In 1987, the Mafia Commission Trials finally took down the New York City Mob, which was made up of five notoriously violent families: Gambino, Genovese, Colombo, Lucchese, and Bonanno. How the Mafia Infiltrated the New York Construction Sector A historical perspective on construction allows us to better understand the concrete industry today, which continues to embed itself in exploitative behaviors, ranging from labor abuses to environmental harm on American and increasingly foreign soils. This post, however, takes the opportunity to understand the city’s construction history from below, digging deep into the politics of building. We have viewed these construction projects largely from above - Berenice Abbott’s documentation of New York’s aggressive construction efforts of the 1930s generated many clammy palms. Instead, academics have focused on narratives of technological progress that have given life to precedent-setting and record-breaking building efforts, ranging from the Empire State Building to the World Trade Towers, that consumed ever-increasing amounts of construction materials. Few architectural and urban historians have examined the extent to which the organized crime syndicate controlled the construction of the city’s building efforts throughout the twentieth century. But what if I told you that politics around the two particles of dust was not especially different? What if I unearthed that concrete - much like cocaine - is embedded in histories of violence, illicit activity, and social and environmental harm?Įnter the New York City Mafia.

It is only in their beginnings as off-white powder that they appear to share any commonality. And it seems for good reason as the two substances are most different: one is a building material while the other is a highly addictive drug one is legal while the other is not one materializes environments, like homes, offices, schools, and infrastructure while the other destroys families and communities. Concrete receives far less attention than cocaine.

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