File:Concrete mafia - Donald Trump.jpg

Concrete mafia - Donald Trump

• Netflix's Fear City Hints at Trump's Mob Connections. The Real Story Goes Even Deeper - For years, the president did business in industries with strong mafia ties. (22 July 2022)

As Fear City points out, doing business in broad swaths of New York's economy when Trump was a young man meant doing business with the mob. But Trump's main industries—development, casinos, and luxury real estate—were particularly infested with organized crime. And what makes him notable is that he sometimes appeared to do more business with the mafia than was strictly necessary. According to biographer Wayne Barrett, "he went out of his way not to avoid" contacts with the mafia, "but to increase them."

Trump had a personal connection to some of the city's most powerful mobsters through his friend, mentor, and lawyer Roy Cohn. Cohn, who's these days remembered as one of the most malignant figures in 20th century America, was an attorney for mafia leaders including "Fat Tony" Salerno, Carmine Galante, and Paul Castellano, bosses in the Genovese, Bonanno, and Gambino crime families, respectively.

When the future president's now-famous 5th Avenue Trump Tower was being built in the late '70s and early '80s, most high rises were constructed out of steel. But Trump opted to build with ready-mix concrete, at a time when Salerno and Castellano controlled the concrete industry and its associated labor union.

Ready-mix concrete dries quickly, which can leave developers vulnerable to expensive worker slowdowns, a common tactic from mob-controlled construction sites. While other developers were urging the FBI to take down the mafia, Trump bought its concrete at artificially high prices. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston, who's known and covered Trump for 30 years, Trump received in exchange a smoothly-operating worksite from the construction union.