Public artworks in Petrosino Square since 1984 have included, top row, from left: “Molecular Motion,” by Lisa Hoke, in 1984; and Stephen Whisler’s “Tongue of Fire,” in 1985; middle row, from left: Rudolph Serra’s unnamed piece perched between the square’s entrance piers, in 1988; and “Let Them Die in the Streets,” a series of signs about the AIDS crisis and homelessness that ringed the square’s fence by the ACT UP artists collective Gran Fury, in 1990; bottom row, from left, Minsuk Cho’s 2007 “Ring Dome,” made of white hula hoops; and, more recently, Carole Feuerman’s “Survival of Serena,” from May to September 2012.

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | A vocal core of residents around Soho’s Petrosino Square are protesting the siting of a new Citi Bike docking station on the triangular island’s northern end, saying it has “usurped” a spot traditionally used for public art displays..

Indeed, the spot, formerly known as Kenmare Square, has been home to public art since 1984, when a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council-sponsored installation, Lisa Hoke’s “Molecular Motion,” first graced it.

Other notable works included Stephen Whisler’s monolithic “Tongue of Fire,” in 1985; Rudolph Serra’s unnamed white, ball-like piece perched between the square’s entrance piers in 1988; “Let Them Die in the Streets,” a series of signs about the AIDS crisis and homelessness ringing the square’s fence by the ACT UP artists collective Gran Fury, in 1990; and Minsuk Cho’s 2007 “Ring Dome,” constructed of white hula hoops.

In 1987, the park within the square was renamed for New York police Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino (1860-1909), who was a pioneer in the fight against the mafia.

Other works in the triangle, at Spring and Lafayette Sts., have included pieces sponsored by Storefront for Art and Architecture, such as Nancy Hwang’s “S: An Urban Oasis,” in 2002, in which people could get their hair cut underneath potted palm trees; and Kim Holleman’s “A Park in a Trailer in a Park,” 2006, featuring a trailer with a park constructed inside it.

From 2008 to 2011 Petrosino Square was closed for renovation. After it reopened, public art exhibits continued in the open space at its northern corner, including Carole Feuerman’s “Survival of Serena,” from May to September 2012; and Jessica Feldman’s “The Glass Sea,” from October to November 2012.

The latest public artwork, installed last month by the Parks Department and running through September, is Tracey Emin’s “Roman Standard.” But this last piece, critics say, is not in the art-installation space taken over by Citi Bike, but rather in a green, planted area inside the fenced-in park.

“Greenery had to be taken up to accommodate the large steel plate to which this artwork is anchored, which demonstrates in itself why we need the installation space,” said Georgette Fleischer, founder of Friends of Petrosino Square.

Images of the public artworks were provided to The Villager by Fleischer, fellow Soho activist Pete Davies and, in some cases, by the artists themselves. Davies noted that the L.M.C.C. Web site states that 30 years’ worth of archives held in the organization’s offices at the World Trade Center were destroyed on 9/11.

“So, much of their record may have been lost,” he said. The Villager also reached out the city’s Parks Department to see if it had images of the 30-plus years of art displays in Petrosino Square, but Parks never responded.

However, Fleischer forwarded to The Villager e-mails from Parks officials showing that they clearly understood the historic role of public art in the square.

After Fleischer reached out via e-mail to Christopher Crowley, a designer with Parks, to convey the community’s concerns, Crowley, in turn, e-mailed Steve Simon, Parks chief of staff, on April 5, saying, “Hi Steve, Georgette is right. There was a lot of effort during the design phase to preserve the front triangle of Petrosino for art display. This is why there is a lack of green in this area.”

Less than an hour later, Simon e-mailed Colleen Chatergoon, community liaison for Margaret Forgione, Manhattan borough commissioner of the Department of Transportation, regarding the community opposition to a bike-share rack at Petrosino Square:

“Colleen: Please let D.O.T. Borough Commissioner Forgione and the Director of Bike-Share know that Manhattan Parks Commissioner Bill Castro agrees that this is not an appropriate location for a bike station.”

