Photo: Florencia Gonzalez Bazzano on Unsplash
Ask Tony Soprano what he did for a living and you'd get a two-word answer: waste management. It became one of the running jokes of The Sopranos, and it also made a lot of sense for a mob boss.
The cover job
On paper, Tony worked as a consultant for Barone Sanitation, a New Jersey waste-hauling company. The job gave him a legitimate-looking income and a reason to show up at an office without doing much actual consulting.
Why trash?
The show didn't pick garbage at random. Organized crime had its hands in the commercial trash-hauling business around New York for decades, and prosecutors in New York spent the 1990s breaking up a mob-controlled carting cartel. For viewers when the show premiered, "waste management" worked as both a respectable-sounding job title and a wink.
A quick Sopranos refresher
Created by David Chase, The Sopranos ran on HBO from January 1999 to June 2007 over six seasons. James Gandolfini starred as Tony, a North Jersey crime boss who starts seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi, played by Lorraine Bracco. It regularly shows up near the top of lists of the best TV shows ever made.
Real locations
Much of the show was shot on location in New Jersey. The Bada Bing club scenes were filmed at Satin Dolls in Lodi, and the diner in the famous final scene is Holsten's in Bloomfield.
The story continued
In 2021, the prequel film The Many Saints of Newark showed a young Tony, played by James Gandolfini's son, Michael Gandolfini.
And yes, the ending still starts arguments. We're not settling that one here.