Joseph Gallo (April 7, 1929 – April 7, 1972), also known as “Crazy Joe”, was an Italian-American mobster and Caporegime of the Colombo crime family of New York City.

On April 7, 1972, around 4:30 a.m., Gallo and his family entered Umbertos Clam House in Manhattan’s Little Italy. He was there to celebrate his 43rd birthday with sister Carmella, wife Sina, her daughter Lisa, his bodyguard Peter “Pete the Greek” Diapoulas, and Diapoulas’s girlfriend. Earlier that evening, the group had visited the Copacabana with Jerry Orbach and his wife, Marta. They were there to see a performance by comedian Don Rickles and singer Peter Lemongello. Once they arrived at Umbertos, the Gallo party took two tables, with Gallo and Diapoulas facing the wall.

Rickles and Lemongello, whom Gallo had invited to join them at Umbertos, managed to find an excuse to get out of the engagement, possibly saving their lives.

There are various accounts on what happened next and who actually shot Gallo. We’re going to leave that piece up to you, history and the Internet to draw your own conclusion.

What is known is that a single gunman or multiple gunmen attacked Gallo as he was sitting at the table with his family. It appears the assassin or assassins opened fire with .32- and .38 caliber revolvers. Gallo swore and attempted to draw his handgun, but twenty shots were fired at him, and he was hit in the back, elbow and buttock. After overturning a butcher block dining table, Gallo staggered to the front door. Witnesses claimed that he was attempting to draw fire away from his family. Diapoulas was shot once in the hip. The mortally wounded Gallo stumbled into the street and collapsed. He was taken in a police car to Beekman-Downtown Hospital where he was pronounced dead shortly after at around 5:30 a.m.

At the date of this original posting (9/28/2022) the current location is the Da Gennaro restaurant.