Kin of Sicilian ‘Man of Honor’ Offers Peek Into Crime : South Philadelphia: The organized tour is laced with memories of the turn-of-the-century Mafia that, Celeste Morello says, was less a gang than an ethnic Elks Club with a mean streak.

Celeste Morello has an offer you can’t refuse--the chance to walk the rough-and-tumble streets of South Philadelphia and learn the real story of organized crime.

Tired of the stereotypes, Morello--great-granddaughter of a Sicilian “man of honor”--offers a glimpse of history most Independence Hall tourists never see.

Her Organized Crime Tour points out that the Irish and Eastern European Jews ran Philadelphia mobs long before La Cosa Nostra came along.

“I want people to realize that organized crime is universal. It’s not just the Italians and Sicilians,” said Morello, 35, a historian and criminologist who wrote her master’s thesis on South Philadelphia’s crime heritage.

Hers is a tale of poor immigrants in an insular neighborhood that bred familiarity and contempt. It is laced with memories of the turn-of-the-century Mafia that prided itself on honor and, Morello says, was less a gang than an ethnic Elks Club with a mean streak.

Most of all, it’s a tale of lost lives.

Visit Christian Street, where 57 mobsters were slain along one four-block stretch between 1914 and 1930. One, Joseph Bruno, took 14 bullets in his right side.

Walk along Kater Street, once a red-light district where syphilis killed German and French prostitutes and rogue doctors introduced the drug trade by prescribing narcotic injections for menopausal women. See the Mafia clubhouse that is now a Vietnamese hair salon.

Tour the cramped alleys where Irish laborers paid 24 cents a month for their rented rooms. See St. Mary Magdelene, the first Italian church in the United States.

Learn about Salvatore Sabella, who Morello says is the first known Sicilian Mafia boss in Philadelphia. And Anthony (Musky) Zanghi, Philadelphia’s first stool pigeon, killed in 1932.

“These people weren’t necessarily exposed to the outside theories and the outside ways,” Morello said. “They were, and are, neighborhood-bound. And that can breed crime.”

Until 1854, South Philadelphia was not part of the city but a municipality called Moyamensing, which in the language of the Leni-lenape Indians means “pigeon droppings.” And it was a haven for criminals.

By the 1830s, Irish gangs were fighting each other for control of the streets. One of the meanest, The Killers, reigned after the Civil War. It was run by saloon keeper and alderman William McMullen. To stop blacks from voting, gang members shot them.

“If there ever was a mob boss, McMullen would fit the bill,” Morello said, walking past his birthplace. Shot twice in his lifetime, McMullen died in 1901 of natural causes.

Jewish mobsters gained power in the early 1900s, before Prohibition forced most gangsters into bootlegging, Morello said. Only the Sicilian Mafia emerged unbroken after passage of the 21st Amendment.

“Prohibition was the big thing. You had 13 years. Either you made it or that was it,” Morello said.

In Philadelphia, it meant the dilution of the Sicilian Mafia, which began admitting mainland Italians and became La Cosa Nostra. It is here, about 1930, that Morello’s tour ends.

She wants to attract tourists and criminology students, and the time is right.

Reputed Philadelphia mob boss John Stanfa and 23 suspected associates were indicted March 16 on racketeering charges that include crimes ranging from murder to kidnaping to numbers running.

Morello has little patience with today’s Mafia. “They’re not men of honor,” she said. “They’re gangsters.”

The early crime bosses were neighborhood leaders, Morello said. They ran legitimate businesses and used violence, intimidation and criminal activity to protect their interests.

As Morello faced charges of Italian-bashing and anonymous death threats, the tour’s original sponsor, a museum, withdrew its support. She is now running the tour as a business called Italian Market Tours.

Not everyone opposes the tour.

“Hey--as long as the issues are presented accurately, we have no gripe,” said Francis Recchuiti, a lawyer who heads the Commission of Social Justice for the state Sons of Italy lodge.

“We’re talking about a rowdy bunch of people. We’re talking about violent situations that are part of our history,” Recchuiti said. “But it’s still history, and it helped shape this nation. She’s credible, she’s accurate and she has a story that’s worth listening to.”