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Difficulty:
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Size:
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Although this cache is marked as
available in winter, the snow plows do make it more difficult to
get to in the winter.
NOT ACCESSABLE FROM THE FREEWAY.
I was making a doctors appointment a number of years ago, and the
receptionist was explaining how to find the office. In telling me
how to get there, she asked me if I knew where the "Danny Greene
Memorial Parking Lot" was. I had to laugh, even though it was more
than 15 years after his death. I think he would have appreciated
his name being unofficially used for the place he was killed.
Now I hear that someone is making a movie called “The
Irishman” about Danny Greene.
I thought we should let those who don't know who he was, learn a
bit about him with this cache.
Daniel "Danny" J. Patrick Greene (November 15, 1933–October
6, 1977) was an Irish American mobster and associate of Cleveland
mobster John Nardi during the gang war for the city's criminal
operations during the late 1970s.
Daniel Patrick Greene was born to first generation Irish-American
immigrants on November 15, 1933. Danny Greene grew up in Parmadale,
a Roman Catholic-faith based orphanage. At St. Jerome Catholic
School, he developed a great fondness for the nuns and priests. He
developed a lasting friendship with some of his teachers, although
he did misbehave in class often. During his enrollment at St.
Jerome, he served as an altar boy.
When Greene reached the age of adolescence, he was enrolled in
Roman Catholic-faith based St. Ignatius High School. It was at St.
Ignatius High School that he would frequently get into fights with
fellow Italian-American students and was subjected to their racist
remarks about his Irish-American heritage that fueled a hatred for
Italians that lasted his entire life. He was expelled from St.
Ignatius High School and transferred to Collinwood High School,
where he excelled in athletics.
Eventually, Greene was expelled from Collinwood High School in
Cleveland, Ohio due to excessive tardiness, which was caused by the
constant bullying from fellow students.
In the early 1960s, Daniel earned himself steady work as a
longshoreman at the Cleveland, Ohio docks years before the docks
would become monopolized by the International Longshoremen's
Association (ILA). In his free time, he read ravenously about his
ancestral homeland of Ireland and its turbulent history. He began
to think of himself as a "Celtic warrior".
The Cleveland family boss, Frank "Little Frank" Brancato, brought
in Greene and other gangsters of Irish heritage to act as errand
boys and muscle to enforce the Mafia’s influence during the
1960s. Greene was used as muscle in enforcing the Mob’s
control over the garbage hauling contracts and other Mob influenced
rackets. This was a move Brancato would later grow to regret. Until
his death in 1973, he regretted bringing Danny Greene into the Mob
and the damage it did.
He also formed his own gang of young tough Irish hoodlums called
The Celtic Club. His main lieutenants were Keith Ritson, Kevin
McTaggart, Brian O'Donnell, Danny Greene Jr., Billy McDuffy and
enforcer-hitman James "Icepick" Sterling from Southwest Detroit.
They started setting up their own gambling dens across the city. He
also allied himself with John Nardi, a Cleveland family labor
racketeer who wanted to overthrow the Cleveland family
leadership.
In 1975, Green started asserting himself in the vending machine
racket, which had traditionally been a Mafia racket, and began
muscling into many of the Cleveland mafia's gambling operations.
This greatly angered the Cleveland family leadership.
As the mafia began to chase Greene, he retaliated. In 1976 alone,
36 bombs exploded around the Cleveland area. It was soon to be
called "Bomb City, U.S.A.". The use of Bombs, far from being solely
used in the mob war with the Cleveland family, had become a
favorite weapon in the Northeast Ohio underworld. The ATF was so
inundated with blast investigations that they tripled their
manpower in northeast Ohio. According to the book "To Kill The
Irishman" by Rick Porrello, Greene personally assassinated at least
eight of the Mafia hit men, sent to kill him. Most of these
killings were through the use of either bombs or bullets.
In televised interview, Greene denied any knowledge of the
underworld war. However, Greene added, "I have no axe to grind, but
if these maggots in this so-called Mafia want to come after me, I'm
over here by the Celtic Club. I'm not hard to find.” This was
a public insult to the reputation of the Cleveland family and
drastically reduced their stature in front of the other families
including the Five Families of New York. Their constant inability
and failure to kill Greene made them look like a laughingstock and
gave them an impression as "the gang that couldn't shoot straight"
in the criminal underworld
On October 6, 1977, Greene went to a dental appointment at the
Brainard Place office building in Lyndhurst, Ohio. Members of the
mafia, who had listened in on Greene's phone line they had tapped,
anticipated this visit. As Greene approached his car after the
appointment, the automobile parked next to his exploded. The
explosion was thunderous and, sent a red ball of fire into the air,
a blinding cloud of flame that for an instant bathed the already
sunlit parking lot in a terrifying white light. Greene was ripped
apart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Greene
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
ZntargvpIregvpny