Brooklyn's Most Wanted: The Top 100 Criminals, Crooks and Creeps from the County of the Kings

By Craig McGuire

A collected history of the 100 most notorious criminals to walk the streets of the New York City borough.

Brooklyn’s Most Wanted parades an impressive perp walk of 100 of the borough’s most notorious, ranking them meticulously from bad to worst. From crime bosses to career criminals to corrupt politicians, pedophile priests to Ponzi scammers, this is not your usual crime chronicle. You want labor racketeering, Ponzi scheming, hijacking, murder, loan sharking, arson, illegal gambling, money laundering? Fugetaboutit!

Take this guided gangland tour of Brooklyn, the broken land, and meet everyone from the South Brooklyn Boys to the Soviet thugs of Brighton Beach’s Little Odessa.

Want to know what Billy the Kid, John Wilkes Booth and the Son of Sam all have in common? Brooklyn.

Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso, Al Capone, Frankie Yale, Paul Vario, Roy DeMeo and so many more malicious malcontents and maniacs stalk these pages, as author Craig McGuire rank a rogues’ gallery of the best of the worst from Brooklyn’s crime-ridden past and present.

This includes more than a century of screaming crime blotter headlines, spotlighting epic cases, like The Brooklyn Godmother, The Sex Killer of Brooklyn, The Nurse Girl Murder, The Long Island Railroad Massacre, The Thrill Kills Gang, and many more. From “Son of Sam” to “Son of Sal,” “Little Lepke” to “Big Paulie,” “The Butcher of Brooklyn,” “The Vampire of Brooklyn,” “The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight,” and even “The Man Who Murdered Brooklyn Baseball,” they’re all here.

Much more than Murder Incorporated, this book features kingpins and lone wolves alike, with a line-up featuring many of the multi-ethnic mobs mimicking the original La Cosa Nostra—the Russian Mafia, the Albanian Mafia, the Polish Mafia, the Greek Mafia—in fact, this book contains more mafias than you can shake a bloody blackjack at. The author’s proprietary Notorious Brooklyn Index analyzes criminal activity, socio-economic type, notoriety, relation to Brooklyn and more for a final score that’s far from conjecture—though it will undoubtedly spark debate.

Praise for Brooklyn’s Most Wanted

“Never has anyone put together a look into so many of Brooklyn’s worst. This is a great read I highly recommend.” —Thomas Dades, retired NYPD detective, bestselling author of Friends of the Family

“If you love all-things-Brooklyn like I do, this is an absolute must-read you need on your shelf. . . . A revealing, rousing, rip-roaring tour that will slice you right into the underbelly of New York City’s most historic borough.” —Ron Valdes, co-founder, Brooklyn Creative Partners

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781942266976

Book preview

Brooklyn's Most Wanted Walking Tour

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LEGEND:

1 – 420 Graham Avenue (Williamsburg), site of The Motion Lounge, mob nightclub owned by Bonanno crime family caporegime Dominick Napolitano, one of the central locations in FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone’s six-year undercover operation.

2 – 205 Knickerbocker Avenue (Bushwick), Joe and Mary’s Italian-American Restaurant, scene of July 12, 1979, assassination of Carmine Galante, Bonanno Mafia Family boss.

3 – Brooklyn Bridge (DUMBO), scene of March 1, 1994, attack by Lebanese-born immigrant Rashid Baz who shot at a van of 15 Chabad-Lubavitch Orthodox Jewish students, murdering 1 and injuring three.

4 – The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel of the Long Island Rail Road (Cobble Hill), site of an abandoned railroad tunnel that may hide secret diary pages of assassin John Wilkes Booth.

5– 127 Palmetto Street (Bushwick), site of infamous 1900 Nurse Girl Murder when Alice O’Donnell, charged with the care of an eighteen-month-old baby boy, murdered the child while the unsuspecting parents were in the next room.

6 – 95 Navy Street (Downtown), site of childhood home of Alphonse Scarface Capone.

7 – 222 Brooklyn Avenue (Crown Heights), site of the Brooklyn House of Evil, where for two decades Devernon Doc LeGrand headed one of the most notorious crime families / religious cults in New York City history.

8 – President Street near Utica Avenue (Crown Heights), intersection where two children of Guyanese immigrants were unintentionally struck by an automobile in the motorcade of rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, sparking the Crown Heights Riots of 1991.

