Crea as Boss?

[CabriniGreen]

You forget, Casso most likely gave Amuso up..

[JeremyTheJew]

You forget, Casso most likely gave Amuso up..

I dont get what u mean??

I was being kinda like how is Amuso the man when he basically let a guy like Casso run him?? And then ya he put him on the shelf... But who cares?? After he fucked the whole fam up and even gave FBI on Amuso!!

...so ya I'd shelf him too...

Why is that significant I'm saying??
Amuso was kinda a punk

[InCamelot]

Similar situation happened to me with Nicky Corozzo. At one point I would have bet 10k that he was the boss because I literally heard guys refer to him as the boss. One would assume a made guy would know who his boss is but turns out that's not always the case. The soldiers are just as susceptible to gossip and hearsay as any of us. Whether Nicky spread the rumor himself like DiLeonardo says or someone else started it it really caught on and people believed it hook line and sinker. Of course we were wrong and it made me realize the street level point of view is very narrow.

Ya.
Same w Pizza / East Bronx. I THINK a lot of the Crea is boss talk came from him to be honest. And he use to say AMUSO IN NO WAY bla bla.

Few other things that ppl literally took as gospel too... He's a good guy n all.... But turns out his info was really off lol.

But yes, corrozzo is another huge battle.

The big battle a decade ago was believe it or not....
Who was more powerful : Chicago or NYC .
And it would lead to the rizzuto family being over e eryone

I liked Pizza just like a lotta guys, but he was VERY Bronx -centric. You couldnt really tell him anything about the Bronx guys....

What I always found intriguing was that it was Funari's proteges who took over.

This speaks to Chris's point, was Funari the most respected? Feared? Despite ONLY being consigliere?Why HIS proteges and not the Bronx or Harlem guys'?


Also, on Fratianno, he sounds much more like Vitale when Vitale was Acting boss, underboss, Massinos lackey, or whatnot....

It goes into operational vs organizational. That's my "viability" shtick. The thesis is that we can't really know the internal organization based off of observation alone. If we were FBI agents surveying Brooklyn and Queens in the early 1990's we'd see Sal Vitale and Spero apparently in charge based off who they're meeting, with the respect shown and the way they carry themselves.. Second, do made guys go around telling their relatives and friends the inner workings of the organization? Maybe they hear 'So and so's a prick' but do they really sit them down and explain "so and so became boss, this guy was made consig and so and so inherited this crew." I can't say it hasn't happened but do people think it happens often?.. Without internal sources stating that Vitale was only Acting Boss that's what the FBI would jot it down as. Luckily by the 1980's there were plenty of informants to hash things out. Slightly different than ten years prior when, without informants laying it out, it took us 30 years to learn Galante was never the official boss. That's organizational. But operational? He was trying to take the position, he was making members, he more or less was the "highest" guy on the street, but as Vitale said, "he was never a boss."

It sucks. I wish it were as easy as observing who gets their hand shook and kissed the most as a guide for putting together a chart but it would be a fallacy. It's why we have a Detroit FBI chart from 63 listing 130 people yet from informants there were about 64 members. It sucks for me because I deal in the early history and would love to put out charts. But I couldn't do them with any degree of accuracy. In most cases we know who the bosses were but beyond that, who was made, who was not, who held rank is open to interpretation. And as helpful as newspapers are they are dangerous to rely on. D'Aquila's murder barely made the news, without Gentile then Greg Conte would have been another in a long list of black hand victims and not the boss of Pittsburgh in the 1910's.

If Merlino/Stanfa had duked it out in 1903 and not 1993, we'd have been without the wiretaps, any informants wouldn't have been properly utilized and the papers would have written about the Stanfa and Merlino mobs as separate organizations. Historians today would argue that the Merlino mob wiped the Stanfa mob out and that the current mob descends from Merlino. Which is more or less what happened BUT its important not to lose sight that it was an internal division within a singular entity, not warring gangs of Siggies.

Let's take it back further to Monreale in the 1870's, there was the so-called new mafia Stuppaghliari in a war against the old mafia called giardinieri. Did completely new Mafia organization rise up and defeat the old Mafia organization or was it an internal division in the Monreale Family? I lean towards the latter but there's no proof either way, everyone who was there was dead and these questions weren't asked or discussed at trial. Most Family splits are amicable and agreed upon. I can't think of one in the US that had a violent split and continued separate. Maybe Rochester? But even that's debatable as there's informants say they were separate, they never left Buffalo, they were under the Bonannos. Nothing really concrete.

