T. J. English - The Westies: Inside New Yorks Irish Mob

The Westies

Inside New Yorks Irish Mob

T. J. English

A MysteriousPress.com

Open Road Integrated Media ebook

For John Patrick English.
Wherever he might be.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Contrary to popular opinion, no bookespecially a first book by a novice authoris compiled in isolation. For their assistance I would like to thank my friend and colleague Bob Callahan, who got the project rolling in the first place, and my agent, Barbara Lowenstein. Gale Dick provided invaluable help with the historical research, and my brother, Terry English, formerly a Green Beret captain in Vietnam, showed me how to read often cryptic military records. Id also like to thank my longtime friend and fellow journalist Frank the Crusher Kuznik, who provided the encouragement and criticism any writer needs to slog his or her way through the muck; and Lisa Wager, my editor, who wasnt afraid to take the manuscript into a back room and slap it around a bit. Im also indebted to William Urshal, Tom Dunne, and Michael Daly for their contributions.

There are hundreds of lawyers, cops, gangsters, and neighborhood people from the West Side of Manhattan whom I could thank. At the risk of leaving someone out (or, given the subject matter of the book, naming someone who would rather remain anonymous), Ill offer a blanket thank you to allyou know who you are. I would be remiss, however, if I didnt offer special thanks to Lawrence Schoenbach, Esq., Richie Egan, and everyone at the law firm of Hochheiser and Aronson.

Finally, Id like to thank Francis and Marcelle Featherstone for staying in touch as long as they could.

1.Church of the Sacred Heart, 457 West 51st Street (between 9th and 10th Avenue): Michael Mickey Spillane marries Maureen McManus, August 27,1960; Billy Bokun marries Carol Collins, Flo and Tommys daughter, May 26, 1985.

2.The White House Bar, 637 10th Avenue (at 45th Street), extinct, now the site of the Tenth Avenue Jukebox Cafe: Mickey Spillanes place.

3.501 West 43rd Street (between 10th and 11th Avenue): Mickey Featherstones childhood home.

4.The Market Diner, 572 11th Avenue (at 43rd Street).

5.The Sunbrite, 736 10th Avenue (between 50th and 51st Street), extinct, now the site of Roberts Restaurant.

6.Sonnys Cafe, 678 9th Avenue (between 46th and 47th Street), extinct, now the site of Midtown Bicycles: Mickey Featherstone gets a handgun from Jimmy Coonan to use at the Leprechaun Bar, September 30,1970.

7.The Leprechaun Bar, 608 9th Avenue (between 43rd and 44th Street), extinct, now the site of the Sea Palace.

8.The 596 Club, 596 10th Avenue (at 43rd Street), extinct, now the site of J. T. Hudsons Restaurant: Jimmy Coonans bar from 197279.

9.444 West 48th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenue): Home of Denis Curley.

10.452 West 50th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenue): Flophouse apartment shared by Billy Beattie and Paddy Dugan, among others.

11.442 West 50th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenue): 1975 home of Alberta Sachs, Jimmy Coonans thirteen-year-old niece.

12.Amys Pub, 856 9th Avenue (between 55th and 56th Street): Mickey Featherstone meets Sissy, December 1975.

13.The Stoplight, 875 10th Avenue (at 57th Street), extinct, now the site of Armstrongs Saloon: Michael Hollys bar.

14.Toms Pub, 854 9th Avenue (between 55th and 56th Street): Coonan and Featherstone pick up Rickey Tassiello, January 18,1978.

15.747 10th Avenue (at 51st Street): Tony Lucichs apartment.

16.New York Central Railroad tracks, 49th Street between 10th and 11th Avenue: Site of police diggings, October 1978.

17.434 West 49th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenue): Jimmy Coonans childhood home.

18.International Longshoremens Association Headquarters, 12th Avenue at 48th Street; Vincent Leones office.

19.The Landmark Tavern, 11th Avenue at 46th Street: Coonan and Featherstone shake down ILA official John Potter, November 1978.

20.Frans Card Shop, 746 9th Avenue (between 50th and 51st Street), extinct, now the site of Carewell Pharmacy: Card shop was run by Fran, Tony Lucichs wife; drop site for some of Coonans loanshark payments.

21.Westway Candy Store, 827 10th Avenue (between 54th and 55th Street), extinct, now the site of Oscars Deli and Grocery.

22.520 West 56th Street (between 10th and 11th Avenue), Apartment 15B: Mickey and Sissys home in Hells Kitchen.

23.Manhattan Plaza, 400 West 43rd Street (at 10th Avenue): Henry Diazs corpse thrown from a window, January 1981.

24.Clinton Towers, 790 11th Avenue (between 54th and 55th Street): Jimmy McElroy and Tommy and Flo Collinss apartment building.

25.The Madison Diner, 600 West 57th Street (at 11th Avenue): ILA officials John Potter and Tommy Ryan meet with Featherstone, McElroy, and Kevin Kelly, March 1984.

26.35th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenue: Michael Holly killed, April 25, 1985.

27.Erie Transfer Co., 624 West 52nd Street (between 11th and 12th Avenue): Featherstones place of employment 198485.

28.Carpenters Local 608, 1650 Broadway (entrance on 51st Street): John OConnor shot as he enters an elevator, May 7,1986.

CONTENTS

Authors Note

What follows is a work of nonfiction. The events described are true and the characters are real.

While much of the dialogue in the book is taken directly from court transcripts, legal wiretaps, and electronic eavesdropping devices, in many cases it was based on interviews with the actual participants. It should be recognized that trial testimony and interviews sometimes produce conflicting versions of events. Where such conflict exists in testimony or recollection, the author has sought to provide a version of the facts which is in his opinion the most plausible. In addition, certain scenes have been dramatically re-created and in some cases a series of meetings or events condensed to provide narrative clarity.

Good morning, gentlemen. Nice day for a murder.

Jimmy Cagney as Rocky Sullivan
in Angels with Dirty Faces

PROLOGUE

A t approximately 6:30 A.M. on the morning of November 4, 1987, Francis Thomas Mickey Featherstone awoke in a cold sweat. He tossed and turned in his bed, then sat upright. For a moment, he didnt know where he was. His heart was pounding and his eyes stinging as he peered into the surrounding darkness. Slowly, he was able to make out the familiar stone walls, the grungy toilet, the overhead bunkbed, and the forbidding metal door of his cell. Featherstone let out a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his brow with an already soaked bedsheet. Thank God, he said to himself, its only prison.

Featherstones night had been filled with bad dreams. He remembered seeing hundreds of human hands, pale and disembodied, reaching through the bars of a dingy prison cell. Then he saw himself on the floor of what looked like a hotel room, his wrists and ankles bound together with wire. He was surrounded by four or five conservatively dressed peopleprofessional people. One of them, a man, put a gun to Featherstones head and pulled the trigger. He felt the pain, saw the blood spurt past his eyes. Then he woke up.

Over the course of his often troubled thirty-nine years, Featherstone had grown accustomed to nightmares like this. But it had been a while since hed seen the images so clearly. Not since the early 1970s anyway, when, after returning from a stint in Vietnam, his near sleepless nights were frequently filled with severed body parts, glistening blood, and the sounds of incoming fire. Over the years hed talked to many psychiatrists about these dreams and they all told him the same thing. Post-traumatic stress syndrome, they called it, using the popular post-Vietnam euphemism for battle fatigue.