1. Danny Greene would build a close working relationship with Shondor Birns, as neither of them could become a "made" man in the Italian mob due to lack of Italian ancestry.
59 Facts About Danny Greene
1. 2.
Danny Greene first gained power in the local chapter of the International Longshoremen's Association, where he was elected president during the early 1960s.
3.
Danny Greene later became a full time crime boss and began competing with the Cleveland crime family, Jewish mob figure, and one-time friend Shondor Birns for control of the city's criminal underworld.
4.
Danny Greene set up his own crew called the Celtic Club, complete with enforcers and a close alliance with outlaw biker gangs.
5.
Daniel John Patrick "Danny" Greene was born November 14,1933, in Cleveland, Ohio, to John Henry Greene and Irene Cecelia Greene.
6.
Danny Greene's father was born in Cleveland, but his mother was born in Pennsylvania.
7.
Danny Greene was called "Baby Greene" until his mother was buried, after which he was eventually named after his grandfather.
8.
Danny Greene's father drank heavily and eventually lost his job as a salesman for Fuller Brush.
9.
Danny Greene married her, and they started their own family and brought Danny to live with them.
10.
At age 6, Danny Greene resented his stepmother and ran away on several occasions.
11.
When Danny Greene's father died in 1959, the newspaper obituary listed his children from his second marriage but did not mention Danny Greene.
12.
Danny Greene attended St Jerome Catholic School, where he developed a great fondness for the nuns and priests, developed a lasting friendship with some of his teachers, and served as an altar boy.
13.
Danny Greene was athletic, excelled at baseball, and was an all-star basketball player.
14.
Danny Greene was a Boy Scout for a short time, before being kicked out of his troop.
15.
Danny Greene was expelled from Collinwood High School, in that case, due to excessive tardiness, which he claimed was caused by the bullying of fellow students.
16.
Danny Greene was stationed for a time at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville, North Carolina and was transferred many times, possibly because of his behavior.
17.
Danny Greene was chosen to serve as interim president and handily won the next election.
18.
Once president, Danny Greene had the union office painted green and installed thick green carpeting.
19.
Danny Greene was known to drive a green car, wear green jackets, and often handed out green ink pens.
20.
Danny Greene fired more than 50 members while denouncing them as "winos and bums" to other workers.
21.
Danny Greene led sometimes violent protests and strikes to force the stevedore companies to allow the ILA to oversee the hiring of dockworkers.
22.
Danny Greene used workers to beat up union members who did not come in line, but he was never seen fighting himself.
23.
Danny Greene was a spellbinding speaker and a good organizer.
24.
Rather than face a second trial, Danny Greene pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of falsifying union records, was fined $10,000, and received a suspended sentence.
25.
Danny Greene did not pay the fine nor receive any prison time.
26.
Danny Greene passed along information to the FBI and became a top-echelon confidential informant, but only that which suited his personal needs, and he would not hurt those close to him.
27.
Danny Greene's codename was "Mr Patrick", a reflection on his Irish pride.
28.
The verdict was overturned by an appeals court; federal prosecutors and Danny Greene negotiated a settlement of Danny Greene's guilty plea in exchange for two misdemeanor charges and a $10,000 fine, but he paid only a fraction of it.
29.
Danny Greene was married to June Tears from 1953 to 1956.
30.
Danny Greene was hired by the Cleveland Solid Waste Trade Guild to "keep the peace".
31.
For example, in May 1968, under Birns's orders, Danny Greene was supposed to attack a black numbers man who was holding out on protection money due.
32.
Unfamiliar with the military-type detonator, Danny Greene barely made it out of his car before the bomb exploded.
33.
Danny Greene survived being thrown nearly 20 feet, although the hearing in his right ear was damaged for life.
34.
Danny Greene told the police a story about what had occurred, and thereafter would only trust professionals to handle bombs for him.
35.
In September 1970, Danny Greene instructed Art Sneperger to place a bomb on Frato's car, but Sneperger had second thoughts and told Frato.
36.
Danny Greene ordered Sneperger to plant a bomb on Frato's car in 1971.
37.
Kovacic was told by an underworld source that Danny Greene had pushed the detonator, killing Sneperger instantly.
38.
Danny Greene was arrested and interrogated, he admitted to the killing but claimed self-defense.
39.
Danny Greene said Frato had fired three shots at Greene, who was jogging and exercising his dogs and fired one back.
40.
Not long afterwards, Danny Greene again found himself a target while jogging in White City Beach.
41.
Danny Greene left his wife and their three children for their own safety and moved to Collinwood, where he rented an apartment.
42.
Danny Greene evicted a bookmaker who operated out of a small Waterloo business, and kept a local bar in order by making personal visits.
43.
Danny Greene threatened to light it and throw it into their club house until they came out to hear his warning to keep things quiet while in Collinwood.
44.
Danny Greene formed his own crew of young Irish-American gangsters, called "The Celtic Club".
45.
Danny Greene allied with John Nardi, a Cleveland crime family labor racketeer who wanted to overthrow the leadership.
46.
Danny Greene had asked Birns for a loan of $75,000 to set up a "cheat spot".
47.
The Gambino family wanted their money, and Birns pressed Danny Greene, who refused to return it, reminding Birns that he could not return something he had never received and that Birns was responsible for it, since Birns's courier had lost it.
48.
Not long afterward, Danny Greene found an unexploded bomb in his car when he pulled into a Collinwood service station to get gas.
49.
Danny Greene disassembled the bomb himself, removed the dynamite, and brought the rest of the package to a policeman, Edward Kovacic.
50.
Danny Greene refused to hand over the bomb, stating, "I'm going to send this back to the old bastard that sent it to me".
51.
Danny Greene's building at 15805 Waterloo Road was destroyed, but he sustained only minor injuries.
52.
In 1975, Danny Greene began to push into the vending machine racket, traditionally controlled by the Mafia, as well as muscled into gambling operations.
53.
Danny Greene controlled some of the more lucrative laundry contracts that Sinito wanted, and Sinito deemed the excessive fees Danny Greene charged for coin-operated laundry contracts extortion.
54.
In retaliation, Danny Greene had dynamite wired to the frame of Sinito's car, but Sinito found the bomb, removed and disarmed it, and later destroyed it.
55.
Rick Porrello reported in his book, To Kill The Irishman, that Danny Greene, using bombs or bullets, killed at least eight of the Mafia hit men sent to assassinate him.
56.
Danny Greene granted interviews to local television stations; for a newspaper photographer, posed proudly in front of a boarded-up window of his destroyed apartment building; and during a televised interview said to one television reporter,.
57.
Shortly after their meeting, Danny Greene muscled in on a large West Side gambling operation originally run by Nardi.
58.
On October 6,1977, Danny Greene went to a dental appointment at the Brainard Place office building in Lyndhurst, Ohio.
59.
Danny Greene's remains were cremated on October 8,1977, and he was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Cleveland.