Hollywood and Horsepower Show, September 10, 2026

Hollywood and Horsepower Show with Mark Otto

Growing Up in Gotti's Howard Beach, Codes of Loyalty, and 9/11 Memories with Anthony Stabile

Mark Otto sits down with longtime friend Anthony "The Big A" Stabile to talk the new Belmont Park, growing up in John Gotti's Howard Beach, and the codes of loyalty and respect that shaped both of their families, closing on the eve of the 25th anniversary of 9/11.

New Belmont Park and Keeneland Talk

Mark Otto opens the show a few minutes late after some studio trouble and welcomes his frequent guest, Anthony "The Big A" Stabile, promising talk that touches New York, Queens, and horse racing. Stabile reports that Saratoga has just wrapped and that Keeneland's yearling sales begin Monday in Kentucky, though he still calls himself a New York guy at heart. The bigger story, he says, is the reopening of Belmont Park on September 18, almost three years after the old grandstand came down. He has not toured the new facility yet and worries, from photographs alone, that it looks sterile like so many modern tracks. Otto asks whether any of the old history carried forward, and Stabile notes a wrinkle: the nearby UBS Arena was contractually required to match Belmont's old green and brown facade, yet the rebuilt track itself now stands white, so nothing actually matches. He adds that the Racing Association is reportedly weighing a shorter Belmont Stakes even though the new main track was just built at the old mile and a half.

Howard Beach: The Alleged Mafia Capital

Otto turns to a subject he has wanted to explore with Stabile before: growing up in Howard Beach, Queens, in the shadow of John Gotti. Stabile lays out the neighborhood's geography, describing Old Howard Beach, Lindenwood, and his own section, sometimes called New Howard Beach, along Cross Bay Boulevard off the Belt Parkway. He says the area is what many consider the alleged mafia capital of New York, home base of the Gambino family, a reputation he calls unfortunate because of its negative connotation. Otto notes that mentioning Gotti's name to anyone on a Howard Beach sidewalk still produces the same answer: "the best." Stabile explains that the neighborhood existed in what he calls a bubble, insulated from the disorder hitting other parts of New York in the 1980s, and that crime in Howard Beach actually fell while it rose elsewhere in the city, a shift many residents credited directly to Gotti's presence and the message that nothing was allowed to happen there.

Parallel Stories From Detroit's Partnership

Mark Otto responds with his own family history, explaining that his father served as a Detroit vice officer for twenty-seven years and personally knew leaders of the Detroit Partnership. He describes a handshake arrangement between organized crime and police much like the one Stabile outlines from the early twentieth century. Otto recalls being taken as a boy to a poolside birthday party at a Holiday Inn, where his father greeted an older man in sunglasses, a Detroit Partnership figure Otto later identified from photographs, though the transcript is unclear whether the man was Tony Giacalone or Joe Zerilli. The conversation turns to the old numbers racket, which Stabile says was tied to the final digits of the daily racetrack handle at Aqueduct, Belmont, or Saratoga. Otto remembers his father, dying of a heart attack years later, growing furious whenever a state lottery commercial appeared on the hospital television, insisting men had served prison time for the same game the government later legalized.

Fourth of July Parties and Peter Gotti's Gift

Stabile paints a picture of the old Howard Beach, remembering John Gotti's Fourth of July block parties on 103rd Avenue that drew thousands of people for food and a fireworks show he compares favorably to the Grucci family's professional displays. He also recalls a school chocolate-bar fundraiser around 1982, when he finished second in sales as a first-grader with just over s