“I never knew, and I was a bright kid. I didn’t know who the mayor of New York was, but I could tell you the names of all the mafia guys on the corner.” — Vincent Coppola
So we finally found a Coppola for the show. No, not Francis Ford. But somebody just as cool and even more authentic. The longtime Newsweek reporter Vincent Coppola grew up in Brooklyn three subway stops from Manhattan, but never went there until he was a teenager, nor even visited Central Park until his twenties. Coppola’s version of Brooklyn, a teeming Italian ghetto squeezed between the banks of the polluted Gowanus Canal, no longer exists. Except in his exquisitely rendered new memoir, Gowanus Crossing: A Brooklyn Boyhood, which has the most delicious story about an Easter pie recipe you’ll ever read.
The Brooklyn of Vinnie’s childhood was intact, insular, cut off from everywhere more than three stops away. It had its own government — the Mafia; its own religion — the Catholic Church; its own poisoned geography — the Gowanus Canal. A world inside a world. He didn’t know who the mayor of New York was, but he knew the name of every wise guy on every street corner. To a kid, Gowanus was a magical place. The grown Vinnie (now called Vincent), having crossed his own Rubicon to attend Columbia journalism school, describes it as a “toxic snow globe.” Brooklyn über alles. Or, more authentically, al primo posto. Especially now, when only a real Coppola can resurrect it.
Five Takeaways
• A Toxic Snow Globe. Three subway stops from Manhattan. Never went until he was a teenager. Never to Central Park until his twenties. Knew every Mafia name on the corner. Didn’t know who the mayor was. Its own rules, its own government, its own religion. Entirely cut off.
• The Mafia as Shadow Government. Police from the 78th Precinct collected cash from the social club on Sundays. Squad cars ferried a hitman as if they were taxis. The stereotype of the honest cop, the beloved priest: none of it applied. Because they were poor, nobody cared.
• The Predatory Priest. A local priest molested altar boys for decades, including Coppola’s best friend. Nobody knew. If the Mafia had known, they would have killed him. Two codes of silence, running in parallel, protecting different predators.
• The Easter Pie Recipe. Obsession throughout his life. Old neighbourhood women guarded it for decades. At his mother’s funeral, a neighbour pressed a piece of paper into his hand. Weeks later he opened it. Not cash — the recipe. In Italian. Beginning: ‘under a full moon.’
• The Ghost Town. Back three weeks ago. Skyscrapers, condominiums. Dead silent. When he grew up: hopscotch, gossip, music, grilling on the corner. Now: a million-dollar desert. The people he grew up with were driven out. That is the elegy the book is writing.
About the Guest
Vincent Coppola is a journalist and the author of Gowanus Crossing: A Brooklyn Boyhood (Henry Holt, June 9, 2026). A former Newsweek reporter, he lives in Savannah, Georgia.
References
Gowanus Crossing: A Brooklyn Boyhood by Vincent Coppola (Henry Holt, June 9, 2026): us.macmillan.com/books/9781250904126/gowanuscrossing
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.
Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow
Chapters:
00:00:31 The Brooklyn of Whole Foods vs the Gowanus Canal
00:01:20 An Italian village dropped in Brooklyn
00:02:27 Stage four cancer: the trigger
00:03:11 The Gowanus Canal
00:05:54 Never went to Manhattan until a teenager
00:07:24 The Mafia as shadow government
00:09:30 Police collecting cash on Sundays
00:33:35 The Easter pastry obsession
00:33:40 The recipe at his mother’s funeral
00:39:40 Today’s Brooklyn: a million-dollar ghost town