9 – 1000 Sutter Avenue (Crown Heights), the 75th New York City Police Precinct, site of massive police corruption scandal in the 1980s led by former NYPD Officer Mike Dowd.

10 – 1080 Liberty Avenue (East New York), scene of The Palm Sunday massacre, a 1984 mass-murder that resulted in the deaths of ten people: three women, a teenage girl, and six children, leaving a sole survivor, an infant girl.

11 – 152 20th Street (South Brooklyn), former location of The Adonis Club, site of epic 1925 Christmas Day shootings claiming the lives of White Hand gang boss Richard Pegleg Lonergan and several underlings, effectively crippling the Irish mob in Brooklyn.

12 -779 Saratoga Avenue (Brownsville), former site of the Midnight Rose Candy Store, the headquarters of Murder Incorporated during the 1930s and 1940s.

13  – 834 Flatbush Avenue (Flatbush), location of the She-She Boutique, one of three crime scenes for serial killer Salvatore Son of Sal Perrone who murdered Brooklyn shopkeepers during in a 2012 spree.

14 – Fountain Avenue near Belt Parkway (East New York), location where the body of Imette Carmella St. Guillen was found in February 2006, after she was brutally raped and murdered, a crime that led to the passage of legislation to require background checks of bouncers in bars and a security plan for nightclubs.

15 - 57th Street near 9th Avenue (Sunset Park), scene of Sunset Park Massacre where 25-year-old transient from China slaughtered his cousin’s wife and four children with a meat cleaver.

16 – 4305 10th Avenue (Borough Park), scene of infamous hostage siege in 1996, where crazed ex-boyfriend executed his pregnant teenage lover and wounded three of her relatives before killing himself.

17 – 44th Street Near 13th Avenue (Borough Park), location where Levi Aron, a.k.a. The Butcher of Brooklyn, who kidnapped eight-year-old Leiby Kletzky in the summer of 2011.

18 – 450 Avenue P near East 3rd Street (Gravesend), former site of Chase Manhattan Bank that was the focus on the infamous Dog Day Afternoon robbery on August 22, 1972

19 – 477 82nd Street (Bay Ridge), former offices of The Leverage Group, run by Phillip Barry, known to many as the Bernie Madoff of Bay Ridge for bilking local residents out of $24 million in  massive Ponzi scheme that ran for more than 30 years.

20 – 9216 7th Avenue (Dyker Heights), location of Poly Prep Country Day School, elite Brooklyn private school rocked by sex scandal when Phil Foglietta, the school’s football coach, molested players for years.

21 – 7506 13th Avenue (Bensonhurst), former site of Wimpy Boys Social Club, mob hangout frequented by Greg The Grim Reaper Scarpa.

22 – 6205 18th Avenue (Bensonhurst), longtime hangout of Gambino underboss and infamous Mafia turncoat Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano.

23 – 4021 Flatlands Avenue (Flatlands), former site of The Gemini Lounge, stronghold and murder scene for ultra-violent Gambino crew led by Roy DeMeo in the 1980s.

24 – 1814 81st Street (Bensonhurst), scene of slaying of Costabile Gus Farace, Jr., a low-level associate with the Bonanno crime family who was killed in 1989 by Mafia hit squad in retaliation on an unsanctioned murder of a federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent in New York City.

25 – 20th Avenue and Bay Ridge Avenue (Bensonhurst), site of the 1989 slaying of Yusuf Hawkins by Joseph Fama during racial attack.

26 – 5945 Strickland Avenue (Mill Basin), El Caribe Country Club, one-time headquarters of Brighton Beach mob boss Evsei Agron.

27 – Shore Parkway (Bath Beach), site of the final murder of serial killer David Son of Sam Berkowitz.

28 – 1852 Bath Ave (Bath Beach), Daniel George and Son Funeral Home, one of several locations used by Michael Mastromarino, The Brooklyn Body Snatcher, who made millions by illegally harvesting skin and bones from corpses for sale.

29 – 91 Bay 29th Street (Bath Beach), site where in 1991, Bartholomew Borriello, personal driver of Gambino boss John Gotti, was gunned down in the driveway of his three-story frame house in retaliation of previous assassination of Paul Castellano.

