Bergin Hunt and Fish Club

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Bergin Hunt and Fish Club is a Gambino crime family mob hangout and headquarters. It's located at 98-04 101st Avenue in Ozone Park (a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens).

Contents 1 Description 2 Gotti's schedule 3 Events 4 Downfall and Death 5 Today 6 References

[edit] Description

The Club has two brick storefronts, secretly connected on the inside. Both sides had bright red metal doors with small two-way mirrors, hefty padlocks and yellow aluminum siding above the ground floor. The ground floor windows in front are protected by metal grates. The metal grates on the windows and vertical blinds helped keep cops from sneaking in or snooping. There is no sign in front to identify the owner, tenant, or purpose of the building.

After John died, Peter Gotti gave a tour of what was left of the club. The interviewer made this description:

Inside the club were paneled walls were painted brown on bottom and white on top. On the right hung a painting that depicted a smiling John Gotti superimposed on an undulating American flag. To the left, a large, round card table was folded up against the wall. Above it was a photo containing several sports figures. At the far end stood a small bar. A back room housed the kitchen where Gotti's crew would cook Italian dishes on Wednesdays.

[edit] Gotti's schedule

John Gotti co-opted the club for his crew, before and after he was boss of the Gambino family. You could set your watch to his schedule. In the morning, he would pull up to the club in a black Mercedes wearing a jogging suit and step into the club. Moments later, Bobby Peligrino would show up with a freshly pressed Brioni suit on a hanger for Mr. Gotti. A few minutes after that, a barber would arrive. John would go into the back where he had his own barber chair and received his daily shave and expensive ablutions in a little professionally equipped room in the back of the club. While Gotti was getting dressed, Peligrino would take the Mercedes to the car wash. By 1 p.m., Gotti would come out, crisp in his beautiful suit, shadowed by his bodyguards Boby Borriello and Iggy Alonga. They would all get into the car and be off into a day of appointments and meetings.

John's brother Pete would see him about once a week, on Sundays, at the club in Ozone Park, to turn over the weekly extortion and Shylock tributes collected from capos in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and lower Manhattan.

[edit] Events

Gotti would host a huge block party and throw an amazing, yet illegal, fireworks display on 101st Avenue every July 4th.^[1] His crew would grill Boars Head hamburgers and hot dogs by the hundreds. Ice cream vendors were brought in to hand out free cones and pops to delighted children. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani became very unpopular here in 1995 when the New York City Police Department sent in over 250 officers to put an end to the illegal festivities.^[2] The NYPD went as far as to set up police barricades and a video system on an abandoned Ozone Park high rise station on 101st avenue in order to stop Gotti from hosting his illegal fireworks display.

On April 29, 1987 William Ciccone, a mentally ill Ozone Park, Queens resident, fired a shot at John Gotti outside the Bergin Hunt & Fish Club. Ciccone was apprehended, taken to a Staten Island candy store and tortured and murdered by associate Joe Watts. Former soldier Dominic "Fat Dom" Borghese testified that Watts pumped 6 bullets into Ciccone's head.

[edit] Downfall and Death

The Bergin is where Gotti was caught on wiretaps and bugs running gambling rackets and ordering a union official shot. On a tape recorded from inside the club, Gotti says: "This kid's got my nose wide open". "This punk will only meet me down at the oval, in the weeds, near the pond and the horses, wherever the f- that is."

On another Bergin tape, Gotti says: "I need an example. Don't be the f-ing example. You understand me? You gonna disregard my motherf-ing phone calls, I'll blow you and that f-ing house up. If I hear anybody else calls and you take five days to respond, I'll f-ing kill you."

Those tapes would eventually help prosecute John and send him away for life.

In 2002, when John Gotti died, the residents of Ozone Park mourned. They saw him as a local neighborhood hero. Regardless of his activities, he kept the neighborhood safe and peaceful. A couple days after his death, his funeral procession traveled through the city. It passed by the club where hundreds of citizens, friends and mobsters mourned together. There were flowers set up on the club door along with collages of the late "Dapper Don". People pinned up "R.I.P" posters with his photo on it, all around the Bergin Club area.

[edit] Today

Today, the club is still there, although it has been sliced in half. A wall has been built to seperate the two sides. The right side of Gotti's club is now "Joe's Butcher shop and Deli". Inside the new shop is a 12-foot-long refrigerated counter stocked with cold cuts. A small butcher's block sits a few feet from a room-size, stainless steel, walk-in freezer. Gone from there is the large desk in what use to be Gotti's front office. Missing from the back is the barber's chair he favored for haircuts. The left side of the club is very quiet these days. You don't see much activity there anymore. Supposedly, it is still used as a meeting hall for alleged members of organized crime.

[edit] References