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The 6 best crime tours in NYC

Visit former mafia hangouts, gang war battlegrounds and haunted buildings on these bone-chilling crime tours in NYC

Look past the hip cafes and organic grocery stores in any New York City neighborhood and you’ll find it: evidence of the city’s sordid past. If you know where to look, you can find old mob hangouts, gang war battlegrounds and haunted places sprinkled all around the five boroughs. That’s where these crime tours in NYC come in. Instead of hitting all the big New York attractions, these walking tours in NYC focus on the city’s secrets – a dark history that some would be keen to forget. Once you’ve visited former bootlegging depots, secret underground tunnels and the final resting places of notorious mafia bosses, you might just see the city in a new light.

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NYC crime tours

1.  Mafia Tour and Food Tasting

Fuhgeddabout The Godfather . Find out what New York’s 20th-century mobsters, like Lucky Luciano and Carlo Gambino, were like as you walk past former East Village tenements, alleyways, social clubs and funeral homes that played a part in their criminal empires. Enjoy a Sicilian meal in Little Italy while you soak up the history.

2.  Greenwich Village Ghost Tour

One of the city’s oldest neighborhoods is also home to some of its oldest residents – even if they now only reside there in spirit. Leave your scaredy pants at home for an afternoon of morbid tales about the nabe’s ghosts, from ancient spooks and menacing apparitions to recently spotted ghouls.

3.  Little Italy Gangs and Crime Private Tour

Uncover the truth about New York’s seedy criminal underworld on this tour of two neighborhoods that were once notorious for their gang activity. In Little Italy, you’ll discover a pizzeria that doubled as a drug ring and bars featured on The Sopranos . Next, in Chinatown, you’ll visit the Bloody Angle and check out secret tunnels used by gangsters on the run from the cops.

4.  Gangsters and Ghosts Tour of New York

It’s fitting that the New York County Courthouse is smack dab in the middle of the neighborhood once known as Five Points, where five families waged bloody gang wars for decades. Visit historic landmarks like Curb Exchange, a former bootlegging depot, and Old St. Patrick’s Church, the city’s oldest Catholic church. You’ll even spy a few filming locations from The Godfather trilogy. Watch out for the ghoulies though. 

5.  NYC Gangster and Mob Private Walking Tour

Don’t want to mingle with the public on your tour? Spring for this private walk for up to 10 people. You’ll visit the spot where the infamous Dead Rabbits Riot occurred, the battleground between the deadly Tong gangs in Chinatown and former hangouts of mafia dons in Little Italy. 

6.  Private Mafia Tour by Luxury Vehicle

Ride through Manhattan in style—like the dons of the mafia once did—in a luxury vehicle on this private tour. You’ll focus on mob hangouts frequented by bosses like John Gotti, including ritzy steakhouses, exclusive social clubs and extravagant homes. To get even more insight into the mob mentality, extend the tour by two hours and venture into Queens to visit Gotti’s former home, high school and final resting place.

Looking for more tours in NYC?

Eight things in NYC you can only do on guided tours

• Things to do
• Walks and tours

Still, guided tours aren’t just for the most well-known New York attractions: They can also give you a behind-the-scenes look at what some call the “secret New York.”

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New York Mafia Tour

This New York mafia tour focuses on the 5 mafia crime families of New York City and takes you through the heart of Little Italy to the East Village and includes three stops in Midtown.

You will go to the former headquarters of the biggest crime families to the exact spot where men were shot down in cold blood.  

• Self-Guided Tour
• Guided Tours
• Free Tours by Foot
• Guide to Little Italy
• Other Things to Do in NYC

THE NEW YORK GANGSTER TOUR

Be sure to check out our full list of self-guided tours of NYC .

Groupon has many guided mafia tours at concessionary prices .

Fans of the Sopranos might want to check out the On Location Tours Sopranos sites  bus tour .

If you are considering purchasing a tourist concession pass while in NYC, then keep in mind that the Sopranos Tour is included for free with most.  

This is an interactive map. Simply move around with your mouse.

You can also click  here  for a printable PDF of this tour. 

(A) Hit on Joey Gallo

129 Mulberry St. 

It was here, on April 7, 1972, that ‘Crazy’ Joey Gallo was shot dead in plain sight.

At the time, the restaurant was Umberto’s Clam House, now located around the corner.

Gallo was out celebrating his 43rd birthday with his new bride, her daughter, and a small group of family and friends.

At 5:10 am, four members of the Columbo crime family came in the side door where Gallo’s group was seated.

One of the assassins shot Gallo three times at close range.

Somehow, Gallo managed to get up and stagger out the door onto Hester Street. He got as far as his Cadillac, where he collapsed and died in a pool of blood.

Why did “Crazy’ Joey Gallo have to go?

Earlier that week, Gallo had ‘sponsored’ a break-in at Ferrara’s Pastries nearby on Grand Street.

The robbers grabbed $55,000 and “Crazy” Joe had signaled to the Five Families that, after a 9-year prison stint, he was back in town and someone to be reckoned with.