30 – Avenue X, East 1 Street (Gravesend), site of a 1982 racially motivated gang murder of Willie Turks, an innocent African-American male, at the hands of a white bat-wielding mob.

31 – Riegelmann Boardwalk at West 29th Street (Coney Island), former site of the Half Moon Hotel, where Abe Reles, informant for the FBI who brought down numerous members of Murder, Inc., either jumped, fell or was pushed to his death on November 12, 1941, while in protective custody of the NYPD, just hours before he was scheduled to testify against Albert Anastasia.

32 – 1113 Brighton Beach Avenue (Brighton Beach), former site of now shuttered Odessa Restaurant frequented by Brooklyn Russian Mafia, where gangster Vladimir Reznikov had put a gun to the head of Marat Balagula.  When Reznikov left Odessa, he was shot six times by Lucchese gunmen.

Table of Contents

BROOKLYN'S MOST WANTED WALKING TOUR MAP

Introduction

About the Ranking System

100

Julius Bernstein – The Last Jewish Mobster

99

John Wilkes Booth – Lincoln Assassin

98

Mickey Cohen – West Coast Mob Kingpin

97

Mendel Epstein – The Prodfather

96

Walter O’Malley – The Man Who Murdered Baseball in Brooklyn

95

Alphonse Capone – Scarface

94

William Bonney – Billy the Kid

93

Ludwig Lee – Torso Parts Clues in Double Murder

92

Gino Bova – The Murder of Willie Turks

91

Ostap Kapelioujnyj – The Greenpoint Crew

90

Joanna Pimentel – the Brooklyn Godmother

89

Shamar Smirk Brooks – Brooklyn’s Most Wanted

88

Barney Wolfson – Brooklyn’s Own St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

87

Elizabeth Lizzie Lloyd King & Mary Ann Dwyer – Two Insane Women.

86

John Pappa – Brooklyn Mafia Renegade

85

Clarence Norman Jr.  – Corrupt Democratic Party Leader

84

Luis Blanco – King Humble & The Latin Kings

83

Vito Lopez – Democratic Party Kingpin

82

Thomas McFarland – The Sex Killer of Brooklyn

81

Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley – Cop Killer

80

Alice O’Donnell – The Nurse Girl Murder

79

Benjamin Bugsy Siegel – The Father of Las Vegas

78

Anthony Weiner – A.K.A. Carlos Danger

77

Sean Erez – The Holy Rollers

76

Damion World Hardy – Brooklyn Drug Lord

75

Ronald Herron – Ra Diggs

74

Philip Barry – The Bernie Madoff of Bay Ridge

73

William Wild Bill Lovett – The White Hand

72

Peg Leg Lonergan – The Adonis Club Incident

71

Salvatore Perrone – The Son of Sal

70

Michael Mastromarino – The Brooklyn Body Snatcher

69

Martin Shkreli – The Most Hated Man in America

68

William Miller – The Original Ponzi Schemer

67

Joseph Profaci – Don Pepinno

66

Thomas Pitera – Tommy Karate

65

Irving Nitzberg – Knadles

64

Delroy Edwards – Uzi

63

Mike Dowd – The Cop Version of Goodfellas

62

Jack Koslow – The Kill for Thrills Gang

61

Ronald DeFeo – The Amityville Horror Killer

60

Vyacheslav Ivankov – Little Japanese

59

Victor I. Barron – Corrupt Supreme Court judge

58

Levi Aron – The Butcher of Brooklyn

57

Harry Strauss – Pittsburgh Phil

56

Gerald Phillip Gerry Garson – Corrupt Supreme Court judge

55

Carl Kruger – Corrupt Brooklyn Politician

54

Willie Sutton – Because that’s where the money is.

