Staten Island: Revised Edition (Paperback or Softback)

The Gangster - Hugh Crawford put down his shovel. HMS Mosquito needed no more coal as she eased up to the Staten Island pier she would share with HMS Scorpion. A 24-hour leave took Hugh and his pals to half a dozen water front saloons. Finally to Angelo‘s, then across the street to “Mothers“ and the arms of Mary Kate. It was that night and those arms that, at war’s end, brought Hugh Crawford back to Staten Island.

The Musician - Sitting on the ferry boat bench Chuck Stacey’s mind drifted back to the day Tom Kravitz called: “Chuck, Henry Love is here today but his drummer got arrested and he won’t do a show until he can get a replacement. I told him you could do it. He said he would listen to you.”

After more than a year with Henry Love, he and two pals struck out on their own and here they were on a boat to Staten Island and a New Year’s Eve Ball. Not exactly the “big time” they had dreamed of.

The Lovely Young Lady - News that Chuck Stacey’s Orchestra would play at the ball sent shivers of excitement up and down her spine. He must be the same Chuck Stacey she sang with two years ago in Uncle Belinni’s Chicago saloon. Getting to that ball became the most important goal in her life.

Phillips Wylly was born on Staten Island. From there, Wylly ventured to Rockefeller Center - NBC. He traveled the world filming such events as Grace Kelly's wedding and interviews with Otto Preminger, Rocky Graziano, Sophia Loren, Carl Sandberg, then Senator and Mrs. John F. Kennedy and many others. Wylly moved to Los Angeles and joined the Wolper Organization where he worked on the historic mini-series "Roots," and with some of the industry's biggest stars including Henry Fonda, Elizabeth Taylor, Burt Lancaster and Morgan Freeman. Wylly has been producer or production executive on countless films and TV shows. His credits include "Gore Vidal's Billy the Kid," "Lucas," and TV's long running series, "Life Goes On." STATEN ISLAND is a work of fiction but many of its characters and much of its action is based on Phil's personal experiences and stories told by his father about the bootleggers who plied the island's Atlantic Coast during the Roaring Twenties when Prohibition was the law of a lawless land.