But the Columbo family had an association with the Ferrara business and they didn’t take the Gallo robbery lightly.

They took revenge when they gunned Gallo down. Later that week, the two robbers were also assassinated.

(B) Former Andrea Doria Social Club

140 Mulberry St.  

On May 20th, 1985, John Gotti, the Don and (boss) of the Gambino crime family, stopped by this cigar shop for one last smoke before turning himself in to the Feds that afternoon.

Gotti is one of the most infamous mobsters, whose ability to dodge criminal charges, including three high-profile trials that ended with an acquittal, earned him the name of “The Teflon Don” – nothing would stick to him.

It wasn’t until 1992 that Gotti was convicted of five murders, conspiracy to commit murder, racketeering, obstruction of justice, illegal gambling, extortion, tax evasion, and loansharking.

He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. He served only 10 years of that sentence because he died in prison of throat cancer in 2002.  

Salvatore Briguglio, a New Jersey Teamsters official is gunned down at this social club in 1978.

(C) Mulberry Street Bar

176 Mulberry St.

Take a peek into the windows of the café style bar that opened in 1908 as Mare Chiaro .  

It may look familiar to you if you are a Sopranos TV series fan.

The red-and-white tiled back room was the scene of dozens of Soprano ‘family’ meetings.

It was also the setting for the scene where Johnny Depp meets Al Pacino in Donny Brasco and has been featured in The Pope of Greenwich Village , The Godfather III, and Law & Order .

(D) ‘Bootleggers Corner’

corner of Kenmare and Mulberry Street

From 1920 to 1933, America was in a period of alcohol lockdown called Prohibition.

The government had made it illegal to sell, produce, import, or transport alcohol, but plenty of people worked their way around it.

This corner was unofficially known as the "Curb Exchange," a market that sold alcohol illegally.

Some of the most famous original gangsters made their fortune and rose to power during Prohibition, guys like Joey "the Boss" Masseria, ‘Lucky’ Luciano, Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, and Thomas Lucchese, all of whom are depicted in the hit TV series Boardwalk Empire.

(F) Former Police Headquarters

240 Centre St.

From 1909 to 1973, this formidable building served as the New York City Police headquarters.

Built in what was then Little Italy, the size and design of the building were meant to intimidate the local criminals.

Ironically, according to popular folklore, during Prohibition, some police officers built a tunnel under Centre Street that led to nearby O’Neill’s tavern where they could grab an illegal drink!

In 1973, the New York Police Department relocated its headquarters to 1 Police Plaza in Lower Manhattan.

(E) Old Police Headquarters Precinct

300 Mulberry St.

From 1862-1909, before the massive HQ on Centre Street was built, this non-descript five-story apartment building was “America’s Scotland Yard” as the New York Times referred to it back then.

Criminal and gang activity was rampant during these years and the police force dedicated many resources to curbing the violence throughout the city.

One whole room in this building, called the “Rogue’s Gallery” was dedicated to a collection of 7,000 photographs of the city’s criminals to be used when hunting down suspects.

(G) The Ravenite Social Club

247 Mulberry St.

As far back as 1926, this club had been the site of mob meetings. In the 1970s and 1980s, the club was used as the HQ for the Gambino family.

John Gotti used an apartment on the 3rd floor to meet with members of the family.

Starting in 1990, the FBI was able to successfully install wiretaps inside the apartment and used the recordings to nab Gotti as well as Gambino family underboss Sammy ‘the Bull’ Gravano.

Gravano turned on Gotti before trial and become an informer in exchange for getting a “Don’t go to jail” card for the 19 murders he had committed.

Gravano’s testimony against his former friend was instrumental in Gotti’s conviction.

The judge sentenced Gotti to life without parole. This time Gotti’s Teflon coating didn’t work.

(H) Prince Street between the Bowery and Elizabeth Street

Mulberry Street didn’t see all the mobster action.

In the late 1890s, Prince Street had many Italian-American members-only ‘social clubs’, including 8 Prince Street, the HQ for the Morello family, considered to be the first Mafia family of New York.

Prince Street was just one location from which Giuseppe Morello and his partner in crime Ignazio Lupo discussed ‘business’ matters including their massive counterfeiting scheme and their later extortion racket.

Lupo opened large wholesale sale groceries including one on Prince Street.

He and the Morello crew forced smaller local shops to purchase their goods only from them. If they didn’t, they might find their small shop burnt to the ground.

The extortion became so threatening and widespread that the Morello/Lupo crew became known around town as “The Black Hand.”

This phrase was used throughout the U.S. for any extortion racket, whose main means of delivering their threats were through menacing notes with images relating to “the Black Hand”, a symbol of deadly practices carried on in the ‘old world’, Sicily and Italy.

After police crackdowns and rival gang warfare caused the original Morello family to all but disappear from the Mafia scene, Joe “the boss” Masseria took control until ‘Lucky’ Luciano made his power grab in 1931.

By 1957, the Morello family leadership was passed to Vito Genovese, and the family became known as the Genovese family, one of the Five Families.

(I) Rivington Street Shoot-Out

Pre-mafia days, New York City had plenty of other gangs to keep police busy.