Regarding Furnari and his actions. We know his position and others in the admin. The info to be extracted would be to see how they're individual duties functioned. Was Furnari advising Corallo or was it a political promotion? Things like that. It goes into operational which is just as important as the organizational. It's important to remember that just because someone isn't a certain rank doesn't mean he's a flunky. Uncle Joe, if he's retired, is technically a soldier. I think "soldier" is misleading and "member" would be a better description of made affiliates without rank.

And this has everything to do with Crea, doesn't it? Sorry.

Question about operational vs organizational. Do you mean that 'organizational' still has the ability to veto or adjust an operational decision? If not, what would be the point of identifying organizational positions in a Family?

And in regards to Pizzaboy/EB posts: don't the most recent findings indicate that he was actually correct about Crea? He was saying Crea would run shit and no way Amuso would. It might be a little off in that Amuso wasn't just nobody - but the OP indicates ppl deferred to Crea.

[JeremyTheJew]

Similar situation happened to me with Nicky Corozzo. At one point I would have bet 10k that he was the boss because I literally heard guys refer to him as the boss. One would assume a made guy would know who his boss is but turns out that's not always the case. The soldiers are just as susceptible to gossip and hearsay as any of us. Whether Nicky spread the rumor himself like DiLeonardo says or someone else started it it really caught on and people believed it hook line and sinker. Of course we were wrong and it made me realize the street level point of view is very narrow.

Ya.
Same w Pizza / East Bronx. I THINK a lot of the Crea is boss talk came from him to be honest. And he use to say AMUSO IN NO WAY bla bla.

Few other things that ppl literally took as gospel too... He's a good guy n all.... But turns out his info was really off lol.

But yes, corrozzo is another huge battle.

The big battle a decade ago was believe it or not....
Who was more powerful : Chicago or NYC .
And it would lead to the rizzuto family being over e eryone

I liked Pizza just like a lotta guys, but he was VERY Bronx -centric. You couldnt really tell him anything about the Bronx guys....

What I always found intriguing was that it was Funari's proteges who took over.

This speaks to Chris's point, was Funari the most respected? Feared? Despite ONLY being consigliere?Why HIS proteges and not the Bronx or Harlem guys'?


Also, on Fratianno, he sounds much more like Vitale when Vitale was Acting boss, underboss, Massinos lackey, or whatnot....

It goes into operational vs organizational. That's my "viability" shtick. The thesis is that we can't really know the internal organization based off of observation alone. If we were FBI agents surveying Brooklyn and Queens in the early 1990's we'd see Sal Vitale and Spero apparently in charge based off who they're meeting, with the respect shown and the way they carry themselves.. Second, do made guys go around telling their relatives and friends the inner workings of the organization? Maybe they hear 'So and so's a prick' but do they really sit them down and explain "so and so became boss, this guy was made consig and so and so inherited this crew." I can't say it hasn't happened but do people think it happens often?.. Without internal sources stating that Vitale was only Acting Boss that's what the FBI would jot it down as. Luckily by the 1980's there were plenty of informants to hash things out. Slightly different than ten years prior when, without informants laying it out, it took us 30 years to learn Galante was never the official boss. That's organizational. But operational? He was trying to take the position, he was making members, he more or less was the "highest" guy on the street, but as Vitale said, "he was never a boss."

It sucks. I wish it were as easy as observing who gets their hand shook and kissed the most as a guide for putting together a chart but it would be a fallacy. It's why we have a Detroit FBI chart from 63 listing 130 people yet from informants there were about 64 members. It sucks for me because I deal in the early history and would love to put out charts. But I couldn't do them with any degree of accuracy. In most cases we know who the bosses were but beyond that, who was made, who was not, who held rank is open to interpretation. And as helpful as newspapers are they are dangerous to rely on. D'Aquila's murder barely made the news, without Gentile then Greg Conte would have been another in a long list of black hand victims and not the boss of Pittsburgh in the 1910's.

If Merlino/Stanfa had duked it out in 1903 and not 1993, we'd have been without the wiretaps, any informants wouldn't have been properly utilized and the papers would have written about the Stanfa and Merlino mobs as separate organizations. Historians today would argue that the Merlino mob wiped the Stanfa mob out and that the current mob descends from Merlino. Which is more or less what happened BUT its important not to lose sight that it was an internal division within a singular entity, not warring gangs of Siggies.

Let's take it back further to Monreale in the 1870's, there was the so-called new mafia Stuppaghliari in a war against the old mafia called giardinieri. Did completely new Mafia organization rise up and defeat the old Mafia organization or was it an internal division in the Monreale Family? I lean towards the latter but there's no proof either way, everyone who was there was dead and these questions weren't asked or discussed at trial. Most Family splits are amicable and agreed upon. I can't think of one in the US that had a violent split and continued separate. Maybe Rochester? But even that's debatable as there's informants say they were separate, they never left Buffalo, they were under the Bonannos. Nothing really concrete.

