Legend holds that Carlo Gambino, the No. 1 Mafioso in New York City, put a contract out on Frank Matthews in the early ’70s. Instead of going into hiding or attempting to parley with the infamous mobster, the man known as the Black Godfather made a bold and reckless statement that could only be taken as the direct threat it was: “Touch one of my men, and I’ll drive down Mulberry Street [the main drag of New York’s Little Italy] and shoot every wop I see.”
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Not prone to idle threats himself, Gambino knew his uptown enemy was deadly serious. Matthews seemed to have a problem with Italians selling heroin to Blacks, though he had no problem supplying it himself. Gambino wisely called off the hit rather then start a costly war between the Blacks and Italians — one that would have left both sides decimated. Gambino had made what was considered a smart tactical move in the criminal underworld, where everyone knows the mob has a long memory and might wait years to exact revenge.
Source: ozy.com
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