by B. » Sat Mar 01, 2025 5:14 pm
I agree, very unlikely there was open hostility. There wasn't even open hostility between the former D'Aquila loyalists like Traina, Scalise, etc. and the pro-Masseria faction, they conspired with Maranzano very quietly and presented a neutral front during the height of the war. That's typically how it works, resentment below the surface that plays out politically.
Mangano was an unwavering supporter of Masseria (and presumably Mineo) so I've wondered if the autonomy he gave them after the war was in part because they'd been aligned during the war. It's also pretty typical of Agrigentini to operate semi-autonomously wherever they appear. The reason he gave for designating Nicola Gentile his "sostituto" (substitute, used in the old mafia as a synonym for acting boss) was both because he was busy in Brooklyn and because the Agrigentini were so insular. When we've discussed this before I floated Giuseppe Sanfilippo as a possible candidate for the same role Gentile played as a source described Sanfilippo as having once served as a "consigliere of judgment" and he doesn't otherwise fit into what's known of the official consigliere succession. Later on he's with the Traina crew, though.
The crew succession is hard to pin down since so little is known of these years and as we know crew succession is not always linear, groups being broken up, merged, and new decine often created (Michael DiLeonardo was told the Garofalo and Traina crews were the only remaining decine in his time that had existed continuously without being broken up). Vincenzo LoCicero is a capodecina until his death in the early 1920s and he's active around the Upper East Side. Trupia is the best fit for that crew if indeed someone took it over and he's captain by the early 1930s. The Arcuris were close to LoCicero and in the same area so it's likely their group has roots in his decina and maybe Trupia as well given where they operated and their heritage -- not only that, but Trupia was from Canicatti which is very close to Naro where Arcuri crew members the Francos and Marsala came from. But Pietro Stincone is later a contemporary captain of Arcuri who likely had roots under Trupia and there were other important Canicattese guys in the picture as well.
With Little Italy it's a bigger question mark since so many guys were swimming around there. I think it's most likely Parlapiano was running a decina with roots in DiMino's group but DiMino is very close to Joe Biondo and Umberto Valente so we can't be sure there wasn't crossover with the future Riccobono-Dongarra group, who did have Agrigentini like the Albertis with them. My assumption is Valente was a captain of his own decina and Biondo was likely a captain himself by 1930, maybe some continuation of Valente's group, but none of this is confirmed and all kinds of changes could have taken place between 1922 and the early 1930s.
I agree, very unlikely there was open hostility. There wasn't even open hostility between the former D'Aquila loyalists like Traina, Scalise, etc. and the pro-Masseria faction, they conspired with Maranzano very quietly and presented a neutral front during the height of the war. That's typically how it works, resentment below the surface that plays out politically.
Mangano was an unwavering supporter of Masseria (and presumably Mineo) so I've wondered if the autonomy he gave them after the war was in part because they'd been aligned during the war. It's also pretty typical of Agrigentini to operate semi-autonomously wherever they appear. The reason he gave for designating Nicola Gentile his "sostituto" (substitute, used in the old mafia as a synonym for acting boss) was both because he was busy in Brooklyn and because the Agrigentini were so insular. When we've discussed this before I floated Giuseppe Sanfilippo as a possible candidate for the same role Gentile played as a source described Sanfilippo as having once served as a "consigliere of judgment" and he doesn't otherwise fit into what's known of the official consigliere succession. Later on he's with the Traina crew, though.
The crew succession is hard to pin down since so little is known of these years and as we know crew succession is not always linear, groups being broken up, merged, and new decine often created (Michael DiLeonardo was told the Garofalo and Traina crews were the only remaining decine in his time that had existed continuously without being broken up). Vincenzo LoCicero is a capodecina until his death in the early 1920s and he's active around the Upper East Side. Trupia is the best fit for that crew if indeed someone took it over and he's captain by the early 1930s. The Arcuris were close to LoCicero and in the same area so it's likely their group has roots in his decina and maybe Trupia as well given where they operated and their heritage -- not only that, but Trupia was from Canicatti which is very close to Naro where Arcuri crew members the Francos and Marsala came from. But Pietro Stincone is later a contemporary captain of Arcuri who likely had roots under Trupia and there were other important Canicattese guys in the picture as well.
With Little Italy it's a bigger question mark since so many guys were swimming around there. I think it's most likely Parlapiano was running a decina with roots in DiMino's group but DiMino is very close to Joe Biondo and Umberto Valente so we can't be sure there wasn't crossover with the future Riccobono-Dongarra group, who did have Agrigentini like the Albertis with them. My assumption is Valente was a captain of his own decina and Biondo was likely a captain himself by 1930, maybe some continuation of Valente's group, but none of this is confirmed and all kinds of changes could have taken place between 1922 and the early 1930s.