A mansion built by mob kingpin Albert Anastasia, Jr., goes up for auction that Dec. 8. The Italinate-style mansion sits on a 1.3-acre site on the Palisades Cliffs.
FORT LEE -- Is your home just not villainous enough?
You can change that Dec. 8, as long as you have a few million dollars.
A mansion built by mob kingpin Albert Anastasia, Jr., goes up for auction that day. The Italinate-style mansion sits on a 1.3-acre site on the Palisades Cliffs.
Anastasia, according to his FBI file, did not make an honest living. His business was racketeering, strikebreaking and strong-arming. His company came to be called Murder, Inc., and it was behind 63 killings between 1931 and 1940.
Born in 1902, Anastasia's career got off to an early start. He was convicted of killing another man as early as 1921, but the witness fled to Italy. Anastasia beat charges over and over again in the ensuing years, with witnesses changing their stories or worse, dying, according to the FBI.
Anastasia bought the Fort Lee property after spending two years in the Army and taking advantage of a law granting quick citizenship to servicemen.
"There he lives behind a steel fence guarded by two dogs, and spurns the subpoenas of the State Crime Commission," his FBI file says.
MORE: As new developments rise, Fort Lee girds for population boom
The file also notes that Anastasia has two Lincolns and that his son goes to college.
He could not hole up forever. Anastasia was killed in 1957 while in a barber's chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York.
The subsequent owners of 75 Bluff Rd. have not been as violent. They include Del Webb, formerly a part-owner of the Yankees, and comedian Buddy Hackett. The current owner is Arthur Imperatore, another Italian-American working the waterfront, only he's on the straight and narow: He's founder and president of the NY Waterway ferry service.
The house is being auctioned by Guernsey's. The minimum bid is $5.5 million.
Myles Ma may be reached at mma@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MylesMaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.