TRENTON – The bagman’s place finally got bagged.
In a move both healing and painful, Trenton officials gathered Monday to watch an excavator tear down a stretch of blighted homes on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, including JoJo’s Steakhouse.
“I thought it was important to save the hanging sign and give that to the library so that 50 years from now, somebody will look at that and say, ‘This sign was the location where an infamous bribery scandal came into play,’” said Mayor Reed Gusciora, whose political foes have claimed he’s just as corrupt as the monument to corruption his administration was now razing.
The place once belonged to Joseph “JoJo” Giorgianni, ex-Trenton Mayor Tony Mack’s bagman, before it fell into foreclosure.
The city spent years acquiring the half-dozen properties on the block, all of them unsightly and unsteady, so they could be demolished.
The notorious crime figure sold the joint to outsiders as “famous” for cheesesteaks, but it has become infamous for what Giorgianni sold out of the back door – oxycodone and deception.
The restaurant and next-door clubhouse were among the spots that Mack and cronies clandestinely gathered, while the feds were tailing and surveilling them, to discuss a corrupt scheme to sell a parking garage to a fictitious developer at a lower price in exchange for $119,000 in kickbacks.
Giorgianni, also known as “Mr. Baker,” and “Fat Man,” because of his grotesquely large 565-pound frame mirroring Jabba the Hutt, acted as a “buffer” for Mack to accept the slippery payoffs, which the FBI orchestrated as a ruse.
Giorgianni spoke in code, referring to cash bribes as “Uncle Remus.”
The feds quickly cracked the code, and soon enough, Giorgianni was sent away for 78 months as part of plea bargain that resolved both drug trafficking and corruption cases for his cooperation against Mack and brother Ralphiel, the former Trenton Central High school football coach and guidance counselor.
Left behind in Giorgianni’s wake was the restaurant, which now resembled a squatter’s home.
Pieces of caved-in ceiling were scattered on the floor. A giant grill where sandwiches with colorful names like “Trash Can Steak Special” and “Trash Bag Sausage Special” – as if the bagman was hiding criminal exploits in plain sight with culinary creations – once sizzled had given way to thick deposits of dust.
A giant captain’s chair where the “Fat Man” once held court sat unoccupied. And then there were the showcases of Giorgianni’s acts of generosity as if a way for him to alleviate his guilt: trophies, pictures of youth teams that he sponsored and plaques recognizing the man who tried running Trenton like William “Boss” Tweed did New York’s Tammany Hall.
Some of those relics were excavated, like the “ JoJo’s famous steaks & subs” sign outside the joint and an oversize menu that once hung inside the eatery’s walls – so Trenton never forgets its history.
They’re reminders of what once was and what’s yet to come, said C. Andre Daniels, the city’s embattled housing and economic redevelopment director.
“This is a gateway entry point. You got three corners here: Calhoun, Princeton, and MLK,” said Daniels, standing across the street from the steakhouse, in front of a “Welcome to Historic Trenton” sign. “If we can get redevelopment started. What we’re really looking for is a spark in the city, a catalyst to get this thing going. It’s almost like a cheer: Let’s go.”
Daniels, a former Westampton mayor and committeeman, replaced former housing director Ben Delisle, who alleged in a blockbuster suit that he was booted by the mayor for moving too slowly on demolition projects that the former state assemblyman pledged to get done when he ran for office four years ago.
Daniels’ mission has been to attract investment and demolish thousands of Trenton’s blighted properties.
It’s been a painful slog, as the same council that approved his nomination 4-1 has hindered his ability to get the job done every step of the way.
Legislators took the unprecedented step last week of sending Rice disciplinary notices to four of Gusciora’s cabinet members, including Daniels, amid a political snipe-fest ahead of the November election.
The council established a new redevelopment agency, a telltale sign of its lack of confidence in Daniels.
“What we continue to do is keep the olive branch,” Daniels said. “It’s really important they understand we’re all one team. We wear the same colors.”
Still, the director acknowledged he’s only “human” and the council’s actions stung.
“All I’ve ever wanted to do from day one is to sit down and get a degree of understanding,” Daniels said. “It’s all really about return on investment. I don’t have to be the smartest person in HED. I have planners.
“I have engineers. I have people who have gone to school to learn and apply their trade. I’m like a good to great conductor who simply gets these people working together toward a singular goal in this city. … I have a heart for the city. As long as I’m allowed to be here and work, that’s what exactly I’m going to do.”
As the excavator hummed and workers toiled away, Daniels stood feet away basking in the sun.
He hoped the demolition of JoJo’s Steakhouse represented not only deconstruction of Trenton’s painfully corrupt legacy but a chance to sift through the rubble and grow a rose from the concrete.
“There’s a reason the windshield is bigger than the rear-view mirror because there’s so much hopefulness in the future,” Daniels said. “What goes down here today and what rises tomorrow will be a cautionary tale that Trenton’s so much better than some of the negative things that have happened here.”
