Collection: Triangle Civic Improvement Association

The streets of Greenwich Village have changed a lot over the years. Once a bastion for mob activity, the area is now known for its sky-high rents and scores of NYU students.

For decades, Vincent "The Chin" Gigante ruled the Genovese crime family from the Triangle Civic Improvement Association, a non-descript street level club at 208 Sullivan Street, just south of Washington Square Park. While John Gotti received the majority of the media spotlight as the godfather in the 1980's, many think that Gigante held the real power in the American mafia.

Quiet and reserved, Gigante was known to walk through the neighborhood wearing a bathrobe, muttering to himself, perhaps hoping to build an insanity case if he was ever locked up. Few were fooled. The Chin's mother, Yolanda, also lived on Sullivan Street, and when she was robbed of her wallet by a petty thief in 1994, the mugger quickly plead guilty and apologized, through the media, to the Gigante family. After Gigante ended up in prison, and the government was able to prove he was still running the crime family from behind bars, he pleaded guilty to additional charges in a deal that let his son off with a lighter sentence. He died in a federal prison in 2005.

Today, there is little trace of the family on Sullivan Street, or of the mob more broadly. But in a city with so many layers, one never knows.