The city has dismissed complaints that the Third Ave. bar had discriminated against people of color. Photo by Jefferson Siegel

BY JEFFERSON SIEGEL  |  A popular East Village bar has been cleared of complaints that its door policy was discriminatory.

Continental bar on Third Ave. at St. Mark’s Place was the target of complaints filed with the city’s Commission on Human Rights, as well as several demonstrations that were organized by the group Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (A.N.S.W.E.R.). Two complaints filed with C.H.R. claimed people of color were denied entry to the bar while others easily passed the bouncers’ scrutiny.

Protests drew dozens to the bar several times in 2011. There was even a Facebook page critical of the bar’s purported door policy. The bar’s owner goes by the name Trigger and sometimes Trigger Smith.

“As I have said all along, my only interest in having any door policy whatsoever is to have a safe and comfortable atmosphere in my bar by keeping out any ‘over the top’ element, be it saggy/baggy jean wearers, Jersey Shore knucklehead types or anyone else that we feel might be more trouble inside the bar than keeping outside,” Trigger said when informed of the commission’s rulings.

“I’d rather pass on the drink sales I’m losing by not letting them in, for the overall safety of the rest of our customers who just want to have a good time hassle-free,” he added.

“Both complaints [against Continental] are closed,” Clifford Mulqueen, deputy commissioner and general counsel of C.H.R., told The Villager last week. “We found no probable cause to believe discrimination occurred. The ownership of the bar provided us with videotapes showing customers that were going in and out. There was no indication that people of color were being turned away. People of color were being admitted.”

Mulqueen noted that there were no other similar complaints currently outstanding against the bar.

One of the people who filed a complaint with C.H.R., Shaniqua Pippen, 25, from Brooklyn, claimed she and three friends were denied admittance to the bar one night in June 2010. Pippen asked one of the door bouncers, who was black, why they were being denied entry.

“Do we need to be regulars or do we just need to be white?” Pippen said she asked the bouncer, and claimed he replied, “Your people don’t know how to act.”

A request for comment to one of the organizers of the protests was not returned by press time.

Continental, which opened in 1991, used to feature live rock bands nightly. But the music scene shifted to the Lower East Side and Brooklyn, and in 2006, Trigger reluctantly transformed it into a cheap shots bar — and finally actually started making money on the place.

By Aline Reynolds

A new facility for recovering alcoholics and substance abusers will open on West Broadway in August, and the community is giving its support.

The Hazelden Foundation, a private addiction treatment organization based in Minnesota, will offer lodging, counseling and mentorship to young adults ages 18 to 29 for six to 12 months at a time. The foundation purchased a six-story building at 283 West Broadway in December that was recently gutted and transformed into a brand-new living space.

Manhattan is starved for centers that cater to addicts working toward sobriety, according to Mark Mishek, president and chief executive officer of Hazelden, who presented the plan to the Community Board 1 Tribeca Committee last week. A survey that Hazelden sent out to some 85 universities and colleges in the tri-state area showed a strong need for the facility in the borough.

“It’s a huge opportunity to be able to make a difference with a population that really has a need here,” he said. “We have to provide them with an environment where they can be successful, healthy and productive citizens who are sober.”

The center will target youths that are enrolled in nearby colleges. Though the facility will not serve as an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting spot, it will offer counseling, a 12-step abstinence program and other services for addicts on the road to recovery.

The group counseling sessions will also be open to community members from Downtown and around the city.

The center will forge partnerships with mental-health service providers, according to Mishek, since alcoholism is often coupled with anxiety, depression and other mental disorders. It will also collaborate with schools’ health-service departments to help evaluate and treat the resident youths.

The foundation will be announcing a partnership with a nearby major medical center in the next week, Mishek said.

Youths will be encouraged to stay at the residence over the summer to participate in internships or fellowships, and, down the line, the center hopes to help them secure full- and part-time jobs.

The former addicts will face tremendous temptations to drink and do drugs, both on and off school grounds.

