Michael Kaplan offers a piece
in the New York Post about the story of Frank ‘the Irishman,” Sheeran (seen in the above photo), the late
gangster who claimed to have murdered Jimmy Hoffa - and the subject of the Martin
Scorsese film The Irishman starring Robert De Niro as Sheeran.
Outside of Lee’s Tavern, in
the Dongan Hills neighborhood of Staten Island, a 1970s Thunderbird was wired
to explode.
It was October 2017, but
Hancock Street looked like it had time-tripped to 1975 — and morphed into
Detroit. The facade of Lee’s had been done up with an awning that read
“Nemo’s.” Next door, Karina’s barbershop had been adorned with a hand-painted
logo on its window. Men in period-appropriate garb strolled the block. And
Martin Scorsese orchestrated the whole scene.
The director has been
shooting his next movie, “The Irishman,” around the tri-state area. A boat was
blown up in Hempstead Harbor on Long Island, and stars Robert De Niro and Joe
Pesci broke bread in character at the Italian eatery Colandrea New Corner in
Dyker Heights. “[Pesci] asked if it would be OK to go out a side door in the
kitchen to smoke cigarettes,” Joe Colandrea, the founder’s great-grandson told
The Post. “He wanted to make sure nobody would bother him out there.”
It’s all to tell one of the
most notorious stories of the late 20th century: the 1975 disappearance and
presumed murder of Jimmy Hoffa, once the most powerful union boss on Earth.
Over the years, many people
have speculated about what happened to Hoffa (played in the film by Al Pacino)
and the whereabouts of his body, which has still never been found. Frank “The
Irishman” Sheeran (played by De Niro) claimed to have been the killer.
Scorsese’s movie is based on a book by Sheeran’s lawyer, Charles Brandt, titled
“I Heard You Paint Houses” — mobster code for “I heard you kill people.”
... But not everyone buys his
story. Dan Moldea, author of the deeply researched “The Hoffa Wars,” insists
that Sheeran did not kill Hoffa.
Moldea — who interviewed mob
figures, investigators and prosecutors for his book — agrees that Sheeran flew
to Pontiac and lured Hoffa into the car. But he believes that the murder was
committed by Salvatore “Sally Bugs” Briguglio, an enforcer for the Genovese
crime family. Moldea bases this on interviews with parties including the owner
of a New Jersey dump where some believed Hoffa’s body was disposed.
“This is a one-source story
about a pathological liar,” Moldea told The Post of Brandt’s book on Sheeran.
You can read the rest of the
piece via the below link:
You can also read my Crime
Beat column on Frank Sheeran via the below link:
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