In 1901, the Eastmans, led by Monk Eastman, and the Five Points Gang, led by Paul Kelly (born Paulo Vaccerelli) became embroiled in a territorial dispute.

In 1903, some Five Points Gang members held up one of Eastman’s gambling halls. Eastman’s men opened fire and killed one of the Five Pointers.

Word got out that a Five Pointer had been shot down, so Kelly and an army of gunmen rushed to the scene. Eastman reinforcements showed up and a gun battle broke out.

Police arrived on the scene by the hundreds and the mayhem lasted more than an hour. It ended when the gangsters ran out of ammunition and scattered.

It’s estimated that there were about 100 gangsters and 500 police officers at the scene. Amazingly only 3 people died and 7 were injured.

(J) Attempted assassination site of Joe Masseria

This is the site of a failed assassination attempt on Joe “The Boss” Masseria, who came to the States in 1907 and quickly fell in with the Morello crime family.

By 1916, with most of the Morello gang members dead or locked up, Masseria teamed up with Paul Morello to run what was one of the most powerful mafia families in the first quarter of the 20th century.  

Under Masseria’s command were such famous mob men as “Lucky” Luciano, Frank Costello, Albert Anastasia, Joe Adonis, Vito Genovese, Meyer Lansky, and Bugsy Siegel.

Masseria was not without enemies and more than one attempt was made on his life.

On August 8, 1922, he was walking out of his apartment at 82 2nd Avenue when two gunmen fired multiple rounds at him. Masseria ducked into a nearby store. When the gunmen ran out of ammunition, they took off in a speeding car.

The police found Masseria alive in his apartment holding his hat that had two bullet holes in it. From then on, Masseria was described as “the man who can dodge bullets.”

(N) Umberto Valenti hit at John’s Restaurant

302 E. 12th St.

This well-regarded restaurant opened in 1908. It’s where Umberto Rocco Valenti, believed to be behind the attempts on Masseria’s life, was murdered in on August 11, 1922.

Three days after the botched hit, Masseria called Valenti to a “peace meeting” at John’s Restaurant.

When Valenti arrived with his two gunmen, a handful of Masseria's gunmen opened fire on Valenti and his men. All three were killed and an 8-year-old girl and a street sweeper nearby were injured.

“Lucky” Luciano was among Masseria’s gunmen. Ironically, it would be Luciano who would turn his gun on his boss when he murdered Masseria in 1931.  

(K) Former Palm Casino

85 E.4th St.

This site, now the KGB Bar, was the home of the Palm Casino, a speakeasy owned by “Lucky Luciano” during the Prohibition era.

(L) Lucky Luciano’s Childhood Home

265 E. 10th  St.

A young Salvatore (“Charlie”) Luciano emigrated from Sicily in 1906.

He began his life of crime at an early age and grew up to be the first boss of what became the Genovese family.

Luciano was nicknamed “Lucky” after surviving a near-fatal stabbing.

Luciano was closely involved in creating the Five Families “commission”.

The Commission divided up New York City territories among the big five rival crime families so they would stop the bloody fighting amongst themselves and get on with the business of making money.

Charlie “Lucky” Luciano

(M) DeRoberti’s Pastries

176 1st Ave.

This Italian pastry shop, which opened in 1904, was considered a relatively safe hangout for the mafia throughout the decades.

Luciano often hung out there in the 1920′s, holding meetings in the back room with fellow mobster Meyer Lansky. Members of the Genovese and Gambino crews also met here.

DeRoberti’s maintains its traditional décor and a stop in here to snack on a delicious ricotta sweet cheese-filled cannoli takes you back to another time.

It’s no wonder that actor Vincent Piazza, who plays Luciano on Boardwalk Empire spent time in DeRoberti’s as research for his role.

(O) Former Triangle Social Club

208 Sullivan St.

Now a spice shop, this building formerly housed official “Triangle Civic Improvement Association.”  But really what was going on inside were meetings of the Genovese crime family.

For decades, the Genovese boss was Vincent ‘The Chin’ Gigante, who could be seen shuffling around the streets of the Village in his bathrobe and slippers.

His behavior earned him the nickname of the “Oddfather” by the media and press. By faking mental illness, the ‘Chin’ avoided prison for years.

Who would believe that someone so crazy could be running a multi-million dollar crime syndicate?

The Feds didn’t buy it and the “Chin” lost his fight to stay out of prison in July 1997 when the Feds succeeded in getting a conviction against him on a racketeering charge.

Years later, in 2003, Gigante pleaded guilty to an obstruction of justice charge, admitting that he had been faking his mental illness for nearly a quarter-century. He died in prison in 2005.

(P) Castellano Murder at Sparks Steakhouse

210 East 46th St.

This restaurant was the site of one of the most widely known New York mafia hits.

On December 16, 1985, Gambino crime family boss Paul Castellano, along with his aide Thomas Bilotti, was entering this popular Midtown steakhouse when they were shot down in broad daylight by four assassins dressed in white trench coats and Russian fur hats.

