Wards Island

Revised edition 9/11/14. It was the year that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. At the Woodstock Festival in Bethel New York the flower children sang peace songs as the war raged in Viet Nam. In New York City the song "Aquarius" and "Sweet Caroline" floated through the air like the smell of the neighbor's barbeque on a summer's night. Richard Milhous Nixon was President and the New York Jets, driven by quarterback Joe Namath, had defeated the much favored Baltimore Colts. It was 1969....
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Revised edition 9/11/14. It was the year that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. At the Woodstock Festival in Bethel New York the flower children sang peace songs as the war raged in Viet Nam. In New York City the song "Aquarius" and "Sweet Caroline" floated through the air like the smell of the neighbor's barbeque on a summer's night. Richard Milhous Nixon was President and the New York Jets, driven by quarterback Joe Namath, had defeated the much favored Baltimore Colts. It was 1969. The first strain of the aids virus migrated from Haiti and infiltrated New York. The first NYC Marathon was run and professional boxer Joe Frazer defeated World Boxing Champion Muhammad Ali. Five hundred NYS Troopers stormed Attica Prison resulting in thirty nine deaths and this same year Evil Knievel jumped nineteen cars on a motorcycle. It was 1969. There were no cell phones, no computers, no digital high definition electronics, not even a GPS system. The country was on the horizon of the electronic age, the computer, fiber optics, and wireless communications but it had not arrived yet. It was 1969 and a time when presence of narcotics and violence dominated the streets of New York. Law enforcements primary drug target was that century old clandestine society know as the mafia. The secret society that was at one time structured and highly organized was slowly starting to fall apart on its own. The old world values of honor, respect and obedience had somehow been lost with the coming of a new generation of Italian Americans. The sons of made men had become too Americanized and slowly law enforcement was starting to penetrate and fragment the secret organization. Then without warning the Sicilian Mafia appeared in NYC with an almost impenetrable organization. These Sicilians were the so called Young Turks who came from Sicily and brought with them the old world values of respect and honor that had been lost. They also brought more drugs and violence to the streets of New York than ever before in history. This book is a story about the Sicilians and their leader at that time, the capo di tuti, who previously remained concealed in the shadows of different countries. Wards Island is located in the center of New York City's East River. Its primary resident is the Manhattan Psychiatric Center and in the nineteen hundreds the island was the home of Blackwell's Lunatic Asylum. It was now the late sixties and the hospital became the home of a tactical New York State Police undercover narcotics unit. Without question the detectives assigned to Wards Island were the most unorthodox, over-zealous, and brightest group of men ever to assemble at a state psychiatric center. They worked with little or no supervision and were without a doubt the best of the best. In 1969 I was a uniform New York State Trooper and content to have found my way out of NYC. When I joined the State Police I had no intentions of ever coming back to the city but when the Wards Island unit was formed I was presented with the assignment and offered a deal I couldn't refuse. A Gold Shield. Within a few months I was attached to a number of task forces and special units in NYC whose job it was to enforce the laws pertaining to organized crime and narcotics. I never realized how exciting that assignment was until I retired and looked back in retrospect. (Authors note) My experiences on Ward's Island inspired me to write this book and I wrote it originally as a true story. The complications of making a true story along with the fact that it read like a text book prompted me to turn it into a novel. Much of the story is true, just as much of it has been fictionalized. It was revitalizing to recollect while gathering my thoughts for this tale. I hope you enjoy reading the book as much as I have enjoyed writing it.