Monday Morning Greetings 2026 #25 – What I Learned from My Association with the Gambino Crime Family

You can’t make this up! I was checking out a documentary called The Lynchpin of Bensonhurst.[1] It’s a long story why, but I was brought up in that neighborhood. It was the story of Dominick Santamaria aka Dominick Montiglio, an important member of the Gambino crime family who was brought up by his uncle Nino Gaggi. Nino was arguably the most notorious capo of the Gambino family. I only needed to check out something in the first few minutes, but something caught my eye and that impelled me to explore further. As the map displayed in the documentary zoomed in on his birthplace, first you see New York City, then the borough of Brooklyn, and finally Bensonhurst, my neighborhood. The arrow on the screen then zeroed in on a video scan of the block Dominick grew up with its three-family attached brick houses. Suddenly, I then saw my house just two doors down from where Dominick Montiglio lived! When my older brother watched the documentary, he was shocked. Dominick was his best friend until…