THE MEDIA
Looking Back on Crimetown
The hit podcast ’ s co-creator shares the stories behind the sound bites .
PHOTOGRAPHY , THIS PAGE : COURTESY OF MARC SMERLING . OPPOSITE PAGE : ( CIANCI ) RHODE ISLAND COLLECTION , PROVIDENCE PUBLIC LIBRARY .
IN 2016 , RHODE ISLAND ’ S most infamous personalities — from the back alleys of Federal Hill to the corner office at Providence City Hall — burst onto the national scene with the release of Crimetown . The hit podcast profiled the crime culture of American cities , and the first season focused on the one and only Providence . Nine years later , we caught up with co-creator Marc Smerling to see how those stories are faring today .
Of all the cities you could have chosen for the first season , why Providence ? I had a personal connection to the city . I knew something that most people in the country didn ’ t know — that Providence was the former home of the New England mob and was largely the base for the New England mob under Raymond Patriarca for years . I was married to a woman from Federal Hill . I met Buddy Cianci at the Biltmore hotel the year I graduated college , and I kept in touch with him .
Marc Smerling and Zac Stuart-Pontier with mob associate Ralph DeMasi ( center ).
I ’ m born and raised in Rhode Island , so I grew up hearing about Buddy . How do the reactions to the podcast differ when it ’ s someone familiar versus hearing the history of crime in Rhode Island for the first time ? I think the goal was to make something where people could understand what Rhode Islanders understand about Buddy and Rhode Island . It was not made as some sort of action / mob / crime story . It was made as a tale of two cities in some ways . It ’ s hard not to fall in love with Buddy . He is bigger than life in a lot of ways , and his love for the city was undeniable . That ’ s why those people showed up for his funeral . That ’ s why he got the portrait in City Hall , even though he was a convicted felon . And that ’ s why I think that season of Crimetown is so popular . It ’ s because people fall in love with Buddy and they fall in love with a lot of the wise guys we interview .
It ’ s interesting relistening to it now as we just saw a convicted felon become president for his second term . Are there lessons here for what we ’ re currently seeing in politics ? Trump was elected the year the podcast came out . And we were talking about it a lot . I would hesitate to compare Buddy to Trump . I think Buddy is a guy who loved Providence , and yet he was also a guy with an outsized ego that needed to be fed all the time . He went outside the boundaries in a lot of ways and he got himself into trouble in a lot of ways , but ultimately he did raise the city . The city was in incredible despair when he first took office and he gave the city back its pride . And he did it for the right reasons . He didn ’ t become mayor , I think , because he was somebody who wanted to take bribes or do something corrupt . He became mayor because he loved the city . I think Donald Trump is a different animal together . I think that he is a guy who is really just all about being in power .
If you had tried to make this podcast ten , twenty years earlier , I wonder if people would have been so forthright . We came to this story at the right time . I tried to get Ray Jr . to talk , and I had a couple of dinners with him , but he wouldn ’ t talk about it publicly . But a lot of the guys talked because nobody really wants to die without telling their story . A lot of these guys , they get into the Mafia because they come from very difficult backgrounds , and they don ’ t have a lot of choices . It ’ s a club , a family that they can belong to , that sort of outstrips their dysfunctional and sometimes abusive family . Raymond Patriarca was an expert at bringing these guys in and making them feel like they were part and parcel to his world . He was very paternal in how he recruited his people . They go through their lives , and then of course it ’ s not what they think it ’ s going to be . And they want to talk about it because a lot of them don ’ t want other people to do it the way they did it , and also because there was something about it they ’ re searching for . A lot of them have regrets and they ’ re just trying to figure that all out .
66 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY I MARCH 2025