The Motion Lounge: Sonny Black's club

The Motion Lounge was located at 420 Graham Avenue in Brooklyn, New York.

The club served as a hangout for the Bonanno mafia family.

It was owned by Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano, a caporegime who controlled Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood during the 1970s and early 1980s.

Napolitano lived in an apartment above the club and kept pigeon coops on the roof.

He was nicknamed "Sonny Black" because he used jet-black dye to color his graying hair.

FBI infiltration

Napolitano became a widely known name after an undercover FBI agent named Joseph D. Pistone famously infiltrated his crew.

Pistone, who went by the alias Donnie Brasco, was so successful that he was close to being inducted into the Bonanno family as a made man.

Brasco was a regular fixture at the Motion Lounge. There, he would hang around with Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero, Louis "Louie HaHa" Attanasio, Nicholas Santora, and other members of Sonny Black's crew.

The FBI ended Pistone's undercover operation in July 1981 after he was ordered to murder a rival mobster named Anthony "Bruno" Indelicato. By that point, investigators had gathered enough evidence to decimate the Bonanno family.

When the operation ended, federal agents walked into the Motion Lounge and showed Napolitano photographs of the real Donnie Brasco.

The revelation clearly shook the capo.

Shortly after the agents left, an FBI surveillance team photographed him tending to his pigeons. At the time, he was likely trying to process the gravity of his situation.

His close friend and associate of 3-5 years was an undercover agent who knew intimate details about the organization's criminal enterprises.

Death

To Napolitano, the photographs may as well have been a death warrant, as he knew that the bosses of the family weren't going to allow him to survive such a damaging oversight.

Although Brasco's infiltration severely damaged Napolitano's standing in the family, it was not the sole justification for his murder.

In 2011, former Bonanno boss Joseph Massino testified that Sonny Black had threatened Salvatore "Sally Fruits" Farrugia, who was the acting boss of the family.

This apparent power play put him in danger, while Brasco's infiltration isolated him from potential allies and thereby sealed his fate.

On August 17, 1981, "Sonny Black" was summoned to a meeting at an associate's house. Knowing that he was about to be murdered, he handed his jewelry over to his favorite bartender at the Motion Lounge and then left.

Following his disappearance, the FBI noticed workmen disassembling the pigeon coops on the roof.

Nearly one year later, his decomposed remains were found in a hospital bag in a creek on Staten Island. His killers had shot him to death and removed his hands, a symbolic act that highlighted his "embrace" of Brasco.

Donnie Brasco (1997)

The 1997 film Donnie Brasco is only loosely based on real-life events. For example, Al Pacino's character, Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero, is a composite character who represents both "Lefty" and Sonny Black.

In real life, Pistone was closer to Sonny Black than he was to Lefty.

The film implies that Lefty was killed for introducing Pistone to the family.

However, it was Sonny Black who paid the price. The real Lefty survived the Brasco incident, as the FBI arrested him shortly after the undercover operation ended.

The scene in the movie where Lefty leaves his belongings behind is based on the true story of Sonny Black handing his jewelry to a bartender.