Henry Hill – One of My Heroes Died – Mack Ade

Ozone Park, New York is in mourning tonight. Well, actually, Ozone Park may be dancing in the streets. Well, actually, there’s not much left of the old neighborhood, so it might be Howard Beach.

Henry Hill’s daughter reported that her father met his maker yesterday. For those of you that have been living under a rock, Hill was the ringleader of the famous Lufthansa Airlines heist that was featured in the movie “Goodfellas”. Henry was played by Ray Liotta, though the movie version was a little ‘out there’.

You see, this wasn’t as planned as Hollywood would like you to believe. Trucks were hijacked just about every other day back then as they came out of JFK Airport (Idewild). The only person that knew what was in each truck was the guy in the hanger that was on the mob’s payroll, but some contained unmarked boxes. How do I know this? Well, the Irish kids like me in the neighborhood were paid $3 a truck to unload them.

It went like this. The truck left the airport and drove to the New York Sanitation dump off of Van Wyck Expressway, in South Ozone Park. The truck drove past a cop car protecting the “site”. The truck then would pull up next to a car with two or three “locals” in it. The locals (Henry and da boys) would pay the driver around $100, gun butt them upside the head, and take the truck. The driver would smoke a few cigarettes and then either have his wife pick him up, or go walk to the cop car and report the “hijacking”. Everyone then went home and went on with their life.

The truck would wind up behind an Italian deli on ‘Jerome Avenue’ and we Irish kids would unload it. Some of that merchandise would be sold on the streets next day on 101^st Avenue, home of the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club.

In today’s world, one truck would have flat screen TVs while another would have designer clothes. The trucks with destinations to banks would have money while some had payrolls for corporations. This one turned out to be the jackpot.

Everyone knew about this the next day. That’s how ‘the streets’ work. Also, the guys that did the hijacking weren’t the smartest dude on the block. All they had was ‘street cred’ and showing up the next day with their wife wearing a mink coat or those driving a new Caddy told their world that they scored big.

That’s how it worked and that’s how it sometimes unraveled. Loose lips sink ships and sometimes bury soldiers. This gang started offing each other, allowing the police to wait on the sidelines until the smoke cleared.

For some reason, Henry stayed alive. In that world, being public gets you invisible protection and most of the old mob was legit when Hill was thrown out witness protection. The Russians could care less.

They enjoyed the movie as much as we did.