Joe Petrosino's War On the Mafia: The Mob Files Series

FROM THE BOOK
Giuseppe Petrosino, who went by the Americanized name Joe Petroseena, was born in Padula near Salerno, Italy on August 30th 1860. His family emigrated to America in 1873. Young Petrosino decided to become a cop after shining patrolmen's shoes outside of police headquarters on Mulberry Street.
In his teens applied to the Irish dominated force but was rejected. "He was too short, too swarthy, spoke with an accent and wasn't Irish".
An Italian woman 'rag-picker' in her living space, with her packs of junk, few possessions including her straw hat hung on the wall behind her, and a child in her lap.
In 1878 Petrosino became a City street sweeper and won a promotion to foreman within a year. In 1879, Petrosino got a break when Police Captain Alexander "Clubber" Williams was assigned to command the street cleaning department.
The New York City Police force if the mid- nineteenth-century was full of goons, enforcers, thieves and extortionists. Some precincts were richer than others and offered more "graft and gravy" and for the many crooked cops on the force, the idea was to get assigned to the more lucrative areas such as the 29th, the fashionable red-light district on the West Side below 42nd Street.
Here, the sex trade was protected by the police who in turn paid off the local political machine, Tammany. In 1876, when police Capt. Alexander "Clubber" Williams was transferred there with the announcement "Boy's I've had nothing but chuck steak for a long time, and now I'm going to get a little of the tenderloin." And hence the Tenderloin was named.
Williams was brutal, thoroughly corrupt cop. "There is" he once said "more law at the end of a policeman's nightstick than in all the decisions of the Supreme Court" Police wouldn't be armed until 1877 and Williams had a reputation as a man who knew how to handle himself and his police club (Then called a paddy club) When William's joined the force in the late 1860s, he decided to clean up the areas along Broadway and Houston Streets. He started by beating two local gang members unconscious and throwing them through the plate-glass window of the Florence Saloon.
Six other members of the gang rushed out of the saloon only to meet William, standing alone, club in hand. He beat them all to a pulp with his club. Remarkably, as corrupt as he was, Williams was promoted to the rank of Captain in 1871 and later an inspector.
Yet witnesses before an 1894 investigation into police graft claimed the Clubber was receiving $30,000 a year, at a time when a police captain earned less than $200 a month, in protection money from one brothel alone.
The investigation also discovered that he owned an enormous estate and 17 room mansion in fashionable Cos Cobb Connecticut, a 53-foot yacht, a considerable fortune in cash and commercial real estate. When asked to explain his wealth, the Clubber explained that he had made his fortune through real estate speculation in Japan. Police Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt forced Williams into retirement shortly afterwards.