Regarding Furnari and his actions. We know his position and others in the admin. The info to be extracted would be to see how they're individual duties functioned. Was Furnari advising Corallo or was it a political promotion? Things like that. It goes into operational which is just as important as the organizational. It's important to remember that just because someone isn't a certain rank doesn't mean he's a flunky. Uncle Joe, if he's retired, is technically a soldier. I think "soldier" is misleading and "member" would be a better description of made affiliates without rank.

And this has everything to do with Crea, doesn't it? Sorry.

Question about operational vs organizational. Do you mean that 'organizational' still has the ability to veto or adjust an operational decision? If not, what would be the point of identifying organizational positions in a Family?

And in regards to Pizzaboy/EB posts: don't the most recent findings indicate that he was actually correct about Crea? He was saying Crea would run shit and no way Amuso would. It might be a little off in that Amuso wasn't just nobody - but the OP indicates ppl deferred to Crea.

I think with everything that came out it showed that Amuso did run shit and NOT Crea....

Crea stepped aside when Amuso told him he was replacing the whole admin.... I think that obviously shows the power and who ran what....

Unfortunately
.... most of what EB said was actually mostly false.

[Ryan98366]

It’s a credit to Crea, Amuso and Madonna that there was confusion about who was the boss. Keep everyone guessing. Too bad in the end they all die in jail...

[InCamelot]

Similar situation happened to me with Nicky Corozzo. At one point I would have bet 10k that he was the boss because I literally heard guys refer to him as the boss. One would assume a made guy would know who his boss is but turns out that's not always the case. The soldiers are just as susceptible to gossip and hearsay as any of us. Whether Nicky spread the rumor himself like DiLeonardo says or someone else started it it really caught on and people believed it hook line and sinker. Of course we were wrong and it made me realize the street level point of view is very narrow.

Ya.
Same w Pizza / East Bronx. I THINK a lot of the Crea is boss talk came from him to be honest. And he use to say AMUSO IN NO WAY bla bla.

Few other things that ppl literally took as gospel too... He's a good guy n all.... But turns out his info was really off lol.

But yes, corrozzo is another huge battle.

The big battle a decade ago was believe it or not....
Who was more powerful : Chicago or NYC .
And it would lead to the rizzuto family being over e eryone

I liked Pizza just like a lotta guys, but he was VERY Bronx -centric. You couldnt really tell him anything about the Bronx guys....

What I always found intriguing was that it was Funari's proteges who took over.

This speaks to Chris's point, was Funari the most respected? Feared? Despite ONLY being consigliere?Why HIS proteges and not the Bronx or Harlem guys'?


Also, on Fratianno, he sounds much more like Vitale when Vitale was Acting boss, underboss, Massinos lackey, or whatnot....

It goes into operational vs organizational. That's my "viability" shtick. The thesis is that we can't really know the internal organization based off of observation alone. If we were FBI agents surveying Brooklyn and Queens in the early 1990's we'd see Sal Vitale and Spero apparently in charge based off who they're meeting, with the respect shown and the way they carry themselves.. Second, do made guys go around telling their relatives and friends the inner workings of the organization? Maybe they hear 'So and so's a prick' but do they really sit them down and explain "so and so became boss, this guy was made consig and so and so inherited this crew." I can't say it hasn't happened but do people think it happens often?.. Without internal sources stating that Vitale was only Acting Boss that's what the FBI would jot it down as. Luckily by the 1980's there were plenty of informants to hash things out. Slightly different than ten years prior when, without informants laying it out, it took us 30 years to learn Galante was never the official boss. That's organizational. But operational? He was trying to take the position, he was making members, he more or less was the "highest" guy on the street, but as Vitale said, "he was never a boss."

It sucks. I wish it were as easy as observing who gets their hand shook and kissed the most as a guide for putting together a chart but it would be a fallacy. It's why we have a Detroit FBI chart from 63 listing 130 people yet from informants there were about 64 members. It sucks for me because I deal in the early history and would love to put out charts. But I couldn't do them with any degree of accuracy. In most cases we know who the bosses were but beyond that, who was made, who was not, who held rank is open to interpretation. And as helpful as newspapers are they are dangerous to rely on. D'Aquila's murder barely made the news, without Gentile then Greg Conte would have been another in a long list of black hand victims and not the boss of Pittsburgh in the 1910's.

If Merlino/Stanfa had duked it out in 1903 and not 1993, we'd have been without the wiretaps, any informants wouldn't have been properly utilized and the papers would have written about the Stanfa and Merlino mobs as separate organizations. Historians today would argue that the Merlino mob wiped the Stanfa mob out and that the current mob descends from Merlino. Which is more or less what happened BUT its important not to lose sight that it was an internal division within a singular entity, not warring gangs of Siggies.

