Saturdays @ 2:00pm - $20
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.

RSVP: Not required. You can pay your guide in cash. You can also purchase tickets at the East Village Visitors Center, 61 E. 4th St, up to 15 minutes before tour time, then walk 5 short blocks south along Bowery to the meeting place.

MEET: Outside of the New Museum of Contemporary Art (235 Bowery, NY NY 10002) @ Prince Street: MAP               

Fee: $20,  Duration: 2 hours,  Distance: 14+ blocks

"I came to learn about the mafia and left with a comprehensive understanding of the Sicilian immigrant experience. It was wonderful, thank you!"
-Susan B., Greenwich, CT

"Thanks for all the awesome history lesson. Wish they taught like that in the schools!"
-Leah W.

"Yes! This was the one of the few events we all enjoyed together as a family while visiting NYC..."
-Peter S., Brisbane, AU

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.

Photos by Hae-In Kim

The tour is conducted by LESHP director Eric Ferrara, co-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.

Some Press:

"... a 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, as well as the arts and religious scene in the '60s and '70s."
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

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