Wednesday, April 25, 2012

My Dad's Mafia Family Tree

My dad always worked for residential building management in New York City. For most of my young life he had a really sweet gig managing the Plaza 400 building's Skytop Terrace Club on 56th Street and 1st Avenue. The Club consisted of a bar and party space, an outdoor pool, an exercise room, a sauna, and kitchen service. As far as my family life is concerned, this was my father's golden period. Managing Skytop in the 70's and early 80's still had a Wild West quality to it and my dad was able to make some of his money under the table. Bookmaking, favors and kickbacks, scams on kitchen deliveries. At the height of his fun, other members of the building's nefarious staff (doormen, janitors, concierge) got some white-out together and added themselves to a Daily News published "Mafia Family Tree". That's my dad, Frank Sisti, top row, second from the left. This is back in the day when the fact that the office had a Xerox machine was a tremendous deal and each Xerox Copy was given the respect of a Kodak snapshot.

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