Let's take it back further to Monreale in the 1870's, there was the so-called new mafia Stuppaghliari in a war against the old mafia called giardinieri. Did completely new Mafia organization rise up and defeat the old Mafia organization or was it an internal division in the Monreale Family? I lean towards the latter but there's no proof either way, everyone who was there was dead and these questions weren't asked or discussed at trial. Most Family splits are amicable and agreed upon. I can't think of one in the US that had a violent split and continued separate. Maybe Rochester? But even that's debatable as there's informants say they were separate, they never left Buffalo, they were under the Bonannos. Nothing really concrete.

Regarding Furnari and his actions. We know his position and others in the admin. The info to be extracted would be to see how they're individual duties functioned. Was Furnari advising Corallo or was it a political promotion? Things like that. It goes into operational which is just as important as the organizational. It's important to remember that just because someone isn't a certain rank doesn't mean he's a flunky. Uncle Joe, if he's retired, is technically a soldier. I think "soldier" is misleading and "member" would be a better description of made affiliates without rank.

And this has everything to do with Crea, doesn't it? Sorry.

Question about operational vs organizational. Do you mean that 'organizational' still has the ability to veto or adjust an operational decision? If not, what would be the point of identifying organizational positions in a Family?

And in regards to Pizzaboy/EB posts: don't the most recent findings indicate that he was actually correct about Crea? He was saying Crea would run shit and no way Amuso would. It might be a little off in that Amuso wasn't just nobody - but the OP indicates ppl deferred to Crea.

I think with everything that came out it showed that Amuso did run shit and NOT Crea....

Crea stepped aside when Amuso told him he was replacing the whole admin.... I think that obviously shows the power and who ran what....

Unfortunately
.... most of what EB said was actually mostly false.

I'm not sure about other stuff he said, but maybe its more that Crea runs shit because Amuso simply can't because he can't retain that sort of clout on the street and just logistically its a hassle? Doing the Persico thing? He might not have the same head space or affinity for that type of thing. And from Crea's point of view, if Amuso asked for something he could get it because if Amuso put in the effort to make a stink, or if it appeared he was making a stink via the Brooklyn faction, then it could still cause headaches that get in the way of making money. Which is what its all about.

We can't really just ignore what the OP posted: Well, Stevie showed up to the meeting to meet with a bunch of guys that were there. I don't know exactly who was there, but they were -- had a lot of respect for him because he showed up by himself. You know, in that situation, it's a dangerous one. And they all respected Stevie. We all respected Stevie. We always looked to Stevie, really, as our boss. Even though Matty had the title of Acting -- Acting Boss, we looked to Stevie as our boss. Stevie carried himself like a boss. But they -- they knew that there was legal troubles coming for Stevie, and they told him that if he could, God willing, beat the case, that they would accept Stevie as -- as the boss. They were willing to accept him as their boss and put Stevie in the boss position instead of underboss.



I guess unless Pennisi is just straight up lying.

[Wiseguy]

We can't really just ignore what the OP posted: Well, Stevie showed up to the meeting to meet with a bunch of guys that were there. I don't know exactly who was there, but they were -- had a lot of respect for him because he showed up by himself. You know, in that situation, it's a dangerous one. And they all respected Stevie. We all respected Stevie. We always looked to Stevie, really, as our boss. Even though Matty had the title of Acting -- Acting Boss, we looked to Stevie as our boss. Stevie carried himself like a boss. But they -- they knew that there was legal troubles coming for Stevie, and they told him that if he could, God willing, beat the case, that they would accept Stevie as -- as the boss. They were willing to accept him as their boss and put Stevie in the boss position instead of underboss.



I guess unless Pennisi is just straight up lying.

That seems more a comment on seeing Crea more as their leader on the street than Madonna. Not on whether Amuso had the ultimate authority as official boss, which he does. Plenty of evidence has shown that.

[InCamelot]

We can't really just ignore what the OP posted: Well, Stevie showed up to the meeting to meet with a bunch of guys that were there. I don't know exactly who was there, but they were -- had a lot of respect for him because he showed up by himself. You know, in that situation, it's a dangerous one. And they all respected Stevie. We all respected Stevie. We always looked to Stevie, really, as our boss. Even though Matty had the title of Acting -- Acting Boss, we looked to Stevie as our boss. Stevie carried himself like a boss. But they -- they knew that there was legal troubles coming for Stevie, and they told him that if he could, God willing, beat the case, that they would accept Stevie as -- as the boss. They were willing to accept him as their boss and put Stevie in the boss position instead of underboss.