“With the support and sobriety life they’re going to be living, they’ll have to be comfortable walking by the bar when they come home,” said Mishek.

“This is a badly needed facility,” said Jean Grillo, a Tribeca Democratic district leader and public member of C.B. 1. “We need the ability to treat young people who have drug and alcohol addiction issues.”

Treating college students in the neighborhood they live in, she said, is ideal.

“We could all be sober on a desert island,” she said. “It makes sense to have treatment in the community so you can deal with the temptations.”

It also saves families the typically high costs, she said, of sending the youths to out-of-state facilities.

Security cameras inside the building will monitor activity, there will be a curfew, and at least one staff member will be on site 16 hours a day, seven days a week. The staff will also conduct periodic searches for booze and drugs to make sure the young adults are staying sober.

Meshik plans to attend the next First Precinct Community Council meeting to present the plans for the new Downtown center and address any safety or security concerns residents have.

Lodging fees have yet to be determined, Mishek said, but the costs will parallel the average prices of off-campus college dorm rooms. Students will be able to pay using college loans and other means of financial assistance.

Ricardo James, right, a salesperson at Boys and Chicks on Broadway, said he’s tired of giving visitors — like the couple above — directions all the time, and would welcome a Soho BID providing such services. (Photo by Aline Reynolds)

A hotly debated business improvement district for Soho is close to materializing. The proposal, approved by the City Planning Commission last week, now only awaits approval by the City Council.

But many Soho residents vehemently oppose a business improvement district, or BID, contending that it will lead to more crowds in an area that is already jampacked with tourists and shoppers from elsewhere in the city.

The BID, which would extend between Canal and East Houston Sts. along Broadway, would provide sanitation; public safety and visitor services; marketing, promotion and advertising; holiday lighting; and streetscape and storefront improvements.

“Some people look at this and say, ‘It’s a BID — all you want to do is make the neighborhood more crowded, and have more tourists coming here,’ ” said Brian Steinwurtzel, co-chairperson of the BID’s steering committee, formed in June 2009 to create the BID proposal.

“We’re not saying we’re only for that,” he continued. “What we’re saying is there are already all these stores and traffic. We have to figure out a way to deal with it, and we think the BID is the best and proven way to deal with it.”

If the BID wins approval, commercial property owners and residents in mixed-use commercial co-op buildings will have to pitch in around $5,000 per year toward the services, according to Steinwurtzel. All other residents, meanwhile, will have to contribute a token fee of $1 per year.

The planned district was approved unanimously by City Planning on Jan. 26. The City Council wouldn’t disclose a tentative timeline for its vote.

In a report, City Planning recommended that the Soho BID include a residential reimbursement plan that would compensate co-op residents for the annual fees. Co-op residents are legally required to pay the same sum toward a BID that commercial property owners do, according to city Department of Finance regulations.

This co-op residents’ fee was a chief reason why Community Board 2 rejected the proposal. The board’s January resolution states, “There is no mechanism in place to ensure that all residential owners not be assessed more than $1 annually, as is custom in all BID’s in New York City.”

Another point of contention is the more than $50,000 slated for visitor services and marketing of the district. In assessing residents’ concerns, City Planning advised the BID’s steering committee to specify the intended use of the money toward these services.

“Specifically,” Planning’s report states, “this plan should expressly state that funds are included for providing signage and other way-finding tools for identifying the location of businesses, such as a logo and map, as well as providing information to the public about the unique historical character of the district.”

Steinwurtzel said the organization is committed to reimbursing all Broadway co-op residents their $5,000 fees.

“It’s not our intention to charge anything to the residents,” he said. The Soho BID would become the first of all 64 BID’s in the city to offer a reimbursement plan to co-op dwellers, according to the city’s Department of Small Business Services.

The BID, Steinwurtzel noted, should act as an advocate for all stakeholders in Soho. The committee has devoted $250,000 to launching it.

He said he plans to continue to meet with area residents to get their input and will heed their concerns. He also hopes some of them will join the BID’s board, which currently mostly consists of landlords, with just two residents.

