The Palma Boys Social Club

Mob Hangout Manhattan, New York

This is the former Palma Boys Social Club.

It is located at 416 East 115th Street in the East Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York.

The club served as the headquarters of Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno, a powerful capo who controlled the 116th Street Crew in the Genovese crime family.

The gang, which was also known as the Uptown Crew, ran a number of lucrative gambling, loansharking, and racketeering operations.

Palma Boys Social Club in The Irishman — Martin Scorsese recreated the Palma Boys Social Club for his epic gangster film The Irishman (2019). He was able to use the original building because it looked similar to how it did during Salerno's reign. It wasn't until 2021 that the exterior red bricks were painted brown.

The 116th Street Crew was comprised of Genovese mobsters and former members of the East Harlem Purple Gang, a notorious murder-for-hire and heroin trafficking organization that disintegrated during the late 1970s.

416 E 115th Street — The club was located at the bottom of this four-story tenement building on East 115th Street. The building was constructed in 1910. This section of East Harlem was known as Italian Harlem, as the streets between East 96th and East 125th Street had a large Italian community. It was the first neighborhood in New York City where Italian immigrants settled together. The community began to decline in the 1950s and 1960s, as many Italian Americans took advantage of the booming US economy by relocating from their cramped apartments to larger family homes in Brooklyn, Queens, New Jersey, and Long Island. The post-war influx of Puerto Rican immigrants and the demolition of dilapidated, unsafe tenement buildings accelerated this change.

"Fat Tony" Salerno was born and raised in East Harlem. He maintained a regular presence in this neighborhood even after he rose through the ranks of the family.

Several days a week, he would arrive at the small, 990-square-foot social club with his trademark cigar and fedora to hold meetings, hand down orders, and settle disputes between mob figures.

Surveillance photographs of the Palma Boys Social Club. Salerno is circled in red.

In 1981, the FBI received intelligence that Salerno had become the official boss of the Genovese family. However, in 1986, agents learned that he was merely a "front boss," a token position that deflected attention away from the real leader, Vincent Gigante.

This Google Street View image from 2019 shows what the building looked like before it was painted brown.

Salerno was indicted on racketeering charges in 1985 as part of the famous Mafia Commission Trial. His downfall proved to be a listening device that the FBI had planted in the Palma Boys Social Club in June 1983. The bug, which remained in place for more than a year, recorded him talking to dozens of senior mob figures about a wide range of crimes.

Actor Domenick Lombardozzi portrayed Salerno in The Irishman (2019). Makeup designers used prosthetic pieces to add weight to his face and age him by roughly 20 years.

The club closed in 1985 after the authorities arrested Salerno on RICO charges.

In January 1987, he was sentenced to 100 years in prison without the possibility of parole.

He died behind bars five years later, at the age of 80.

Address

The address and GPS coordinates for the club are as follows:

Address

416 E 115th Street, Manhattan, New York, NY 10029, USA

GPS Coordinates

40.794972, -73.935310

40°47'41.90"N 73°56'07.12"W

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Area Information

📍 It is roughly 200 feet east of the intersection between 1st Avenue and East 115th Street. The building lies to the north of Thomas Jefferson Park.

Private Property Warning

This is private property, not a public space. Please respect the owners and do not enter without permission. Entry without permission is trespassing and may be met with legal or other serious consequences.

This location belongs to the following categories:

Notorious Figures Mafia Locations New York Mafia Locations