I guess unless Pennisi is just straight up lying.

That seems more a comment on seeing Crea more as their leader on the street than Madonna. Not on whether Amuso had the ultimate authority as official boss, which he does. Plenty of evidence has shown that.

You might be right, yeah. From the other evidence, it seems like Amuso can step in and challenge what Crea does. On certain things, if not most things. But it seems to be only that.

Its adding up to sound like veto-ing power. That it would be in the Crea's best interests to not simply ignore. But in the minds of the Lucchese members Crea was a boss and not a mouthpiece, a mere representative, or a substitute teacher. They more likely think well he's runs shit but the politics of the situation right now make it so now and again he has to make it OK with that old guy in prison. Because who wants to stop the money?

Again its quite possible Amuso only wants to be the boss in certain ways, at certain times. We all know people that are like that.

I think I'm just trying to say nobody was blatantly wrong here. Except maybe any speculative stuff like "if there was a war Crea has all the horses!".

[Angelo Santino]

Similar situation happened to me with Nicky Corozzo. At one point I would have bet 10k that he was the boss because I literally heard guys refer to him as the boss. One would assume a made guy would know who his boss is but turns out that's not always the case. The soldiers are just as susceptible to gossip and hearsay as any of us. Whether Nicky spread the rumor himself like DiLeonardo says or someone else started it it really caught on and people believed it hook line and sinker. Of course we were wrong and it made me realize the street level point of view is very narrow.

Ya.
Same w Pizza / East Bronx. I THINK a lot of the Crea is boss talk came from him to be honest. And he use to say AMUSO IN NO WAY bla bla.

Few other things that ppl literally took as gospel too... He's a good guy n all.... But turns out his info was really off lol.

But yes, corrozzo is another huge battle.

The big battle a decade ago was believe it or not....
Who was more powerful : Chicago or NYC .
And it would lead to the rizzuto family being over e eryone

I liked Pizza just like a lotta guys, but he was VERY Bronx -centric. You couldnt really tell him anything about the Bronx guys....

What I always found intriguing was that it was Funari's proteges who took over.

This speaks to Chris's point, was Funari the most respected? Feared? Despite ONLY being consigliere?Why HIS proteges and not the Bronx or Harlem guys'?


Also, on Fratianno, he sounds much more like Vitale when Vitale was Acting boss, underboss, Massinos lackey, or whatnot....

It goes into operational vs organizational. That's my "viability" shtick. The thesis is that we can't really know the internal organization based off of observation alone. If we were FBI agents surveying Brooklyn and Queens in the early 1990's we'd see Sal Vitale and Spero apparently in charge based off who they're meeting, with the respect shown and the way they carry themselves.. Second, do made guys go around telling their relatives and friends the inner workings of the organization? Maybe they hear 'So and so's a prick' but do they really sit them down and explain "so and so became boss, this guy was made consig and so and so inherited this crew." I can't say it hasn't happened but do people think it happens often?.. Without internal sources stating that Vitale was only Acting Boss that's what the FBI would jot it down as. Luckily by the 1980's there were plenty of informants to hash things out. Slightly different than ten years prior when, without informants laying it out, it took us 30 years to learn Galante was never the official boss. That's organizational. But operational? He was trying to take the position, he was making members, he more or less was the "highest" guy on the street, but as Vitale said, "he was never a boss."

It sucks. I wish it were as easy as observing who gets their hand shook and kissed the most as a guide for putting together a chart but it would be a fallacy. It's why we have a Detroit FBI chart from 63 listing 130 people yet from informants there were about 64 members. It sucks for me because I deal in the early history and would love to put out charts. But I couldn't do them with any degree of accuracy. In most cases we know who the bosses were but beyond that, who was made, who was not, who held rank is open to interpretation. And as helpful as newspapers are they are dangerous to rely on. D'Aquila's murder barely made the news, without Gentile then Greg Conte would have been another in a long list of black hand victims and not the boss of Pittsburgh in the 1910's.

If Merlino/Stanfa had duked it out in 1903 and not 1993, we'd have been without the wiretaps, any informants wouldn't have been properly utilized and the papers would have written about the Stanfa and Merlino mobs as separate organizations. Historians today would argue that the Merlino mob wiped the Stanfa mob out and that the current mob descends from Merlino. Which is more or less what happened BUT its important not to lose sight that it was an internal division within a singular entity, not warring gangs of Siggies.

