If anyone in the national media writes about Youngstown, the first thing mentioned is the collapse of the steel industry.

Its ties to organized crime usually can be found in the second paragraph.

The fascination with that world isn’t exclusive to the Mahoning Valley, as reflected by the success of movies like “The Godfather” and “GoodFellas,” television series like “The Sopranos” and countless true-crime best sellers.

But the Valley’s embrace of that part of its history is a little different than other areas where the mob flourished, according to Johnny Chechitelli and James Naples III, and the pair have turned that interest into a growing brand.

Chechitelli was a producer on the podcast “Crooked City,” which was one of the top-rated podcasts in 2022 on the Apple platform. In anticipation of “Crooked City’s” success, he and Naples started the Facebook group Youngstown Mob, which has grown to more than 28,000 members in seven months. Its success of that group has spawned two podcasts, “Youngstown Mob Talk” and “The Vice Squad.”

While “Youngstown Mob Talk” started out as a video companion to the social media page, it will be available as an audio podcast on all of the major providers by the end of the month.

The pair will host a live show Feb. 9 at the Robins Theatre.

Unlike the podcast, where episodes run about 30 minutes, the Robins performance will be a two-hour event with special guests, including Cleveland true crime author Rick Porrello and “a wiseguy special guest people won’t believe we were able to get,” Chechitelli said.

There even will be live music.

“Since we started Youngstown Mob, we’ve had people reach out to us with original artwork, which we use as the thumbnails for our videos, and also original songs,” Chechitelli said. “We decided this should be a part of the show.”

Jay Byrd penned “Steel Heart (The Ballad of James A. Traficant)” after listening to “Crooked City.”

” I sent a rough mix to Johnny, and he thought it would be great to open up the show at The Robins with the debut performance of the song,” Byrd said.

The song will be released on all of the major streaming services on Feb. 10.

Chechitelli and Naples have ambitious plans for their mob history projects — one of which will be unveiled next week at the Robins — but they said it was Sunrise Entertainment founder Ken Haidaris who approached them about doing a show at the Robins.

“He saw the growth of the Facebook page, and he’s a promoter,” Chechitelli said. “Every podcast wants to do a live show. It was a no-brainer for us. We were planning on going in that progression, just not that soon.”

The two hosts come at their interest in Youngstown crime history from different perspectives.

Chechitelli, who said he grew up in a family of steelworkers, heard plenty of stories growing up. When he went to film school in Florida, his classmates listed “The Godfather” and “GoodFellas” among their favorite films, but none of them had heard of Youngstown.

“They didn’t know Ohio from Iowa,” he said. “I wanted to tell that story. I started researching when I was 18, 19 years old. (Working on ‘Crooked City’), I put to use 20 years of research to help create that show.”

Naples grew up with those stories first hand. His uncle was Joey Naples, a capo connected with Pittsburgh mob factions who was gunned down in 1991 in a still-unsolved murder, and his family tree is filled with figures whose activities are chronicled in those true-crime tales.

Chechitelli and Naples have a few theories about why Valley natives find this history so fascinating.

Organized crime’s reign in the Mahoning Valley coincided with a time when the mills were thriving and the economy was booming. Rightly or wrongly, the mob is associated with those boon times.

Youngstown also is smaller than major metropolitan areas like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and others where organized crime was prominent. Many current and former residents, if they don’t have a first-hand story about a brush with one of these figures, they know someone who does.

And some of those stories are less horrific than the headlines.

“When the steel mills were closing up and people were losing their jobs, who stepped in and gave these people jobs? Most of the time it was the mob — Here’s an envelope. Take it here, and here’s a few hundred bucks,'” Naples said. “They had so much cash and cash was king. It was easy for them to spread it around. Guys were always taking care of this person, that person and word gets around. I’ve heard so many stories about uncle Joey (and others) — ‘He gave my cousin a hundred bucks to buy some suits so he could get that job.”

Naples said many of the ways the mob made its money in the Valley — liquor during prohibition, gambling, prostitution — were viewed as “harmless vices” then and now. And Chechitelli pointed out that politicians who ran on promises to crack down on those vices often were voted out of office after short terms.

Chechitelli said they regularly try to spotlight the stories of victims’ families or survivors of mob violence to balance the stories that some may feel romanticize or glamorize their activities. And they’ve gotten feedback from enough of those people that they believe they’ve struck the proper balance.

“What makes me most proud is we’ve had multiple people reach out through the group who’ve lost loved ones, and they gave me the affirmation that we’re doing something OK, we’re not doing it maliciously,” Chechitelli said. “They thought it was well done. It’s not some salacious take. We try to research everything and get the facts straight.”

If you go…

WHAT: Youngstown Mob Talk

WHEN: 7 p.m. Feb. 9

WHERE: Robins Theatre, 160 E. Market St., Warren

HOW MUCH: Tickets are $25 and $18 and are available at the Robins box office and online at robins theatre.com