Bill Kalahurka provided the voice with enough gravitas or authority to help the audience understand a very complicated piece of Kansas City history. You may remember Bill from his award winning series of three and a half minute vignettes on Kansas City history, Kansas City Crossroads. KC Crossroads aired on NBC Channel 41 from 1997 …
How did Joey Doves get his nickname Joey Doves was the Chicago Outfit Under Boss during this investigation. He was responsible for Tony Spilotro’s actions in Las Vegas. Joe Aiuppa got the nickname Joey Doves from a time when he returning from a dove hunting trip in Frontenac, Kansas. This was an area settled by …
Steve Kraske had me on Up To Date last Friday morning to talk about Gangland Wire. Steve is a great guy. I remember when he was a new KC Star reporter assigned to the police beat. At that time, the Star was given an office on the third floor of Police headquarters. A reporter was …
When Harold Nichols, Bob Arnold and I were assigned to help the F.B.I. work on uncovering the theft of casino money from Las Vegas, we had an unconnected assignment for a while. Because the original microphone was placed because of a valid threat to Carl Spero’s life, we were part of a team that was …
My friend author Nick Pileggi helped me as much as he could, in spite of his agent, in making this film. He had agreed to sit for an interview, but got called off by his agent and his new TV show, Vegas. He asked to view it. He said about the film, “In Gangland Wire, …
I put a lot of gangster information in Gangland Wire and not as much information abut the art colony started in the River Quay. In my film, I do interview two famous Kansas City artists. Philomene Bennett has work in the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art as well as the National Museum of Women in the …
I have not said much about the River Quay development. The first 1/2 of Gangland Wire tells the story of how this entertainment district developed. A man named Marion Trozzolo (click on his name to see the book he wrote) had a business in the City Market area. He saw all these great substantial unused brick …
Here is a link to Tony’s Kansas City blog and his comments about my film being like a feature on the Scorcese film Casino DVD. I start the story with the history of the River Quay and end the story with the conviction of the bosses of the Kansas City La Cosa Nostra family as …
At age 32, a real estate developer named Allen Glick was getting into the casino and hotel business in Las Vegas. He found that making a deal with the Midwest Mafia families got him a 62 million dollar Teamster’s loan. He bought the Stardust hotel and casino. Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal was installed by the Chicago …
I was interviewed on the Crime Beat Radio show last night. Co-hosts R0n Chepesiuk and Willie Hyb have the world’s biggest audience in the true crime genre with over 200,000 listeners. Both are true crime authors in the area of organized crime. They both are very excited about the new perspective Gangland Wire brings to the …