The murders received enormous press coverage with local papers publishing graphic photos of the victims taken by a news photographer that just happened to be near Sparks moments after the murders took place.

Also near Sparks, sitting calmly in a car with tinted windows, were Sammy “the Bull” Gravano and his boss John Gotti. Gotti had arranged the hit on Castellano who was then Gotti’s boss.

After years as an underboss in the Gambino family, Gotti took advantage of mounting ‘family problems’ to take out Castellano and take over the Gambino operation.

Chillingly, immediately after the two murders happened, Gotti and Gravano drove slowly by Sparks to make sure the victims were dead.

Double homicide at Sparks

(Q) Albert Anastasia Murder at the Park Central Hotel

56th St and 7th Ave.

Perhaps the most intriguing mafia hits New York City, is the 1957 murder of Albert Anastasia, head of Murder Inc.

Umberto Anastasia arrived in America in 1917 and changed his name to Albert.

Anastasia became known as a ruthless and brutal criminal when he and his brother took control of the Brooklyn waterfront. Anastasia was known to have a very short temper that could quickly become violent.

At the age of 20, he became angry with a fellow longshoreman and strangled and stabbed him to death. Anastasia was dubbed the “Mad Hatter”.

With such a glowing reputation, Lucky Luciano brought Anastasia into the Morello family and used Anastasia to wrest control of the family from his boss Joe Masseria.

Anastasia was among the shooters who murdered Masseria at Luciano’s order in 1931.  

Anastasia went on to become the boss of the Mangano family (later known as the Gambino family) from 1951 until 1957.

He was also one of the leaders of Murder Inc., created by the Commission to ensure that all Five Family members stayed in line.

If the Commission voted to take out a member of any of the Five Families, it was Anastasia who would ensure the hit was carried out.

Eventually, Anastasia wanted a more powerful role within the Five Families and a power struggle began between boss Vincent Mangano.

When Mangano disappeared without a trace, Anastasia was elevated to the head of the crime family and his underboss was a young Carlo Gambino.  

The head of the Genovese family, Vito, was outraged that Anastasia, and not himself, was put in charge of the Mangano family.

Genovese plotted to get rid of Anastasia and was able to convince the heads of the other families that Anastasia had to go.

Anastasia was aware that his power – and his life - were in danger.

Here’s a newsreel clip of Anastasia keeping a low profile , presumably hiding from his enemies from the other families.

When he did come out of hiding, he went back to his regular daily routine including a morning shave at the barbershop at the Park Sheraton (now Central) hotel.

On October 25, 1957, in the middle of his shave, two men wearing fedoras, sunglasses, and overcoats, walked into the barbershop and fired a barrage of bullets at Anastasia who died in the barber chair.  

Nobody was ever arrested for the murder of Albert Anastasia.

It was rumored for years that the “Crazy” Joey Gallo and his brother Larry since Joey Gallo referred to himself as a member of the “Barbershop Quintet."  

The barbershop is now a Starbucks. When ordering your cappuccino don’t ask for an extra shot – of espresso, that is.

Albert Anastasia, before and after

(R) Joe Colombo Assassination

59th St. and Broadway

On June 28, 1971, Colombo family boss Joe Colombo was gunned down during the Italian-American Unity Day rally at Columbus Circle.

At the time a violent struggle for control of the Profaci-Colombo crime family was in full swing.

Although hundreds of people witnessed the shooting, no one was ever caught. Some say that “Crazy” Joey Gallo was behind the shooting.

A year after Columbo’s murder, ‘Crazy’ Joey Gallo was shot dead by Columbo family members at Umberto’s Clam House, the first stop on this tour.

And this brings us back full circle to the story of the mobsters of New York City.

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NYC Gangster Tours Day Tours - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

Gangsters and Ghosts Tour in NYC

• Little Italy
• Chinatown (Canal Street to Bayard Street)
• West Village
• Washington Square Park
• And many interesting spots along the way

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• Jazmin T. Sep 2022 ABSOLUTELY amazing tour! The tour guide very knowledgeable and funny! Will definitely recommend!
• Edward P. Jul 2022 Amazing tour. Nate was our guide and provided a brilliant entertaining experience
• Samantha C. Jan 2022 So much fun and our tour guide was super knowledgeable
• Sherbit I. Nov 2022 Pierre was a great host, and very informative, pleasant experience all round! Thanks
• Olivia H. Oct 2021 So fun and interesting! Would definitely recommend
• Anthony R. Mar 2022 Great tour. Tour guide was great and informative.
• Juan Carlos H. Apr 2022 Seth is a very great tour guide 10/10
• Gabby C. Oct 2021 Super fun!
• Feel G. Oct 2022 Great tour

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A Mysterious Flier, a Tiny Charity and a Disinformation Campaign at the Border

A flier urging migrants to vote for President Biden rocketed around right-wing social media. But was it authentic?

