss John Gotti Dies at Age 61 (RICHARD PYLE, Jun 10, 2002, Associated Press Writer)

John Gotti, who swaggered, schemed and murdered his way to the pinnacle of organized crime in America only to be toppled by secret FBI tapes and a turncoat mobster's testimony, died at a prison hospital Monday. He was 61.

When Gotti moved to take over the Gambinos, they were the biggest and most powerful of the city's five Mafia families, with 300-plus "made" members, 2,000 "associates" and fingers in every pie, including the garment district, garbage hauling, construction, extortion and loan sharking.

He took charge by murdering Castellano, who had angered Gotti and others with, among other things, his ban on drug trafficking. By some accounts, Gotti feared Castellano was plotting to eliminate him, so he carried out a pre-emptive strike.

Gotti and Gravano watched from half a block away as a hit squad in matching raincoats ambushed Castellano and his driver outside a Manhattan steakhouse on Dec. 16, 1985. They then cruised brazenly past the scene to make sure the pair were dead.

In 1985 we were just recently out of college, and still quite stupid. A couple of guys from Grand Rapids, MI came to visit Manhattan for New Years Eve. They called Sparks (the steakhouse mentioned above) and asked for a table in the "non-shooting section". The maitre d' told them that such humor was "not appreciated". Actually, I thought it was pretty damn funny. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 10, 2002 5:38 PM