“A BID is a place where all the opinions have to be respected, worked on together and agreed on,” Steinwurtzel said. His family has owned real estate on Broadway in the neighborhood since the early 1980’s.

Having a centralized voice for the community could be very advantageous, according to John Pasquale, a member of the BID’s steering committee who owns several properties in Soho.

“It’s important to have a common company that’s going to stay on top of all these concerns,” he said.

Many other Soho landlords, and even residents, apparently agree with Pasquale. Of the 45 percent of those that responded to a survey conducted by the steering committee and overseen by the city, according to Steinwurtzel, more than 90 percent of residents favored the BID, and some 80 percent of all survey respondents supported it.

Local residents opposed to the BID, however, remain convinced it will only serve Broadway’s businesses, and they resent the authority the BID would have in communitywide decisions.

“The main issue is putting the real estate interests in control of our lives,” said Sally Lindsay, who lives in a 12-story loft building at 491 Broadway. “What if I missed the meeting where they decided to put a kiosk in front of my door?” she asked. “We just don’t want that kind of control.”

Lindsay, who has lived in Soho since 1971, has watched the neighborhood evolve from a desolate area to what she calls a “magnificent shopping mall.”

“We don’t want more tourists, Christmas decorators or shoppers,” she said. “It’s the hottest district in New York. It doesn’t need a BID.”

“It’s out of control already,” echoed Peter, a Broadway loft resident, declining to give his last name due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Upward of 100 community members opposed to the BID, including Lindsay, wrote letters to Community Board 2, City Planning and City Councilmember Margaret Chin. Many of them requested that the BID proposal be rescinded altogether.

As a result, in November, C.B. 2 urged the BID steering committee to withdraw the proposal, referring to “overwhelming” opposition from residents.

The board’s resolution states many residents’ concerns that the BID would only exacerbate overcrowding on Broadway, and that its stated mission to increase local tourism would negatively impact residents’ quality of life:

“The BID applicants have failed to convince the public of the necessity of a new business improvement district for Soho, which is a flashpoint for traffic and pedestrian congestion,” the board’s resolution states.

The BID is “self-defeating,” in that it could endanger the very businesses it hopes to promote, according to Sean Sweeney, director of the Soho Alliance. More tourists would translate into increased sales, he argued, which could lead to landlords hiking business owners’ rents, eventually forcing them out of the neighborhood.

“This proposal is not a BID — this is a landlord’s improvement district,” Sweeney said. “It’s a pretense to set up a quasi-governmental agency within Soho that would be detrimental to the residents and the businesses.”

BID fees incurred by property owners, he added, would also be passed onto tenants in the form of increased rents.

Steinwurtzel, however, said additional tenant payments would be insignificant.

“The majority of any taxes passed along to tenants will be minor amounts,” he said, “and will only be temporary until their leases expire, since any new lease will be reset to market rates.”

As for tourism, Steinwurtzel assured that the majority of the marketing budget would go toward creating signage for the tourists that are already there — not toward advertising or other means to attract more out-of-towners. Retailers along Broadway have complained to the steering committee that they often feel like tour guides to customers who easily get lost amid Soho’s streets.

“Soho already has a tremendous amount of tourists,” Steinwurtzel said. “It’s more about managing those people, and the traffic they create.”

Improving sanitation for the area — purportedly one of the BID’s main services — is something most community members support. The Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless (ACE), which has hired sanitation workers to clean up Broadway and Soho’s side streets daily since the early 1990’s, will discontinue its service at the end of June due to funding shortages.

“I think everybody is concerned about sanitation,” said Councilmember Chin. “We don’t want the streets to go back to what they were before, with garbage spilling out of garbage cans, and wind blowing it all over. Whether or not you need a BID to supervise the cleaning, though, is up for debate.”

Some people in the neighborhood, however, feel there are alternatives to a BID to get similar services, such as encouraging local retailers to voluntarily clean their sidewalks.

“The pretense of street cleaning is a sham,” declared Sweeney. “What this intends to do is bring more tourists into Soho.”