Gaby Zavala was thrust into the center of a political firestorm when the Heritage Foundation uploaded images of a flier urging immigrants to vote for President Biden with the Resource Center Matamoros logo to social media. Credit... Todd Spoth for The New York Times

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By Ken Bensinger

• April 30, 2024

The two men rang the bell at the Resource Center Matamoros, a migrant aid group in the Mexican border city, and, speaking in broken Spanish, said they were looking for volunteer work.

Security footage shared with The New York Times shows the pair standing on the sidewalk in shorts and flip flops as they talked via speakerphone with Gaby Zavala, the center’s founder. After about half an hour, they left.

Ms. Zavala didn’t know it yet, but the men were not volunteers. They were provocateurs building an online following with hidden camera exposés and ambushes that claim to uncover abuse and election fraud in the American immigration system.

Security footage shows the two men posing as nonprofit volunteers outside of the Resource Center Matamoros.

Voice on phone: “Brownsville area?” “Yeah, we’re going to be in Brownsville probably for the next couple of months.” Voice on phone: [unclear]

Ms. Zavala realized something was off a few hours later, when the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, uploaded images of a flier with her group’s logo to social media, thrusting her organization into the center of a political firestorm.

The flier, written in Spanish and purportedly found hanging in portable toilets in the migrant camp across the street from the center, carried an explosive message to would-be immigrants: “reminder to vote for president Biden when you are in the united states. We need four more years of his administration in order to remain open.”

For many on the right, it was a smoking gun, confirming debunked theories about the left’s schemes to urge immigrants to vote illegally for Democrats. The post, uploaded on April 15, quickly racked up more than nine million views on X and was shared by multiple elected officials, including Tim Scott, the Republican senator from South Carolina and former presidential candidate.

The next morning, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, held up an oversized printout of the flier in a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing. “I would call it treason,” Ms. Greene said to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was sitting before the committee.

Ms. Zavala calls the document a crude fake, and part of a plot to propel false, anti-immigration narratives in an election year. The phone number listed on the flier is out of date, she noted. Some of the language is lifted directly from her group’s English language website, but appears to be translated by software.

But perhaps the strongest evidence, she said, was the presence of Anthony and Joshua Rubin, brothers from Long Island known online as the Muckrakers, at the building earlier that same day, trying to gain access under false pretenses.

Representative Majorie Taylor Greene accused Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas of treason during a hearing before a House committee.

Mr. Secretary, the oversight project released a bombshell report last night on your connection to the dark money NGO industrial complex of illegal immigration. I know you saw this from one of my colleagues just earlier. They found flyers throughout the Resource Center Matamoros refugee camp in Mexico telling illegal aliens, “Reminder to vote for President Biden when you are in the United States. We need another four years of his term to stay open.” Eyewitnesses saw the flyers also being handed out to migrants who were using R.C.M. for assistance in coming to the United States. This is corruption at the deepest level. As a matter of fact, I would call it treason.

“I would never encourage immigrants to vote, because they can’t,” said Ms. Zavala, 41, who started the organization in 2019 and manages it from Texas. No one contacted her to verify the document before it was posted, she said, and she has since received some 50 death threats and racist emails. “I feel violated.”

In an interview with The Times, Anthony Rubin acknowledged that he and his brother falsely identified themselves as volunteers that day. But he said they did not plant the flier. Mike Howell, executive director of the Oversight Project, an arm of the Heritage Foundation that first posted the document on X, said he stood behind their claims.

“Nothing that we put online has been proven in the least bit inaccurate,” he said.

The Oversight Project is something of a departure for the once-wonkish think tank. The project’s website describes its mission as “innovative investigations utilizing cutting-edge resources and contacts” in order to drive “accountability of the destructive work of the radical, progressive Left.” Mr. Howell, who calls himself a “deportation scientist” on X, said his group had worked closely with the Rubin brothers before.

The Rubin brothers have made a name for themselves by taking a page from the gotcha undercover methods of conservative investigative groups like Project Veritas. Their website promotes edited videos and articles focused on immigration, child trafficking and other hot-button topics on the right.

In their videos, they ask migrants — many who do not speak English and profess little knowledge of American politics — whether they prefer Mr. Biden or former President Donald J. Trump. The Rubin brothers accuse the U.S. government of abducting children at the border, repeatedly call immigrants “invaders,” and use the phrase “military-age men” to describe migrants.

Their work has been amplified by a number of prominent anti-immigration voices online, including Michael Yon, a former Green Beret who leads tours for right-wing influencers, including Anthony Rubin, to the Darién Gap , a crowded migrant crossing in Panama.

Mr. Rubin’s travels have raised his profile in conservative media, landing him appearances on web shows hosted by Ben Shapiro and Alex Jones, as well as on “Primetime,” Jesse Watters’s show on Fox News.

“You’re a very brave man and you’re getting some stuff no one’s getting, so bravo, keep it coming,” Mr. Watters told Mr. Rubin during an appearance on the network late last month.

Mr. Howell, a former lawyer for the Department of Homeland Security under President Trump, declined to say whether the Oversight Project was funding the Rubin brothers’ work, citing concerns about “very powerful people that wish to do harm to this country.”

Last month, the project released a hidden-camera video the Muckrakers made in the offices of a nonprofit in New York that offers food, education and legal aid to immigrants.

