A Late-Night Snack at Umberto's

A

t least that's what Joey Gallo and his entourage had in mind on the morning of April 7, 1972. They had wanted to go for Chinese food, but found nothing open in Chinatown at 4:00 a.m. So Umberto's Clam Bar on Mulberry Street was a second choice. Too bad.

As they walked from Gallo's black Cadillac to the restaurant, they encountered Mathew "Matty the Horse" Ianello, Umberto's former owner, having a smoke on the sidewalk outside the restaurant with a couple of kitchen employees.

"How's the shrimp tonight?" asked Gallo.

"Hey, whadda you, kiddin' me? Everything on the menu's good." said Ianello.

Crazy Joey Gallo, his new bride, his sister Carmella Fiorello, and Peter "Pete the Greek" Diapoulos, had come from the midnight show at the Copacabana, where they had seen Don Rickles perform. It was Joey's birthday, and Carmella had arranged a small party. She felt that Joey needed to relax.

In fact, his life had been stressful recently. There was that confusion with his boss, Joe Profaci, about some tawdry business with Frank "Frankie Shots" Abbatemarco, exacerbated by the notion that Crazy Joe had something to do with the untimely passing of Joe Columbo.

For his part, Joe Profaci was not his most communicative at that time because he had his hands full with a family matter concerning his daughter and William "Bill Bananas" Bonnano. But that's another story altogether.

No matter. As the party was ordering their Linguine with Clam Sauce, a wise guy named Carmine DiBiase, and two men known only as Cisco and Benny—all of whom were employed by Carlo Gambino—entered Umberto's. They were carrying guns. They began shooting in Crazy Joey Gallo's direction.

Of twenty rounds fired among the three gunman, three hit Crazy Joe, causing his vastly premature departure from our mortal confines.

Prior to April 7, 1972, Crazy Joe Gallo's career as a wise guy had been colorful, if slightly inept. Sufficiently so, to have inspired Jimmy Breslin to create a fictional character who seemed remarkably similar to Gallo, in The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight.

I took my two children to Manhattan on Thanksgiving in the early eighties, ostensibly to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. But for me, the highlight of the trip was eating Linguine with Clam Sauce at Umberto's. I told my children, "Look around; this is where they whacked Crazy Joe."

Call me sentimental, but for all his indescretions and social infirmities, I (and probably several dozen beat reporters for the New York Daily News) miss Crazy Joe Gallo.

Follow this link for my recipe for Linguine with Clam Sauce.