Forming a BID in order to keep Broadway dirt- and litter-free, Lindsay echoed, is “like building a chandelier to fix a light bulb that’s out.”

“The city is supposed to clean the streets,” she said. “If they don’t clean them enough, the stores will have to get somebody on their own to clean.”

Property owners and tenants are required by city law to clean the sidewalks in front of their lots, though sources say this is not sufficient to keep the streets devoid of garbage.

“They don’t understand that there’s more to it than sweeping up in front of your store,” said Jim Martin, executive director of ACE. Countless Soho visitors, he said, stroll along Broadway each weekend, many throwing trash onto the streets or in the trash bins, which quickly overflow. The city is solely responsible for collecting the trash bags.

“If those garbage cans aren’t turned and bagged,” Martin said, “you’re going to have a disaster.” The garbage problem gets even worse during Fashion’s Night Out and other special outdoor events. (City Planning discouraged the BID’s organizing of such large public events in the neighborhood to avoid crowds and litter.)

Several BID opponents, mainly residents, attended the steering committee’s Jan. 19 meeting to voice their concerns and make suggestions.

“It was a very good meeting,” said Chin, who has been fighting for more resident feedback to be heard on the BID. “A lot of people from the area came and expressed their interests.”

In a phone interview last week, Chin said that she would not support the BID until she sees more resident involvement in the modified plan.

The councilmember said she looks forward to examining the final proposal.

“We want to make sure the residents’ concerns are addressed, and that they will have a say,” she said.

The BID steering committee will hold its next meeting at Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, 32 Prince St., on Tues., Feb. 22, to “finalize the district plan according to everyone’s satisfaction,” according to Steinwurtzel, who is holding out hope that, the more Soho residents learn about the BID, the more they’ll realize its benefits.

“When you don’t know what something is, you get a little worried,” he said. “It’s not our intention to make the neighborhood worse. We’re trying to make it better. We’re trying to make this work for everyone in the community.”

A map showing the area Trinity is proposing rezoning to allow residential use. The rezoning would also add height caps for new construction.

Calling Hudson Square’s zoning “outmoded,” Trinity Real Estate wants to rezone a major portion of the district to allow residential use.

With the change, Trinity expects 3,000 to 3,500 new residential apartments over ten years would be added to the neighborhood — not counting the district’s few existing legal residential units.

The plan’s centerpiece is a new, 429-foot-tall, residential tower at Duarte Square, on property owned by Trinity. Helping alleviate local school overcrowding, a 420-seat, K-to-5 public school would be included in the tower’s base. Trinity would build out the school’s raw space for the Department of Education.

Currently, residential use and schools are not allowed in Hudson Square’s M1-6 (manufacturing zoned) district. Neither are cultural uses currently permitted.

Tonight, Thursday, Trinity Real Estate will present the rezoning concept plan to Community Board 2’s Land Use and Business Development Committee. Three days earlier, Trinity gave The Villager an exclusive advance presentation.

Trinity officials who showed the plan asked not to be quoted by name in this article.

In short, Trinity feels there’s “a strong desire” for some residential use in the district.

In addition, Trinity is seeking height caps for new construction in Hudson Square. The caps are being described as “a modest downzoning.”

Along wide streets, like Canal, Hudson and Varick and Sixth Ave., there would be a height cap of 320 feet, or 32 stories. For commercial use, the maximum floor area ratio, or F.A.R. (which determines how much square footage can be built.) would be 10, with current bonuses for including public plazas and arcades eliminated.

On these wide streets, residential F.A.R. would be 9, which would get a bump up to 12 F.A.R. with the inclusion of 20 percent affordable housing.

Currently, the whole district’s F.A.R. ranges from 10 to 12. Plus, there’s no height limit — which is how the Trump Soho condo-hotel could be built to 490 feet, equivalent to 49 stories, by acquiring air rights from adjacent buildings and using a plaza bonus.

