Mafia boss Tommy Lucchese’s Gambling “overseer” for all of Queens County was a little known soldier named “Frankie Bell”...here is his life story.

https://thenewyorkmafia.com/francesco-campanello/

His headquarters in Corona was once like a small Italian village. Spaghetti park was the spot. Federici's Parkside restaurant, Benfaremo's lemon ice king, Mama's, and Bakery Boys is all that remains.

The Migliore funeral home is also still there. And I wonder if it isn't named after Neil's family

It is. Neil's sister Rafaella (Rae) was the licensed mortician who's name the business was in. They started out on 104th Street, off 37th Road. The Migliore family (dad, mom, Neil, sis, etc) lived in a 2nd floor apartment above the funeral home.

As that section of Corona became more black and Spanish, He partnered in a 2nd funeral run by Coppola further up 104th Street in Corona Heights where they still operate today. Its called the Coppola-Migliore Funeral Home. It is directly across the street from St. Leo's R.C. Church.

And you are very correct Flushing. Corona WAS the Little Italy for all of Queens. More than any other area. Howard Beach was still a desolate area back in the 1920s....The Corona "crew" was the most prominent of all the crews active in that county up until the late 1960s-early 1970s.

Just curious to know who else was in Carona in those days, crews?

That's incredible, thanks. I've been down 104th street so many times and never put it together that the funeral home was owned by the former underboss of the Luke's.

Mostly Lucchese, a few Genovese, a few Colombo........must have been 50-60 guys or better come out of that small town.

It was mob central in the 50s, 60s, 70s,


One other guy who came out of Corona but later mostly stayed up in East and West Harlem was Frank (Farby) Serpico,.... "the original" not the nephew by the same name.
Farby and his brother Ralph (Ralph Farbs), were with the Genovese crew - I believe Trigger Mike Coppola. Ralph stayed in Corona. Frank traveled back and forth and operated in both Queens and Manhattan accordingly. numbers, crap games, etc.

I actually did a bio on Farby if you care to read it. Its under Genovese Biographies on our website The New York Mafia. You may enjoy it.

You're very welcome. Glad I could help

The Luke's are/were incredibly widespread for a "small" family. Multiple crews in Bronx, multiple crews in Brooklyn, long Island crew, Corona crew (which I realize is defunct), jersey crew, downtown crew, Harlem crew, and the garment center.

Yes Flushing, for any crew but especially such a small crew, the old Gagliano/Lucchese crew was the envy of many. A wealthy, strong and intelligent family that was huge into industrial racketeering, bribery and corruption at the highest levels of NYC government, vast narcotics trafficking networks that made much of their membership very wealthy, ironclad control (shared with the Genovese) of the garment district, huge gambling networks (policy and bookmaking as big as anyone, and bigger than most), etc, etc........I could go on and on singing their praises.

But that was when the two Tommy's were alive. They were low-key geniuses, who kept murder to a minimum, shared the Family's wealth with their troops the way its SUPPOSED to work, etc.

With the death of Lucchese the magic soon died. That and LE's more sophisticated efforts against them have decimated them in the last three decades.

Like all of Cosa Nostra, they're in big, big trouble today.... the days of wine and roses are over for CN.

You wanna know one of the biggest nails in their coffin? That degenerate Gaspipe Casso. He singlehandedly destroyed this borgata. He was a blood thirsty maniac. Who robbed and killed everyone! Vic should have buried him years earlier. He would have saved the entire membership rats, headaches, death, money, and maybe....just maybe, they'd be in much better shape today.

But we'll never know