In the video, Anthony Rubin, speaking in a foreign accent, unsuccessfully tries to persuade employees of the nonprofit, La Jornada NY, to sell him “residency papers.” The next day, a Spanish speaker makes a similar request and is given a signed letter affirming his New York residency.

“Anyone, from someone seeking unauthorized employment to spies, saboteurs or even terrorists, could obtain a government-issued ID by visiting La Jornada and acquiring fraudulent papers,” Anthony Rubin said in the video, which was viewed over a million times on X and amplified by Elon Musk.

Soon after it was posted, the Heritage Foundation sent a letter to Attorney General Letitia James of New York requesting an investigation.

La Jornada’s executive director, Pedro Rodriguez, called Mr. Rubin’s characterization misleading. He noted that the residency letter was only one of four requirements for procuring a New York City ID card, which itself does not entitle immigrants to work or give them legal status of any kind.

“All it gives you is an address where you can receive mail,” he said of the letter.“They accused us of doing all those things, which are lies.”

Mr. Rodriguez said he had not heard from the attorney general’s office. But he said a barrage of hateful phone calls and emails since the Project Oversight post went viral convinced him to stop giving out the letters. “We don’t want to invite more problems,” he said.

Mr. Howell defended the investigation. “We’re going to sound the alarm,” he said. “We’re not going to wait till the day after the election when illegals vote in it.”

Accusations about immigrants voting illegally have exploded since the 2020 election, set off by Mr. Trump’s false claims of fraud and spread by a series of debunked films.

Nonprofit groups that aid migrants also have become a target for right-wing activists, who often claim the organizations profit from their work. The assertion may explain why Resource Center Matamoros, a tiny entity with just three staff members including Ms. Zavala, ended up entangled with the Heritage Foundation, a Washington power center with a nearly $100 million budget.

According to Ms. Zavala, when the Rubin brothers knocked on the center’s door, they said they were employees of HIAS, a U.S.-based group formerly known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

The charity is frequently singled out by immigration opponents, who note that Mr. Mayorkas briefly served on its board. In October, the Rubin brothers published an article entitled “Hebrew Immigration Aid Society Exposed,” focusing on its activities in Panama.

HIAS had previously rented space from the Resource Center Matamoros. It gave up its lease in early 2021, but the center’s website was never updated. It still says that its office is “the home for HIAS” — language that appears on the flier.

Anthony Rubin told The Times he could not recall identifying himself as a HIAS employee. A spokeswoman for HIAS said that the Rubin brothers had never worked for the group.

After the flier was posted online, immigration experts and others familiar with migrant camps quickly expressed skepticism about its authenticity. The Associated Press, which first reported on the flier, noted the poor translation and grammatical errors. Bill Melugin, a Fox News reporter who covers immigration, wrote on X that the document seemed “fake or doctored.”

The Oversight Project and the Rubin brothers have stood by their account of the episode, even as details have shifted.

In their initial posts, they said the fliers were “discovered” throughout the migrant camp across the street from the Resource Center Matamoros, and the Rubin brothers said they were “tipped off” to travel to Matamoros by a source in New York.

But last Thursday, Mr. Howell’s group posted on X portions of a “sworn statement” by an unnamed person who appears to live in the Matamoros area and describes taking a flier from inside the center’s office, sending a photo of it to the Muckrakers and then shooting video of the fliers hung in portable toilets in the camp.

Mr. Howell declined to share the full statement or identify who signed it, citing concerns about “Mexican cartels, affiliated gangs inside the U.S., weaponized agencies of the Biden Administration, and lawfare.”

The Oversight Project also posted a nine-second clip of audio of the conversation between Anthony Rubin and Ms. Zavala. “In all honesty,” Mr. Rubin can be heard saying, “we’re just trying to help as many people as possible before Trump gets re-elected.”

Ms. Zavala replies, with a laugh, “Believe me, we’re in the same boat.”

In its post online, the Oversight Project said the quote indicated Ms. Zavala wanted to “help as many illegals as possible.” She said she had been speaking about volunteer opportunities in the area helping migrant children who had suffered trauma.

Several other charities working in and around Matamoros declined requests for interviews about whether they had ever seen the flier, or others like it, in the camp. Jennifer Harbury, an immigration lawyer and a member of Angry Tias & Abuelas, a group that provides essential items and legal aid to migrant families on the Mexican side of the border, said she understood their fears.

“As if we don’t already have enough trouble just trying to keep people safe down here,” said Ms. Harbury, who said she had interviewed hundreds of migrants seeking asylum over the years, many of them victims of violence and rape.

She said she instantly recognized the flier as phony, but worried what impact it would have on voters.

“There’s exaggeration and puffery and then there’s outright fabrication,” Ms. Harbury said. “And that’s not fair to Americans or immigrants."

Ken Bensinger covers right wing media and national political campaigns for The Times. More about Ken Bensinger

Our Coverage of the 2024 Election

Presidential Race

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No major American presidential candidate has talked like Donald Trump now does at his rallies  — not Richard Nixon, not George Wallace, not even Trump before.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent campaign has deployed a multipart strategy   to get him on the ballot in all 50 states: aggressive legal action, shrewd political alliances and surprise filing tactics meant to slow or prevent challenges.