On narrow streets, like Greenwich and Spring Sts., and other east-west streets, the height cap would be 185 feet, about 18 stories, and on mid blocks the F.A.R. would be lowered from the current 10 to 6.5, but could rise to 8.5 with affordable housing included.

On Broome and Watts Sts., however, the F.A.R. would be even lower, 5.4, but could rise to 7.2 with the affordable-housing bonus. The height cap would be about 12 stories.

The tower Trinity hopes to build at Duarte Square — at the wide-streets intersection of Canal and Varick Sts. and Sixth Ave. — at 429 feet would be taller than other new construction. The public school in it would occupy four stories and be 100,000 square feet, and would not count toward the project’s F.A.R. Trinity would build out the school’s core and shell — and then give the space to the city for free — and rent free, for perpetuity.

Trinity is also obligated to build a park on part of the property at Duarte Square as part of the development.

A prime concern of Trinity is to preserve the jobs of current commercial tenants. Under the scheme, existing buildings of more than 50,000 square feet could not be residentially converted. If a commercial building of more than 50,000 square feet were demolished, then there would have to be a “1-to-1 replacement” in the new building — meaning it would have to have at least 50,000 square feet of commercial space. Buildings less than 50,000 square feet could be residentially converted, and the expectation is that many would be. According to Trinity, under the rezoning, about 90 percent of the existing square footage in the neighborhood would be preserved as is.

Also, under the proposed change, new nightclubs would not be allowed to open in Hudson Square. Big-box stores would be banned, as well, with an exception for supermarkets.

Bounded by Sixth Ave. on the east, the Hudson River on the west, Houston St. on the north and Canal St. on the south, Hudson Square was formerly known as the Printing District. Located west of Soho and north of Tribeca, it lacks both those neighborhoods’ renowned cachet. Yet, in recent years, as new businesses have moved into the area, Hudson Square increasingly has become an energetic and hip, media and creative hub. Foot traffic — at least during the day — has shot up.

Trinity Real Estate wants to increase, not only residential occupancy, but also retail in Hudson Square. Right now, the neighborhood turns quiet with empty streets at night and on weekends. Lunch options are few. Trinity would like to make it a “24-hour community.” Residential use would increase foot traffic, helping sustain retail. However, luring chain-store-type or high-end retailers is definitely not the goal.

Specifically, Trinity is seeking a rezoning for the area north of Canal St., east of Sixth Ave. and Varick St. over to Hudson St. and then across Spring St. over to Greenwich St. and up to Houston St.

Trinity is, unquestionably, the area’s major stakeholder; it owns 40 percent of the neighborhood’s built space and closer to 50 percent if the land Trinity leases to others is included. (The Saatchi & Saatchi building, at 375 Hudson St., for example, is on Trinity property but is owned by Tishman Speyer.)

Meanwhile, Hudson Square’s retail vacancy rate, 30 percent, is very high, despite having one of the lowest retail rents in Manhattan. Other areas, like the World Trade Center and the Hudson Yards, have commercial subsidies, but Hudson Square does not. As a result, property owners are turning to hotels — a number of nondescript ones having recently popped up in the neighborhood, along with the towering new Trump Soho condo-hotel at Spring and Varick Sts. Yet, hotels generate a lot of traffic, which is a concern of Trinity Real Estate.

In addition, Trinity had a bad experience with a hotel project on one of its own properties: The planned Viceroy hotel, to be built atop the gutted shell of a warehouse at 330 Hudson St., never panned out. At great expense, Trinity itself had to seal up the vacant shell.

And SEIU is reportedly having trouble finding a buyer for its former union headquarters building at Sixth Ave. and Grand St. Without residential use, converting the building into another hotel might be the only option.

Under the proposed rezoning, a special permit would be needed for new hotels with more than 100 rooms.

Trinity doesn’t want to attract so-called destination retail — like Soho’s glitzy boutiques and the large stores lining Broadway. Rather, Trinity hopes to attract small and mid-sized retailers and restaurants — mainly to service its own commercial tenants and the increased number of residential tenants that would populate the neighborhood due to the rezoning.