53

Ming Don Chen – The Sunset Park Massacre

52

Bartholomew Boriello – Castellano Assassin

51

Abe Kid Twist Reles – The Canary Who Couldn’t Fly

50

William Cutolo – Wild Bill

49

John Wojtowicz – Dog Day Afternoon

48

Frankie Yale – Early Brooklyn Gang Boss

47

Joe Waverly Cacace – The Colombo Family War

46

The Shapiro Brothers – Meyer, Irving & William

45

John Hatcher – The Bloody Hatchet

44

Lemrick Nelson – The Crown Heights Riots

43

James Parker – Brooklyn’s Own Fatal Attraction

42

Evsei Agron – The Russian Godfather

41

Phil Foglietta – Poly Prep Football coach Who Molested Players

40

George Parker – The Man Who Sold the Brooklyn Bridge

39

Christopher Furnari – The 19th Hole Crew

38

Darryl Littlejohn – The Murder of Imette St. Guillen

37

Christopher Thomas – The Palm Sunday Massacre

36

Boris Nayfeld – Biba and the Brighton Beach Mob

35

Louis Buchalter – Lepke

34

Troy Hendrix Kayson Pearson – The Murder of Romona Moore

33

Paul Vario – Big Paulie

32

Carlo Gambino

31

Joey Fama – The Murder of Yusuf Hawkins

30

Marat Balagula – The Russian Tony Soprano

29

Carmine Persico – The Snake

28

Dominick Napolitano – Sonny Black

27

Yasser Ashburn – The Folk Nation

26

William Boyland Jr. – Corrupt Scion of Brooklyn Political Dynasty

25

Heriberto Seda – The Brooklyn Sniper

24

Louis Pretty Amberg – Inventor of the Sack Murder

23

Carmine Galante – The Cigar

22

Israel Narvaez – The Mau Maus

21

Anthony Spero – The Old Man

20

Devernon LeGrand – The Reverend

19

Justin A. Volpe – Abner Louima

18

Greg Scarpa – The Grim Reaper

17

Frank Abbandando – The Dasher

16

Monya Elson – The Russian Brigade

15

Romano Ferraro – The Predator Priest

14

Joseph Massino – The Last Don

13

Gus Farace –Wanted By the Mob

12

Anthony Salvatore Casso – Gaspipe

11

Albert Anastasia – The Lord High Executioner

10

Roy DeMeo – The Murder Machine

9

Joe Colombo - The Italian-American Civil Rights League

8

Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa – The Mafia Cops

7

Henry Hill – The Goodfella

6

Colin Ferguson – The Long Island Railroad Massacre

5

Salvatore Gravano – Sammy the Bull

4

Rashid Baz – Terror Attack on The Brooklyn Bridge

3

Crazy Joe Gallo – The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight

2

David Berkowitz – The Son of Sam

1

Albert Fish – The Brooklyn Vampire

Acknowledgements

Further Reference

For Anna,

Forever Brooklyn’s Most Wanted

Introduction

If Times Square is the crossroads of the world, then across the East River you’ll find the crossroads of the underworld.

Welcome to Gangland, U.S.A. – A.K.A. the bloody, brutal killing grounds of Brooklyn, New York.

From crime bosses to career criminals to corrupt politicians, pedophile priests to Ponzi scammers to psychotic serial killers, this is not your usual crime chronicle.

Walk with me as I rip open the underbelly of Brooklyn, the broken land, to see what spills out on a tour that takes us from the South Brooklyn Boys to the Soviet thugs of Brighton Beach’s Little Odessa.

Want to know what Billy the Kid, John Wilkes Booth and the Son of Sam all have in common?

Brooklyn. 

Anthony Gaspipe Casso, Al Capone, Frankie Yale, Paul Vario, Roy DeMeo and so many more mischievous malcontents and maniacs stalk these pages, as I rank a rogues’ gallery of the best of the worst from Brooklyn’s crime-ridden past and present.

Much more than Murder, Incorporated, Brooklyn’s Most Wanted chronicles kingpins and lone wolves alike, including modern multi-ethnic mobs mimicking the original La Cosa Nostra – the Russian Mafia, the Albanian Mafia, the Polish Mafia, the Greek Mafia, in fact more Mafias than you can shake a bloody blackjack at.

You want labor racketeering, hijacking, murder, loan sharking, arson, illegal gambling, money laundering?

Fugetaboutit!

We’ve ranked them all, barreling through a guided tour of the New York City’s most notorious criminal stomping grounds, where you’ll learn that when they say In Brooklyn They Don’t Play they really mean it. Seriously!

Welcome to the County of the Kings!

Now watch your back.

About the Ranking System

no·to·ri·e·ty (noun)

The state of being famous or well known for some bad quality or deed.

The primary objective of the proprietary Brooklyn’s Most Wanted Index Rankings is to list the 100 most-notorious individuals produced by Kings County, U.S.A. 

