Vito Genovese the worst boss?

[maxiestern11]

Vito swung the entire Napolitano faction. Which in the Genovese crew is large (included Calabrian’s and Barese also)....by the time he made his move, NOBODY was crazy enough to buck him! He had the power. It was Suicide.... but it took years for Genovese to position himself that way.

[maxiestern11]

It didn’t happen overnight. Lucky and Costello had a ton of influence and were very liked by the rank and file. But Vito stayed close to the men, with his ear close to the sidewalk. And slowly but surely gained traction.

THAT is how it happened.

[maxiestern11]

And Vito WAS a deadly guy. One of the most deadly and treacherous....official underboss for decades. It WAS his for the taking.

[Villain]

I think Genovese was too quick to kill, and in those days a boss could do it easier,

He was very trigger happy. He´s up there with Albert Anastasia. Read somewhere that Vito Genovese was the only man Anastasia was afraid of.

I think that it depends from the time period....for example Capone and his gang were quite trigger happy but that was the only way to take control of the second largest city at the time and Capone unknowingly "sacrificed" himself because of that. As for the 40s and 50s, i think that it was too late for such methods...and thats why bosses like Costello and Ricca were well regarded in those days, both from the underworld and upper class

A question Villain, do you think the wars between the Irish and Italian mobs over rackets, plus the groups of mixed mobs also in the picture contributed to the crazy amount of killings in Chicago as opposed to New York? Thinking about it now, New York and a few other cities did good job of working together with other gangs, or at least better than Chicago. Chicago of the 1920's -1930's was worse than Philadelphia in the 1980's.

You might be right, although I personally think that the whole mixed racial thing had nothing to do with the high body count. For example, one Jewish faction from the West Side area supported the Sicilian Mafia, including the O'Banion/Drucci gang, while on the other hand we have another Jewish group but from the South Side which supported the non-Sicilians or the Capone Mob. Same story goes for all of the Greeks, Germans, the Irish and English, Pollacks etc.

So all of these ethnicities, including the Italians who were in the middle, had to choose between the two most powerful and largest crime organizations in Chicago at the time, which in fact was the main reason behind the large body count. I also believe that the whole massacre which occurred in the city, was simply a bloody political war created by two of the most powerful New York crime families at the time, meaning they continued or started the conflict on a different turf. Dont forget that almost all of the main Chicago players from that era arrived from or at least passed through the Brooklyn area

[bert]

Another things from the tapes -- Vito Genovese became boss via election. Not a surprise, as this is the protocol, but it shows there was some political finesse involved and he had support beyond his own immediate faction.

Was his becoming boss a deal made to satisfy the crews he was closest to, or do you think it was more just about him? Luciano was not from an area that far away in New York, but there were different Genovese crews in both neighborhoods, plus Harlem and the Bronx. I think Genovese had a closer relationship to the Little Italy crew than Luciano.
Also, after seeing what happened to Luciano (Trail ending in 40 year sentence) it could have been that a few strong candidates who could have challenged him for the spot decided to let him have it. Considering that he wound up in and out of prison, and finally dying there, they made the right decision if that was the case.