A Match Made in MAGA:  Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio and Donald Trump Jr. have bonded politically and personally . It’s a relationship that could factor into the former president’s search for a running mate.

A 2024 Political Hothouse : In Arizona, a battle over abortion bans and criminal charges against allies of Trump continue to raise the state’s election-year profile .

Andy Kim’s Rise:  The New Jersey congressman has become the odds-on favorite to win Robert Menendez’s Senate seat. His strategy? Don’t ask anyone for permission .

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Life Behind a ‘Poor Door’: I Pay $1,300 a Month for Affordable Housing in a Luxury Manhattan Building—but I Desperately Want To Get Out

My apartment in New York is the envy of all my friends: a one-bedroom in the heart of midtown Manhattan—a short stroll to Central Park and performances at Lincoln Center. And I pay just $1,300 in rent.

That’s less than one-third of Manhattan’s median rent, which currently hovers at $4,500 per month .

I constantly tell myself I’m lucky. But I’m also desperately trying to move. Why? Let’s just say it all starts with the “poor door.”

(Kimberly Dawn Neumann)

My building has two entrances. One, at 1 West End Avenue, leads up through a gleaming, glass tower to 247 luxury condo apartments inhabited by the rich and famous. Apartment 29B , a four-bedroom unit in the building, recently sold for $14.8 million.

(Realtor.com)

This entrance at 1 West End is manned by numerous doormen who cater to every whim of the residents within. The lobby, with its spacious seating area around a fireplace, is as luxurious as what you’d find in a high-end hotel.

But I’m not permitted to set foot in this lobby. Instead, I must enter the same building through a different entrance, around the corner, at 100 Freedom Place South.

Aka the “poor door.”

According to marketing materials, this is not a “poor door.” Rather, it’s a “first-class entrance experience”—a separate, but still nice enough, entry for the 116 apartments within the building’s stone base, earmarked as affordable housing. These affordable units reportedly benefit from a $120,000 yearly subsidy coming from the 247 luxury units, while the developer gets a tax break for housing the poor.

New York banned the construction of separate entries for affordable housing residents in 2015— but not in time for the ruling to take effect in my building.

Meanwhile, Vicki Been , commissioner of the Housing Preservation and Development Department, told the Wall Street Journal that she believes this building serves as a model that signals to its affordable housing residents, “You are welcome here. You are just as valuable as every person in this neighborhood.”

But does this building deliver on that promise?

Life behind a poor door: What it’s really like

For the record, I do not consider myself “poor.” But my income as a Broadway performer, writer, and fitness instructor barely makes ends meet in this expensive city, where one recent study revealed that a $138,570 salary is necessary just to comfortably get by. I make nowhere near that amount.

I had been applying to affordable-housing lotteries for about five years with no luck before I tried 100 Freedom Place South draw, where applicants could make anywhere from 60% to 80% of the area’s median income. After about six months of paperwork, I succeeded. In July 2018, I moved in.

When I first settled in, I was thrilled. The building was clean, and my apartment has a spacious, modern kitchen. Plus, there’s not just one but two walk-in closets.

Pretty quickly, however, the cracks began to show. For starters, since our address, 100 Freedom Place South, was not officially registered with the U.S. Post Office, we did not receive our mail.

Making matters even more complicated, “our side” of the building was assigned a different ZIP code than 1 West End Avenue—they’re 10023, and we’re 10069. For a while, our entrance didn’t even show up on Google Maps, which became a logistical nightmare for deliveries and visitors, including maintenance and repairs from the power and water utilities, cable company, and others.

Another problem was that while our lobby and hallways were supposed to be regularly cleaned, this rarely happened. Carpets were never vacuumed. Trash was not removed, piling up and causing a stench. For upkeep and repairs, we had our own management company that was different from the company used by 1 West End. Our superintendent, however, lived off site and was managing all 116 apartments by himself—an impossible task. And he was only available from 9 to 5 on weekdays; if problems arose on the weekends, we were left to fend for ourselves.

To make matters worse, our management company was gone before I’d even lived there a year. Needless to say, things went downhill from there before our current management company turned things around.

Life in the ‘Wild, Wild Upper West’

When friends asked me how things were going in my fancy new apartment, I would half-jokingly say I was living in the “Wild Wild Upper West” because it was a free-for-all. No rules. No accountability. No security. While we have some of the loveliest tenants—including lawyers, art dealers, social workers, even a lower court judge—we also have neighbors who are all too happy to take advantage of the situation.

Security has been the biggest issue from day 1. Although the “rich” side has a doorman and at least two additional porters on call at all times, our side has no security. While we do have a few video surveillance cameras, we could never ascertain if they were working—let alone being monitored.

As for our “first-class” entrance, the entry buzzer system was always broken or malfunctioning, so if you pulled really hard on the glass “poor door,” it would just open. Random strangers could (and would) just walk into our building day and night.

