Production Company Maplewood Brings ‘The Five Families’ to History Channel

“American Godfathers: The Five Families,” premiering August 11 on the History Channel, has a Maplewood connection.

Not the crime families, but the writing and the production.

The series is based on Selwyn Raab’s New York Times best-seller “Five Families: The Rise, Decline and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires.” The series, narrated by Emmy Award-winning actor Michael Imperioli of “Sopranos,” is produced in part by Ridge Street Productions, headquartered at 111 Dunnell Road in Maplewood and founded by Maplewood native Marian Raab.

“I founded it in early 2023 and named it Ridge Street in honor of my father Selwyn Raab, who grew up on the real Ridge St. on the Lower East Side in the 1930s and ’40s,” the younger Raab told Village Green.

The three-part, six-hour documentary series examines “the origins, rise and fall of New York City’s five Mafia families that, over a period of more than five decades, controlled every aspect of organized crime in America, from bootlegging and drug trafficking to extortion and gambling,” according to the History Channel:

“American Godfathers: The Five Families” chronicles the Mafia’s extensive history, beginning with its early ties to Sicily. The history and subsequent breakdown of the code of “omerta,” coupled with the ever-changing violent power struggles within each of the Five Families, are vividly chronicled in each two-hour episode. Through investigative archival footage, video footage, audio recordings and recreations, as well as new, candid on-camera interviews with authors including Raab himself, historians, experts, law enforcement officials, witnesses and former Mafia affiliates, viewers are given a glimpse into the inner workings of the twentieth century’s most powerful criminal organization.

Raab and her father enjoyed a premiere party with Imperioli at the Williams Hotel in Manhattan last week, complete with mafia-style drinks.

Find out more about the series and where to watch it here: https://www.history.com/shows/american-godfathers-the-five-families

Selwyn Raab and Michael Imperioli

Marian Raab and Michael Imperioli