Not So Pleasant Avenue

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Before it was home to Manhattan's first Target, Pleasant Avenue in Harlem was known as a hotbed of mob activity. The Times runs down the street's sordid history, from an 1882 murder to Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno's stint running the Genovese crime family to "the scene in The Godfather when Sonny Corleone beats up his brother-in-law." And now? "Fifty years after a teenager who lived on Pleasant Avenue was pulled from the East River with 124 stab wounds on his body in 1960, nearly seven years after a man was shot at Rao’s restaurant at Pleasant Avenue and 114th Street for heckling a Broadway soprano in 2003, crowds of shoppers packed the neighborhood. Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes cereal was on sale, two for $4." [NYT]

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