Let's take it back further to Monreale in the 1870's, there was the so-called new mafia Stuppaghliari in a war against the old mafia called giardinieri. Did completely new Mafia organization rise up and defeat the old Mafia organization or was it an internal division in the Monreale Family? I lean towards the latter but there's no proof either way, everyone who was there was dead and these questions weren't asked or discussed at trial. Most Family splits are amicable and agreed upon. I can't think of one in the US that had a violent split and continued separate. Maybe Rochester? But even that's debatable as there's informants say they were separate, they never left Buffalo, they were under the Bonannos. Nothing really concrete.

Regarding Furnari and his actions. We know his position and others in the admin. The info to be extracted would be to see how they're individual duties functioned. Was Furnari advising Corallo or was it a political promotion? Things like that. It goes into operational which is just as important as the organizational. It's important to remember that just because someone isn't a certain rank doesn't mean he's a flunky. Uncle Joe, if he's retired, is technically a soldier. I think "soldier" is misleading and "member" would be a better description of made affiliates without rank.

And this has everything to do with Crea, doesn't it? Sorry.

Question about operational vs organizational. Do you mean that 'organizational' still has the ability to veto or adjust an operational decision? If not, what would be the point of identifying organizational positions in a Family?

And in regards to Pizzaboy/EB posts: don't the most recent findings indicate that he was actually correct about Crea? He was saying Crea would run shit and no way Amuso would. It might be a little off in that Amuso wasn't just nobody - but the OP indicates ppl deferred to Crea.

Ok, we're all part of a forum. We have Soliai who's boss, he has mods (capos) and regular posters (soldiers). Everyone here is free to to post about whatever they want. I'm a mod (capo) who deals with making charts and historical bullshit. I'm not Capo of the Charts/History with posters (soldiers) like B. reporting to me. We're all free to post what we want outside of the Forum's Chain of command. If Soliai "takes me down" to poster, my posts (activities) would remain the same- charts and historical BS. My posts (operational) don't correspond to my rank (organizational.) Make sense?

This matters because outsiders would look at individuals who have a high-level operational activity (Villain dominates Chicago) and many would think he's a mod (capo) when he isn't. It doesn't take away from his importance in the overall function of the forum.

Maybe B. be can articulate it better because I must not be good at explaining it.

Salut.

[Villain]

Similar situation happened to me with Nicky Corozzo. At one point I would have bet 10k that he was the boss because I literally heard guys refer to him as the boss. One would assume a made guy would know who his boss is but turns out that's not always the case. The soldiers are just as susceptible to gossip and hearsay as any of us. Whether Nicky spread the rumor himself like DiLeonardo says or someone else started it it really caught on and people believed it hook line and sinker. Of course we were wrong and it made me realize the street level point of view is very narrow.

Ya.
Same w Pizza / East Bronx. I THINK a lot of the Crea is boss talk came from him to be honest. And he use to say AMUSO IN NO WAY bla bla.

Few other things that ppl literally took as gospel too... He's a good guy n all.... But turns out his info was really off lol.

But yes, corrozzo is another huge battle.

The big battle a decade ago was believe it or not....
Who was more powerful : Chicago or NYC .
And it would lead to the rizzuto family being over e eryone

I liked Pizza just like a lotta guys, but he was VERY Bronx -centric. You couldnt really tell him anything about the Bronx guys....

What I always found intriguing was that it was Funari's proteges who took over.

This speaks to Chris's point, was Funari the most respected? Feared? Despite ONLY being consigliere?Why HIS proteges and not the Bronx or Harlem guys'?


Also, on Fratianno, he sounds much more like Vitale when Vitale was Acting boss, underboss, Massinos lackey, or whatnot....

It goes into operational vs organizational. That's my "viability" shtick. The thesis is that we can't really know the internal organization based off of observation alone. If we were FBI agents surveying Brooklyn and Queens in the early 1990's we'd see Sal Vitale and Spero apparently in charge based off who they're meeting, with the respect shown and the way they carry themselves.. Second, do made guys go around telling their relatives and friends the inner workings of the organization? Maybe they hear 'So and so's a prick' but do they really sit them down and explain "so and so became boss, this guy was made consig and so and so inherited this crew." I can't say it hasn't happened but do people think it happens often?.. Without internal sources stating that Vitale was only Acting Boss that's what the FBI would jot it down as. Luckily by the 1980's there were plenty of informants to hash things out. Slightly different than ten years prior when, without informants laying it out, it took us 30 years to learn Galante was never the official boss. That's organizational. But operational? He was trying to take the position, he was making members, he more or less was the "highest" guy on the street, but as Vitale said, "he was never a boss."