Currently, Hudson Square’s residential occupancy is about 4 percent. With a rezoning allowing residential use, Trinity hopes to boost this figure to 25 percent. Two mixed-use neighborhoods that Trinity sees as comparable to Hudson Square, Park Ave. South and the Flatiron District, have residential rates of 38 percent and 29 percent, respectively.

All of Trinity’s profits go to support Trinity Church as well as Trinity’s charitable mission throughout the city, focused on neighborhoods like Chinatown, the Lower East Side, Harlem, the South Bronx and the Upper West Side. Except for its actual church building, Trinity pays property taxes on all its real estate holdings.

With reporting by John W. Sutter

Arthur Nash next to the hat Joey Gallo wore when he was whacked and a companion’s purse Gallo’s bodyguard stashed his bullets in. (Photo by Lincoln Anderson)

By Lincoln Anderson

In a blast from Little Italy’s notorious past, a new exhibit space is aiming to blow gallerygoers away with Mafia-related exhibits. Mob Scene, 396 Broome St. between Mulberry St. and Centre Market Place, is a partnership between collector Arthur Nash and local actor Vinny Vella, whose specialty is portraying “goodfellas” onscreen.

The opening exhibit is on Joey Gallo, a.k.a. “Crazy Joey” Gallo, who in 1972 at age 43 met his end in a hail of bullets inside the former location of Umberto’s Clam House, at 129 Mulberry St., staggering outside and dying on the sidewalk.

Among the items on view are the hat Gallo was wearing when he was slain, as well as a female companion’s purse into which Gallo’s bodyguard, “Pete the Greek,” stashed his ammo, so police wouldn’t catch him with a loaded weapon. However, he was still prosecuted for possessing an unregistered firearm. No one else was ever sentenced in connection with Gallo’s murder.

Nash noted that Matt Ianniello, a.k.a. “Matty the Horse,” was the manager at the restaurant when Gallo was shot. Despite initial suspicions, he was never implicated in the hit — though he was later nailed on racketeering charges.

(Coincidentally, Umberto’s Clam House recently closed on the corner of Broome St. and, according to Nash, is looking to move back closer to its original location.)

Other items include a coded letter Gallo wrote to an associate, which was never received since the authorities kept it, as well as a Spanish conjugation book. Nash said the latter might indicate Gallo planned to broaden his crime network to include Hispanics.

Arrayed around the small gallery’s walls are copies of photos, of which Nash owns the prints. Shown in jovial poses are wiseguys with names like “Joe Jelly,” “Louie the Syrian” and “Mando the Midget.” Pointing to one shot, taken at Gallo’s birthday party, Nash rattled off the names of the six men shown. Most are either dead or still doing hard time. The one in the middle brandishing the handgun — well, Nash said, it would probably just be best not to ID him.

There’s also the infamous 1957 photo of Albert Anastasia, boss of Murder Inc., lying facedown in a pool of blood on a hotel barbershop floor at Seventh Ave. and 54th St. It’s a Starbucks now, Nash noted.

He owns the barber chair — “chair No. 4” — Anastasia was in when he was rubbed out, having acquired it from comedian Henny Youngman. It’s believed Gallo did the hit, on a contract passed on to him by Joe Profaci.

Back in the early gangland days, the space where Mob Scene is located was a pool hall and clubhouse for Jewish gangsters. And next door in what’s now a New York University dorm was the former Police Department property division, where the huge drug haul from the 1970’s French Connection was stored — until, Nash noted, it mysteriously vanished.

Nash assured Mob Scene is no mere pop-up gallery. He did one of those four years ago, “Made in America,” in a space on Mulberry St. The filmmaker Jim Jarmusch liked it so much, he encouraged him to open something more permanent, which helped lead to Mob Scene.

The gallery’s next exhibit will be “La Moda Nostra” (“Our Fashion”), a play on “La Cosa Nostra” (“Our Thing,” another name for the Mafia among its members). The show will look at how Mafia and gang style have influenced today’s fashions. Actual clothing from well-known underworld figures will be on view.