Word traveled fast on the street that our building was easy to break into, so we soon had homeless people sleeping on our lobby sofas and squatting in our stairwells. Gangs of teenagers loitered in the hallways after school, and rumors of drug deals in public spaces cropped up.

Packages started going missing all the time. One time, a resident actually had to stop some strangers from just walking out of the front door with one of the lobby couches. We even had a flasher in our laundry room, according to local papers , which dubbed 100 Freedom Place South a “lawless land.”

I (and many other tenants) began carrying pepper spray inside the building, because we never knew what might be around the corner. I’ve had to call the police more times than I can count after witnessing nonresidents wandering our halls late at night, banging on people’s doors.

One of my neighbors actually put it perfectly when he said, “I love my apartment, but I wish I could just teleport in and out of it, so I don’t have to deal with what’s happening in the rest of the building.”

Fully frustrated, a large contingent of 100 Freedom Place South residents joined forces to demand a minimum standard of care. But every time we’d start to make progress, we would suddenly have a new management company and had start all over. There were four management companies in nearly six years.

The fight for our only shared amenity: the roof deck

(Jordan Eagle)

While “our side” of the building is not allowed access to the building’s indoor swimming pool or other amenities, the one area we all get to share with the 1 West End Avenue residents is the 12,000-square-foot roof deck. I love this roof deck so much, I jokingly call it my “office” during the summer months since I work up there.

However, since our entrance was unsecured and unsupervised, random people off the street were entering and finding their way to the roof. As a result, 1 West End Avenue tried to restrict the affordable-housing tenants’ roof access.

We quickly mobilized, calling politicians and threatening media coverage. We were actually preparing to take the issue to housing court when, finally, the 1 WEA board relented.

Are separate doors ever equal?

We still have lots of issues at 100 Freedom Place South. And naturally, in January 2024, we discovered we had yet another new management company. But this time, instead of blowing us off, the company has been refreshingly responsive to tenants’ requests and inquiries.

For instance, we’d had issues with poor water pressure and intermittent lack of hot water for over a month when the company over. To our shock, they immediately found the root of the issue and got it fixed.

And after six years of tolerating a broken air conditioner/heating unit in the lobby (an issue previous management had told us was “too difficult” to fix), we were thrilled when the new management repaired that as well. What a relief it will be to walk through a lobby that isn’t 100 degrees this summer.

With new management came a new superintendent who, for once, seems to care about us.

He told me, “Look, you all pay rent, too—even if you’re not wealthy like next door, you deserve to have this building maintained.”

Though he’s still only here on weekdays, he’s gone above and beyond. For example, when our “first-class” front door recently broke for the umpteenth time (so badly that it actually came off of its hinges and had to be removed, leaving the entryway wide open), he stayed all night to make sure we didn’t have vagrants wandering in.

Management also assured us that they’re looking into improved security options, which are still desperately needed. In just three months, this new team has accomplished more than we’ve seen in years.

When I told one of the new building managers I was so grateful they were trying to help, after years of us being treated like the building’s unwanted stepchildren, he replied, “For the record, you’re my only children.”

I can’t begin to explain the hope this response gave me. Of course, we’ve heard such promises before, so only time will tell whether we residents will get what we need to remain safe in our building.

Whatever the case, I hope the management company continues to recognize that there are many hardworking people at 100 Freedom Place South.

In the meantime, I will keep fighting for things to improve here. I’m still looking for opportunities to move out, though.

The current owner and management company for 100 Freedom Place South have been contacted for comment but did not respond. 

Kimberly Dawn Neumann is a multi-published journalist based in New York City. She's written hundreds of articles on home-related topics for major publications including Forbes, Real Simple, and Realtor.com. For more visit: www.KDNeumann.com or IG @dancerscribe.

Twitter Follow @KimberlyNeumann

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Robin London is a New York City native, tour guide and history buff, specializing in the city’s dark past. She is the founder of Metro New York City Tours and NYC Gangster Mob Tours. The company hosts a range of walking tours, including the popular NYC mob tours. Growing up in Brooklyn (3rd generation) she knew some wiseguys, “made men” and ate in some of their homes. She shared classroom space with some of the kids of these wiseguys in school.

When doing research of the city she discovered the history of the mob. She was intrigued by the power that gangsters held in helping form the city and country. She wanted to learn all she could about the mafia. She spoke to many people from the old neighborhoods and learned some things no one knew. This was her opportunity to share with mob and gangster fans the real stuff and walk the streets they ruled and used as their playground.

For Robin every walk is a new production and the streets of New York are her stage. Not only is she passionate about the neighborhoods, but she played in many of these streets as a child and has memories to share. She loves New York’s cultural neighborhoods for the people and the food, and of course the shopping. A walk with Robin means plenty of stories, lots of facts and quite a few stops to shop and nosh along the way.

She loves meeting people from all over the world and sharing her passion of New York City. Let her share with you personal experiences, extensive knowledge and anecdotes of life in the Big Apple and you’ll hear it all in her native ‘New Yawk’ accent!

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