Mafia Still a Power On the Waterfront
In the classic film On the Waterfront (which I haven't seen and don't intend to, unless someone tells me otherwise), the laborers who worked on New York's docks "were reluctant, even frightened, to talk to the authorities, whether a priest or a detective, because the mob controlled the waterfront," the New York Times noted recently. Longshoremen in 1940s New York REVISED : Most longshoremen were indeed conflicted during much of the 20th century about the notion of revealing what they knew regarding members of a certain secret criminal society. In Brooklyn, that meant informing on a man who had demonstrated he'd go all the way -- meaning, murder you, your wife and your entire family -- if he had even an inkling you were informing on him (or were planning to or were even thinking about the possibility). And considering the wide-scale corruption of police, union officials, politicians, basically all civilization's "managers," if you will, ...