It sucks. I wish it were as easy as observing who gets their hand shook and kissed the most as a guide for putting together a chart but it would be a fallacy. It's why we have a Detroit FBI chart from 63 listing 130 people yet from informants there were about 64 members. It sucks for me because I deal in the early history and would love to put out charts. But I couldn't do them with any degree of accuracy. In most cases we know who the bosses were but beyond that, who was made, who was not, who held rank is open to interpretation. And as helpful as newspapers are they are dangerous to rely on. D'Aquila's murder barely made the news, without Gentile then Greg Conte would have been another in a long list of black hand victims and not the boss of Pittsburgh in the 1910's.

If Merlino/Stanfa had duked it out in 1903 and not 1993, we'd have been without the wiretaps, any informants wouldn't have been properly utilized and the papers would have written about the Stanfa and Merlino mobs as separate organizations. Historians today would argue that the Merlino mob wiped the Stanfa mob out and that the current mob descends from Merlino. Which is more or less what happened BUT its important not to lose sight that it was an internal division within a singular entity, not warring gangs of Siggies.

Let's take it back further to Monreale in the 1870's, there was the so-called new mafia Stuppaghliari in a war against the old mafia called giardinieri. Did completely new Mafia organization rise up and defeat the old Mafia organization or was it an internal division in the Monreale Family? I lean towards the latter but there's no proof either way, everyone who was there was dead and these questions weren't asked or discussed at trial. Most Family splits are amicable and agreed upon. I can't think of one in the US that had a violent split and continued separate. Maybe Rochester? But even that's debatable as there's informants say they were separate, they never left Buffalo, they were under the Bonannos. Nothing really concrete.

Regarding Furnari and his actions. We know his position and others in the admin. The info to be extracted would be to see how they're individual duties functioned. Was Furnari advising Corallo or was it a political promotion? Things like that. It goes into operational which is just as important as the organizational. It's important to remember that just because someone isn't a certain rank doesn't mean he's a flunky. Uncle Joe, if he's retired, is technically a soldier. I think "soldier" is misleading and "member" would be a better description of made affiliates without rank.

And this has everything to do with Crea, doesn't it? Sorry.

Question about operational vs organizational. Do you mean that 'organizational' still has the ability to veto or adjust an operational decision? If not, what would be the point of identifying organizational positions in a Family?

And in regards to Pizzaboy/EB posts: don't the most recent findings indicate that he was actually correct about Crea? He was saying Crea would run shit and no way Amuso would. It might be a little off in that Amuso wasn't just nobody - but the OP indicates ppl deferred to Crea.

Ok, we're all part of a forum. We have Soliai who's boss, he has mods (capos) and regular posters (soldiers). Everyone here is free to to post about whatever they want. I'm a mod (capo) who deals with making charts and historical bullshit. I'm not Capo of the Charts/History with posters (soldiers) like B. reporting to me. We're all free to post what we want outside of the Forum's Chain of command. If Soliai "takes me down" to poster, my posts (activities) would remain the same- charts and historical BS. My posts (operational) don't correspond to my rank (organizational.) Make sense?

This matters because outsiders would look at individuals who have a high-level operational activity (Villain dominates Chicago) and many would think he's a mod (capo) when he isn't. It doesn't take away from his importance in the overall function of the forum.

Maybe B. be can articulate it better because I must not be good at explaining it.

Salut.

Nice explanation and I agree but what about if one "operational guy", who wasnt even made in the CN traditions, has the power to vote and to create policy for the whole organization? Like for example closing down all illegal activities in certain areas, or asking for the life of a made guy or forbidding narcotics? Im not playing stupid here or going against on what you said but this particular question was never ever answered to me on this forum since I have hundreds of evidences regarding this claim, and i already posted them dozens of times in the past but still nothing happens and i wonder why?! Im simply asking about the US CN especially Chicago, not the Italian /European syndicates, although I think that I already have the answer but I want to hear different opinions, again regarding that same specific and particular situation. Nothing else.

[johnny_scootch]

Ralph Scopo was perfect example of operational vs organizational. While being a mere soldier he had the power to sit down with bosses on almost equal terms because he was the lynchpin in the biggest racket they had going.

[Villain]

Chicago's Louie Briatta was another one who fits CC's/B's description

[InCamelot]

Similar situation happened to me with Nicky Corozzo. At one point I would have bet 10k that he was the boss because I literally heard guys refer to him as the boss. One would assume a made guy would know who his boss is but turns out that's not always the case. The soldiers are just as susceptible to gossip and hearsay as any of us. Whether Nicky spread the rumor himself like DiLeonardo says or someone else started it it really caught on and people believed it hook line and sinker. Of course we were wrong and it made me realize the street level point of view is very narrow.

Ya.
Same w Pizza / East Bronx. I THINK a lot of the Crea is boss talk came from him to be honest. And he use to say AMUSO IN NO WAY bla bla.

Few other things that ppl literally took as gospel too... He's a good guy n all.... But turns out his info was really off lol.

