The Oldest Hackies Tell It Like It Was—And Is

By Nicholas Pileggi New York/World Journal Tribune December 25, 1966 The majority of New York City’s 44,000 licensed taxicab drivers are amateurs. They are men who smoke cheap cigars, support in-laws, write novels, handicap horses, buy wheat futures, educate children...

The Story of T

By Nicholas Pileggi The New York Times Magazine March 29, 1970 “A street guy like T is a different kind of person. Everything for a guy like that, for, a member, is different. They’re in that private world of their own and that’s all they want to know. They’re in it...

The Cop Who Came in From the Heat

By Nicholas Pileggi New York Magazine August 26, 1985 Shortly before nine in the morning last March 5, Detective Richard “Bo” Dietl walked into the shield room at Police Headquarters and turned his gold badge over to a young policewoman. She casually tossed it into a...

The Making of “The Godfather”—Sort of a Home Movie

By Nicholas Pileggi The New York Times Magazine August 15, 1971 As was his custom before the drive home from work with his son, the old man walked across the narrow, tenement‐lined street in Manhattan’s Little Italy to buy some fresh fruit. The grocer, who had known...

Wonderdrink—A Slow, Sad Farewell

By Nicholas Pileggi New York/World Journal Tribune March 5, 1967 To many native New Yorkers seltzer is the wonderdrink of the Lower East Side and a source of gastronomic nostalgia comparable only to Marcel Proust’s chocolate madeleine. It is a carbonated gestalt, an...