To compile such a list, I selected 34 individual indicators that each carry a different weighting when calculating the overall scores. Indicators range from type of criminal activity (i.e. murder, extortion, crimes against children) and type of criminal (i.e. white-collar criminal, pedophile priest, mob boss). While not revealing the actual weighting formula, the indicators are as follows:

My formula takes into account elements of notoriety (i.e. media coverage, movie treatment, documentaries, household name recognition).

Lastly, I looked at the individual in relation to Brooklyn (i.e. born in Brooklyn, percentage of crimes committed in Brooklyn).  

The indicators were based on objective facts and data, as well as subjective opinion of the author and a select committee of researchers and real crime fans.

As with all such systems, the Brooklyn’s Most Wanted Index Rankings has its limits and these imperfections are certain to inspire criticism and heated debate. There is no perfect system, though I welcome your comments to improve my ranking methodology and expand this list.

You are encouraged to submit your comments, criticisms and candidates for this list at www.BrooklynsMostWanted.com.

Let the debate begin!

100

Julius Bernstein – The Last Jewish Mobster

The media is always looking for latest Last Mohican.

In 2012, the New York Daily News heralded the end of an era when it christened Julius Bernstein The Last Jewish Mobster, lowering the curtain on a storied chapter in Brooklyn crime lore.

Born in 1922, Bernstein was raised during the Great Depression in impoverished East New York, Brooklyn. This was the heyday of the Jewish Gangster, when Murder, Incorporated rose to prominence as the Italian Mafia’s personal hit squad. (Dubbed Murder, Incorporated by the media, the organized crime group comprised mainly of Jewish and Italian-American gangsters from the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brownsville, East New York, and Ocean Hill and terrorized the city in the 1930s and 1940s.)

Serving in the United States Army during World War II as an infantryman, Bernstein charged the beaches in Normandy as part of the D-Day invasion, before returning to Brooklyn for a long career as a low-level gangster.

While Spike Bernstein never earned the notoriety of such Jewish underworld luminaries as a Meyer Lansky or a Benjamin Bugsy Siegel, he was a solid earner for the Italian mob as an associate of the Genovese Crime Family. Forbidden from becoming a Made member of the Mafia, as he was not of Italian heritage, Bernstein formed a close relationship with Matthew Matty the Horse Ianniello, who reached the rung of acting boss of the Genovese clan in 1995 when Vincent Gigante was packed off to prison. Ianniello went on to serve more than just jail time, standing in as Spike’s best man at his wedding. 

Back in Brooklyn, fresh off the beaches of northern France, Bernstein became what was known as a bagman, collecting extortion payments for more than four decades, including a bus union, the Sbarro Italian restaurant chain and other Brooklyn businesses bent backwards for shakedowns.

According to FBI records, by 1971 Bernstein was bumped up in the Brooklyn underworld, placed by the Genovese family in a leadership position in Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181, a union for New York City school bus drivers and matrons. But Bernstein was no bus driver. His sole role was managing the Genovese family’s shakedown for Ianniello. He held the post for 35 years, siphoning off thousands of dollars in hard-earned union dues and channeling it to the mob. Bernstein also ran a successful gambling book under the watch of notorious Brooklyn Genovese crime boss Frank Funzi Tieri.

Most notable of Bernstein’s criminal exploits was his role in the extortion of the popular Sbarro restaurant chain. Gennaro Sbarro opened his first salumeria on the corner of 65th Street and 17th Avenue in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, in 1956. Sbarro opened his first mall location in 1970 in the Kings Plaza Shopping Center on Flatbush Avenue in Marine Park, Brooklyn, and grew the business to become the fifth-largest pizza chain in America.

Taking a slice of the American Dream, Sbarro debuted its Initial Public Offering in 1977, and by the early 1990s was launching up to 100 stores per year. The company was brought private by the family in 1999 and sold for $450 million in 2006, though it has struggled in recent years, declaring bankruptcy in 2011 and again in 2014.

Based on Bernstein’s testimony, the FBI learned that the mob’s extortion of Sbarro began as far back as the 1960s. By 2004 the Genovese family was being passed $20,000 annually under the table. Bernstein personally collected the twice-annual $10,000 payments.

