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| A Total Mob Scene | |||||||
| Our columnist checks out the funeral procession for one of New York’s—and the media’s—favorite criminals | |||||||
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| June 17 — Outside the cemetery where John Gotti would be laid to rest, a reporter for a popular New York paper was on the phone with his assignment editor. |
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| SATURDAY’S
FUNERAL OF the last of the Mafia dons was the singular event of the day
(make that the month) for the local media, so the editor and the reporter
were conferring before the day’s events began to unfold. The conversation, like most between editors and reporters, consisted of a series of Uh-huhs and rights—until the reporter ended the conversation in a huff. “She just asked me to ‘Get the grave-digger!’” the reporter said, seeking sympathy from his ink-stained cohorts. “Can you believe it? My editor actually said, ‘Get the grave-digger’!” The reference, of course, was to a column that Jimmy Breslin wrote on the day that John F. Kennedy was laid to rest at Arlington. The interview with the man who dug the slain president’s grave made Breslin a star. Since then, “Get the grave-digger” has been journalistic shorthand for “Bring back something good.” But on this dreary day outside a cemetery three hours before there was anything to cover, the reporter seemed more upset by the editor’s micromanaging than the subtle implication that he needed to be told to bring back something good. “I just told her, ‘Remember? He’s being put in a mausoleum. There’s no grave-digger. It’s a f—king drawer!’” he said. And so it went outside St. John’s Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens, a working-class neighborhood of sanitation workers, cops, firemen and laborers where John Gotti—who never worked an honest day in his life—was nonetheless given a hero’s sendoff. |
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Everyone in the
Last Don’s passion play was acting out his role perfectly. At the same time as the reporter and editor were bickering, a line of 19 pickup trucks filled from wheel well to roofline with floral arrangements, had parked outside the Papavero Funeral Home in nearby Maspeth. In the center of each truck’s payload was a particularly ostentatious display—everything from a martini glass to a prancing horse to a winning poker hand to a Cuban cigar—arrangements so garish that you felt bad for the chrysanthemums. You couldn’t really tell if this was the funeral of a mobster or Jimmy the Greek—until you saw the bouncers, men wearing double-breasted suits so stuffed full of man that they looked, as Pete Hamill accurately pointed out, as if they’d “swallowed fire hydrants.” And if that didn’t tell you that you were at a mobster’s funeral, maybe you could tell from the federal agents and their telephoto lenses sitting in the bronze SUV taking pictures of the Gotti family members (and you thought that was just a Mafia-movie invention!). Or maybe you could tell from Gotti’s “fans,” who gathered, 200-strong, on the street outside the funeral home. If it surprises you that a murderous mob boss could have fans, you are not a reader of the New York City tabloids. Always desperate to sell papers, the New York media created Gottimania, gleefully excusing his crimes, his viciousness, his thugishness, because he threw nice parties for his neighbors, knew all the maitre d’s in the city’s best restaurants by name, always had a quip for reporters, believed in the sanctity of such outmoded institutions as loyalty and honor and, at long last, dressed so snazzy (that is, if you like that white turtleneck and double-breasted sport jacket look). Coverage of the variety that John Gotti enjoyed during his decade in the limelight tends to blur certain lines once thought indelible. When someone is as big a celebrity as Gotti, the media seemed to be saying, does the genesis of that celebrity really matter anymore? (Even the usually sober New York Daily News suggested on Sunday that Gotti’s crimes were insignificant because they occurred during a simpler time “when hard-core villains didn’t hijack commercial jets, only truckloads of cigarettes.”) “Maybe he did bad, maybe he did good,” one man told me outside the funeral home. “It doesn’t really matter.” Another man took the Machiavellian approach, namely that celebrity justifies its own means, “He must have done something right,” the man said. “I mean, look at all these limos!” After a brief ceremony at the funeral home, the 19 flower cars pulled away, followed by more than 40 limousines and dozens more cars carrying the Gottirazzi, his legion of fans. The cortege was following a great old mob tradition of taking the deceased on a final tour of important sites of his life, the “last ride,” as the city tabloids called it. The papers even published a map of the route, another ill-fitting link to a presidential funeral. The New York Post, the paper of record on the Gotti funeral, predicted that 10,000 mourners would line the route, but there were only a few curiosity seekers (how often, after all, do you get to see 19 El Caminos stuffed with flowers?). The procession first took Gotti’s body to the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club, where his crime family hung out. Here, in the heart of Gotti country, where people actually knew the man who threw those lavish July 4 block parties (until the feds made him stop), the street was packed with well-wishers straining to touch the hearse. A huge banner read, “John Gotti Will Live Forever.” A handwritten note on the door read, “J.G. A Man’s Man, Rest in Peace.” It was signed, amazingly, “9-11 Rescue Worker.” From there, it was off to Gotti’s home in Howard Beach, an all-white region of Queens best-known for a 1986 race riot that began when three black men had the nerve to show up at a pizzeria. Howard Beach isn’t the same as it was when John Gotti was calling the shots. Yes, the pizzeria is still there—the cortege drove past it, in fact—but there’s also a Starbucks, and when the processional drove past this totem of American homogeneity, it was clear that this was no longer John Gotti’s world. Imagine, John Gotti’s bier drove right by Yuppies ... at a Starbucks ... in Howard Beach. The hearse was cheered in front of his house, but in front of the Starbucks, people had confused looks on their faces, like they were watching an old newsreel and not really understanding the events being depicted. |
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The Archdiocese allowed Gotti to be buried at St. John’s (it had rejected his predecessor, Paul Castellano, the man whom Gotti killed to take control of the Gambino crime family), but there would be no Mass said at the grave. (Apparently, the Catholic Church is belatedly worried about its public image.) Certainly, there were curiosity seekers in the crowd, people who simply must see the last act after spending years watching a man go from thug to larger-than-life figure solely because a handful of editors and producers believe it is a good story. In the media, after all, it was Sammy Gravano, the mob turncoat, who was “the rat” for betraying his boss. Gotti was always “The Dapper Don.” “We’re all playing our roles here,” said Ozzie Brinskelle, as four news helicopters swirled overhead. “The media built up the story, so the public comes out. The coverage created this frenzy.” But Brinskelle was in the minority. These were John Gotti’s people surging towards the flower-filled El Caminos, people like Lisa Provvedi, who had driven all the way from Bethlehem, Pa., to stand outside St. John’s Cemetery with a red rose. “We need men like John Gotti in this world to show the government that we won’t be pushed around,” Provvedi told me. “I love the Mafia,” she said. “It taught me that you don’t need to take no bulls—t from nobody. If John Gotti had been president, those Twin Towers would still be standing. I guarantee you, he’s in Heaven.” I doubt it; that’s a story none of the papers would’ve missed. Gersh Kuntzman is also a columnist for The New York Post. His Web site is at http://www.gersh.tv/ © 2002 Newsweek, Inc. |
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