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Back in the 1950s America’s big cities all had big-time organized crime gangs. In Pennsylvania, that mean the big mob towns were Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. But they had their small-town subsidiaries, like the one author Russell Shorto’s grandfather helped run in Johnstown. His book Smalltime is both a mob investigation and a family memoir…and a heckuva read. Part of what Russell and his father uncovered was his Dad’s longstanding lie about why he didn’t follow his father into the Mafia family.
By KSFRBack in the 1950s America’s big cities all had big-time organized crime gangs. In Pennsylvania, that mean the big mob towns were Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. But they had their small-town subsidiaries, like the one author Russell Shorto’s grandfather helped run in Johnstown. His book Smalltime is both a mob investigation and a family memoir…and a heckuva read. Part of what Russell and his father uncovered was his Dad’s longstanding lie about why he didn’t follow his father into the Mafia family.