Yet where most New Yorkers saw deviance, the Mafia saw profit. In short, a gay bar was an illegal business - or at a minimum, a business subject to relentless harassment. Two: The Mafia, principally Vito Genovese, controlled Manhattan’s West Side, including the Village. One: It was illegal to be gay, with police routinely hauling in homosexuals on charges of lewdness or indecency. Two conditions brought these seemingly oppositional groups together. The Hidden History of How the Mafia Captured New York” Who’d have guessed that, as far back as the 1930s, it was the mob who would give homosexuals a place to mingle, hook up and eventually coalesce as a movement - by running the city’s underground gay bars.
