South Philly Mob Memories I

Chicken and Pizza

I am not sure if there still exits a real honest to goodness South Philly Mob of the old, as Pat Cooper would say , Mothers and Fathers of the Italian Association or the M...A…F…I...A.. type. What I read suggest it seems to have gone the way of our Lady of Good Counsel Church on Washington Ave and Palombo’s. Well maybe that is true. But it sure was part of South Philly when I grew up.

Angelo Bruno was the man. The Gentle Don of Old South Philly , this is his picture. He ruled for 20 years or so and never had to kill people. He did seem to keep the books closed on new members and kept most of the power and wealth to himself- hey but who said the Mothers and Fathers Association was necessarily an equal opportunity employer or subject to anti-trust regulations.

Real old south Philly – you know 1920’ and 30’s -had real gruesome criminals- The Lanziotte brothers .. shootings at 13th and Wharton etc.. but all that was prohibition days.. Black Hand.. chesta e mia vicin’ ,as they say in Godfather II.

Angelo Bruno was murdered in 1980 ending the years of a peaceful benign mob and ushering in a few years of real warfare. Angelo was replaced by Phil Chicken Man Testa , or so they say- maybe it really was all a bunch of calumny against Italian Americans and these were just businessmen? However the interregnum period following Bruno’s death created a Rome in the 3rd century mentality with some led by ambition to think that if they raised their legions and murdered the Emperor, they could themselves be declared Emperor.

One such character lived in my neighborhood. He was a real tough guy- you know the kind - he would shoot you for parking in front of his house. Of coursed he was not a member of the Association, he was as they say, a wannabe, an unofficial member- a mobster without portfolio.

In early 1981 he decided to take out Phil- assassinate him and perhaps who knows …be raised to the purple and hailed as Mobsterum Imperator by the Senate and the Made Men of South Philly.. or at least the new Don would bring him into the Association as a reward , and he could flash his membership card at the Mansion House or the Villa di Roma – good for a 20% discount… Oh sorry.

Well our friend employed the services of a 22 year old waiter in his plans and they devised a singularly interesting way to deal with Mr. Testa…. A method steeped in the customs and traditions of South Philly… A pizza Bomb! Yes a pizza with anchovies, pepperoni and nails.. set to explode and do more harm then all the fat and carbohydrates ever could.. The kid he used to help was very industrious- a good product of the local parochial schools where he must have excelled in Math, mechanical engineering, problem solving and critical thinking. He also was involved in one murder already – I think one of those after Disco, Melrose Diner things.. you know you looked at my girl and disrespected me or something, now you must I wack…

Well come the ides of March and like Cassius and Brutus these two conspirators delivered the blade or Pizza (there must have been other conspirators but like the man in the grassy knoll they never came to light- they say it was ordered by under boss Pete Casella who himself did not live long enough to profit from it.). As Mr. Testa was not home they left the pizza between the screen door and front door of his home in Gerald Estates- the Versailles of old South Philly.

Phil returns …opens his doors and …KABOOM - a Pizza deal gone horribly wrong.. Like Tsar Alexander II , Phil had his legs blown off and bleed to death.. Ghastly really when you think of it…. And boy what a sound- I and my girlfriend were nearly thrown out of bed by the sound. It was the South Philly Big Bang. Did terrible damage to the windows and doors of the many adjoining palaces in the Estate of Steven Gerald. And to make matters worse it became a macabre tourist attraction for a few months with people driving and gawking at South Philly’s very own Daly Plaza.

Well old Phil was dead and how did that benefit our friend.. Nulla Nulla- nothin’ he remained outside the mob he tried to burst into.

The real mob however took a year to figure out what went down (as they say), and when they did our friend’s days of shooting people for parking mishaps was over. Word first made its way on the street in late winter 1982. La Cosa Nostra was onto the pizza conspiracy, and they were not in the practice of forgiving such unauthorized conduct.

The breath of vengeance was felt in the neighborhood. The grim reaper’s shadow was seen on Passyunk avenue, the ferryman was waiting on the Delaware. They say it was about 5:30 am in early Spring when our hero was last seen or heard running and shouting around 12th and Reed near the old Mario’s luncheonette; and like one of Spalafucile’s victims from Verdi’s opera Rigoletto, disappeared. His next appearance was in Termini’s parking lot, rolled up in a carpet like Cleopatra… but with half his face blown off. Termini’s, that bastion South Philadelphian pasticcerie ( what I would not give now for a Termini zepole as I write this).

I remember my uncle Micky sent his driver to get the obligatory boxes of cakes and such to bring to the family home of the deceased. But alas the foolish man had it put in a Termini’s box!! Which my dear uncle Mickey , for propriety’s sake, had us quickly change to some non descript container. Termini’s that week had many request for their products to NOT be placed in anything bearing the Termini’s logo, perhaps Termini’s could have sued the Mothers and Fathers Association for defamation of corporate reputation?

And oh the neighborhood was abuzz with rumor, facts, and fantasies. He head was cut off, his face blown off, it was a terrible mistake, an accident, as he did not do it. The last was really the most absurd statement – George W. may go to war for imaginative fears or excuses but not the Mothers and Fathers of the Italian Association.

The mother of the deceased insisted on an open casket to quell all rumors of appalling disfigurement- but to do this the undertaker had to reconstruct part of the face in wax… he strongly warned the remaining siblings to keep mother OFF of the body or the face would dissolve in her hands….a thought almost as gruesome as poor Phil with his legs blown off.

Keeping mother off the body did prove difficult as she made a few leaps at the casket, but as she was somewhat crippled she never made a direct hit on the face. Of course one could smugly say that had she shown as much interest in instilling a sense of moral integrity and respect for fellow humans in her son, as she did in rabid displays of grief, perhaps her son would still be around ….but ..Judge not, lest ye be judged. Matthew 7:1. The poor women's grief was real enought.

Our poor friend did get his sought after mob association, but by passive participation in a mob hit. There’s that old South Philly Irony again.

The young man who helped ,by the way, was apprehended by the police before the mob ,and that definitely saved his life. He now sits somewhere in jail, his youth wasted away in ways I would rather not think- this is God’s Irony.

Yet my memories of the dead man are positive. He was very fond of my parents, he did a lot of work for my uncle’s construction firm and he was the man who did work on our Basement at 1010- practically for free- back in 1979. That was nice of you...thanks..…

Evil has many faces, yet I don’t think any of these people were evil. But they are dead, and the mob is dead, but I wouldn’t exactly say the world is any safer.