At the age of 82, Bernstein was caught up in an FBI probe of Sbarro and arrested in July 2005. Facing a lengthy prison term, Spike spilled the family secrets. Pleading guilty on multiple extortion counts, Bernstein began cooperating with the government in 2006.

Yet even after flipping for the feds, the wily Bernstein accepted a $20k payoff from a bus company owner inside a bathroom at the Staten Island Hilton, according to the New York Daily News.

Bernstein died on October 21, 2007. Though he provided damning evidence about his criminal career that implicated his cohorts, his death spared him the awkward humiliation of standing witness against them in open court.

When Bernstein’s FBI papers became available in 2012 through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by The New York Daily News, in a subsequent article he earned that final distinction, dubbed the Last Jewish Gangster.

Yet in truth, that era had long since passed.

99

John Wilkes Booth – Lincoln Assassin

BMW Image 24 – John Wilkes Booth 1865.jpg

John Wilkes Booth 1865

Was John Wilkes Booth, dastardly assassin of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, gunned down by a Union soldier?

Or did he escape to Europe via the Brooklyn waterfront? Oh, you never heard that one?

That little-known conspiracy theory lands Booth the rank of No. 99 on the Brooklyn’s Most Wanted list. 

Long before The Grassy Knoll entered our lexicon, multiple conspiracy theories shrouded the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

In fact, the Lincoln assassination’s own version of the Zapruder film — missing pages torn from the diary of the villainous John Wilkes Booth — may be hidden in a 19th century subway tunnel located beneath the bustling streets of Downtown Brooklyn.

We know Booth murdered Lincoln in dramatic fashion, shooting the president in the head during a performance of the play Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater on the evening of April 14, 1865.

What we don’t know is the full extent of the plot and its many tentacles. That’s because after 12 days on the run, Booth was shot dead by Union Sergeant Boston Corbett.

In the aftermath of the killing of Booth, rumors of a cover-up bubbled up, speculating that Booth did not die on a farm in Virginia surrounded and gunned down by enraged Union forces, but rather he escaped to Europe through the Brooklyn docks.

A famous actor, Booth never served in the Confederate Army, yet was a staunch Southern sympathizer who interacted with members of the Confederacy’s secret service. The theory follows that Booth was not a lone wolf, but a Confederate spy using his cover as a travelling thespian to journey throughout the Northern United States gathering and passing intelligence during and after the war. His role in the assassination was part of a larger conspiracy, or so the speculation goes.

Supposedly, Booth wrote down details of this nefarious plot in his diary, on pages now missing from the original manuscript, and possibly hidden in a locked box sealed in a bricked-up tunnel under Atlantic Avenue.

Records show Booth did perform on October 24th through October 26th in 1863 at the original site of the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Montague Street, between Court and Clinton streets. That puts him in close proximity to the tunnel. 

At the time, there was a strong contingent of Southern sympathizers in New York, known as the Copperheads. The Copperheads, also known as Peace Democrats, lobbied for an end to the bloodshed and urged for negotiation with the South to end the conflict. The mayor of New York City at the time, Fernando Wood, suggested to the City Council that New York secede from the Union, to preserve its lucrative cotton trade with the South.

Did Booth slip out of New York through the bustling piers in Brooklyn, to live out his life in obscurity in some far-flung hamlet in rural Europe or remote Asia? The mystery may lie in the tunnel under Atlantic Avenue, a quest that captured the imagination of historian Bob Diamond.

The Atlantic Avenue tunnel itself is steeped in Brooklyn lore, as the oldest subway tunnel ever constructed in America, created as the final leg of an extension to connect the above-ground Long Island Railroad to Manhattan and then on to Boston. Beset by corruption and mismanagement, the project foundered and the tunnel was sealed at both ends.

Diamond accessed the tunnel in the 1980s, removing the first of two concrete walls to lead guided underground tunnel tours.

However, beyond the second, still-sealed concrete wall lays a train platform, and supposedly a vintage locomotive with a box containing Booth’s long-lost diary pages. Diamond waged a campaign to unseal the tunnel. The National Geographic Channel was even involved for a time, investing in pre-production that included high-tech scan tests that identified an object about the size of a locomotive.

The story was featured in a Newsweek article and in an episode of the popular Cities of the Underworld series on The History Channel that delved into the tunnel’s connection to the Freemasons (members helped finance the tunnel), its use