Saturdays @ 2:00pm
Examine the roots of the Mafia in America and explore the Sicilian immigrant experience.

This popular and exciting weekly tour examines the roots of the Mafia in America: From the original Sicilian Black Handers and Neapolitan Camorra to the forming of the Mafia Commission in 1931 -- this tour visits the homes, headquarters, hangouts of such criminal heavyweights as "Lucky" Luciano, Al Capone, Giuseppe Morello, Joe "The Boss" Masseria, and many more.

This tour examines the birth of organized crime in America and provides insight into the often overlooked early days of the nation's criminal heavyweights. How did Lucky Luciano rise to power?  How did the Five Families of the American Mafia originate? Some of the sites visited and discussed include "Black Hand block," headquarters of the "first family" of the American Mafia; the headquarters of Paul Kelly's notorious Five Points Gang, the gang responsible for breeding the likes of Al Capone, Johnny Torrio, Lucky Luciano, and hundreds more; the home of prohibition era's "Boss of Bosses;" the childhood homes and teenage haunts of Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky; and so much more.

When: Every Saturday at 2:00pm
Fee: $20
RSVP: Not required, you can pay your guide in cash
Meet: Outside of New Museum of Contemporary Art, 235 Bowery, NY NY 10002 (map/directions)
Subway: F  to "2nd Ave/Lower East Side" stop
Also available as a PRIVATE TOUR

Press:

"MUST DO"
-Frommer's Travel Guide

(If you) "think American gangster history is cool (it is, actually), this is the tour for you."
-Village Voice, July 21, 2010

"What Hollywood has done its part to bring the Italian Mafia to life, but nothing gets you closer to the real thing than this tour. Let Eric Ferrara, executive director of the Lower East Side History Project, separate myth from fact as you trace the roots of organized crime. Walk the same streets and alleyways where mob legends Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel held court."
-Newsday, Sunday, Feb 7, 2010

"On the popular Gangsters tour, you'll learn all abut the golden age of the American gangster..."
Toronto Star

"...(The tour) takes you on a journey from the golden age of the American gangster to the bohemian arts and drug culture of the 1960s. Eric guides you to historic hotspots like 57 Jones Street – the Five Points gang headquarters – and to Second Avenue at 12th Street, the scene of a famous mob shootout."
-NBC

"All the legendary bad guys did time on the Lower East Side: Lucky Luciano, Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel. Instead of trying to figure them out with movies-on-demand and pulp bios, follow in their footsteps, literally."
-Staten Island Advance

Your Guide:

The tour is conducted by Eric Ferrara, founder of the Museum of American Gangster, published author, founder of the Lower East Side History Project and  the East Village Visitors Center. He is a fourth-generation, native  New Yorker whose family immigrated to Little Italy from Sicily in the 1880s. Eric is the Historian of the E.4th Street Cultural District, (the only official cultural district in Manhattan), a licensed tour guide, educator at Brooklyn College, and sits on a number of local boards including the Tenement Museum's Immigrant Programs Advisory Committee, and the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors. He is a consultant on several movie, tv, and media projects world wide.

Eric has consulted the families and estates of many of the crime figures discussed on the tour.  These unique first-hand accounts, combined with 130 years of community insight and over four years of active research (original source materials, public records, archived articles, personal interviews, police department records, and published accounts), makes this excursion a one-of-a-kind experience for fans and aficionados alike.

| More...