[4] According to Kate Harmon, Genovese's great niece, to whom the Mob Queens researchers spoke and have on record at 10:55 in Chapter 1 of their podcast, Anna's marriage "was not looked upon kindly" by her family as Vernotico was considered a man of little means; a census record notes that he was a carpenter, though in reality he was a baker in New York City's Little Italy.
In 1927, Genovese and Vernotico had a daughter, Marie, and moved a few blocks north of Anna's West Houston Street home to a tenement apartment next to an elevated train on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village.
Court records show that at the same time, Anna had been working evenings in one of the clubs in the Washington Square Park neighborhood, near or in Greenwich Village.
It is thought that Vito Genovese, a fourth cousin of Anna's,[5] was responsible for or involved with the murder of Gerard Vernotico in March 1932.
The couple's first luxury apartment was located at 43 Fifth Avenue,[6][better source needed] a decadent Beaux Arts building, completed in 1905, with limestone pillars, a marble lobby, and wrought-iron balconies.
Standing accused of the Boccia murder and other crimes, such as racketeering, Vito decided to flee the U.S.,[7] leaving the bulk of his business up to Anna.
[13] Singers and other kinds of performers provided the entertainment, individuals like drag king Malvina Schwartz, also known as Buddy "Bubbles" Kent,[14] whose 1983 Lesbian Herstory Archives oral history chronicles her time spent there.
[13] While Vito was in hiding abroad, Anna became hostess of Club 82, a gay bar located at 82 E. 4th St., between Second Avenue and the Bowery in Manhattan,[15] which started in October 1950.
Kitt Russell, dubbed "America's top femme mimic" by Walter Winchell,[16] hosted many of the shows, and countless acts performed in them, such as female impersonators Sonne Teal,[17] Kim Christy,[18] and Mel Michaels.
[19] Revues were long and elaborate,[16][20][21] replete with sets and costumes,[22][23] and with titles like Sincapades of 1954,[24] A Vacation in Color,[25] Fun-Fair for '57,[26] and Time Out for Fun.
[28] The venue would later come under investigation with a potential loss of its liquor license, allegedly orchestrated by vindictive Vito to spite Anna.
Anna was a co-owner and proprietor, with gangster Steven Franse,[31] of the 181 Club,[32] known as "The East Side's Gayest Spot"[33] and "the homosexual Copacabana".
He then instigated a move from Manhattan to Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, where they lived luxuriously, but summarily ending Anna's club career.
[38] Anna had testified that the family had been involved in narcotics trafficking, casinos, labor rackets, dog and horse-racing, and other criminal activities.
Additionally, Anna implicated other major mob figures like Frank Costello and Albert Anastasia;[2] as Anna's life would have been endangered due to her betrayal of so many dangerous people (she stated in her testimony that she had "been afraid to tell about Genovese's crime career in the past because he threatened her with death"[2]), it is surmised that she might have been promised law enforcement protections in exchange for her testimony.
It is again surmised that Anna had immunity in testifying, as law enforcement and the courts would not have allowed her to walk free after admitting her role in the copious crimes committed.
Dorothy Kilgallen, the most syndicated newspaper columnist at the time of the trial, began reporting on the case, recording live with "If I were Mrs. Vito Genovese, I'd be awful careful crossing streets."
It is speculated that Costello gifted Kilgallen so she would, as a favor to him, "warn" Anna—through her newspaper column and other outlets she presided over—that she needed to stop spilling mob business publicly—whether in court or otherwise—or face consequences.