But yes, corrozzo is another huge battle.

The big battle a decade ago was believe it or not....
Who was more powerful : Chicago or NYC .
And it would lead to the rizzuto family being over e eryone

I liked Pizza just like a lotta guys, but he was VERY Bronx -centric. You couldnt really tell him anything about the Bronx guys....

What I always found intriguing was that it was Funari's proteges who took over.

This speaks to Chris's point, was Funari the most respected? Feared? Despite ONLY being consigliere?Why HIS proteges and not the Bronx or Harlem guys'?


Also, on Fratianno, he sounds much more like Vitale when Vitale was Acting boss, underboss, Massinos lackey, or whatnot....

It goes into operational vs organizational. That's my "viability" shtick. The thesis is that we can't really know the internal organization based off of observation alone. If we were FBI agents surveying Brooklyn and Queens in the early 1990's we'd see Sal Vitale and Spero apparently in charge based off who they're meeting, with the respect shown and the way they carry themselves.. Second, do made guys go around telling their relatives and friends the inner workings of the organization? Maybe they hear 'So and so's a prick' but do they really sit them down and explain "so and so became boss, this guy was made consig and so and so inherited this crew." I can't say it hasn't happened but do people think it happens often?.. Without internal sources stating that Vitale was only Acting Boss that's what the FBI would jot it down as. Luckily by the 1980's there were plenty of informants to hash things out. Slightly different than ten years prior when, without informants laying it out, it took us 30 years to learn Galante was never the official boss. That's organizational. But operational? He was trying to take the position, he was making members, he more or less was the "highest" guy on the street, but as Vitale said, "he was never a boss."

It sucks. I wish it were as easy as observing who gets their hand shook and kissed the most as a guide for putting together a chart but it would be a fallacy. It's why we have a Detroit FBI chart from 63 listing 130 people yet from informants there were about 64 members. It sucks for me because I deal in the early history and would love to put out charts. But I couldn't do them with any degree of accuracy. In most cases we know who the bosses were but beyond that, who was made, who was not, who held rank is open to interpretation. And as helpful as newspapers are they are dangerous to rely on. D'Aquila's murder barely made the news, without Gentile then Greg Conte would have been another in a long list of black hand victims and not the boss of Pittsburgh in the 1910's.

If Merlino/Stanfa had duked it out in 1903 and not 1993, we'd have been without the wiretaps, any informants wouldn't have been properly utilized and the papers would have written about the Stanfa and Merlino mobs as separate organizations. Historians today would argue that the Merlino mob wiped the Stanfa mob out and that the current mob descends from Merlino. Which is more or less what happened BUT its important not to lose sight that it was an internal division within a singular entity, not warring gangs of Siggies.

Let's take it back further to Monreale in the 1870's, there was the so-called new mafia Stuppaghliari in a war against the old mafia called giardinieri. Did completely new Mafia organization rise up and defeat the old Mafia organization or was it an internal division in the Monreale Family? I lean towards the latter but there's no proof either way, everyone who was there was dead and these questions weren't asked or discussed at trial. Most Family splits are amicable and agreed upon. I can't think of one in the US that had a violent split and continued separate. Maybe Rochester? But even that's debatable as there's informants say they were separate, they never left Buffalo, they were under the Bonannos. Nothing really concrete.

Regarding Furnari and his actions. We know his position and others in the admin. The info to be extracted would be to see how they're individual duties functioned. Was Furnari advising Corallo or was it a political promotion? Things like that. It goes into operational which is just as important as the organizational. It's important to remember that just because someone isn't a certain rank doesn't mean he's a flunky. Uncle Joe, if he's retired, is technically a soldier. I think "soldier" is misleading and "member" would be a better description of made affiliates without rank.

And this has everything to do with Crea, doesn't it? Sorry.

Question about operational vs organizational. Do you mean that 'organizational' still has the ability to veto or adjust an operational decision? If not, what would be the point of identifying organizational positions in a Family?

And in regards to Pizzaboy/EB posts: don't the most recent findings indicate that he was actually correct about Crea? He was saying Crea would run shit and no way Amuso would. It might be a little off in that Amuso wasn't just nobody - but the OP indicates ppl deferred to Crea.

Ok, we're all part of a forum. We have Soliai who's boss, he has mods (capos) and regular posters (soldiers). Everyone here is free to to post about whatever they want. I'm a mod (capo) who deals with making charts and historical bullshit. I'm not Capo of the Charts/History with posters (soldiers) like B. reporting to me. We're all free to post what we want outside of the Forum's Chain of command. If Soliai "takes me down" to poster, my posts (activities) would remain the same- charts and historical BS. My posts (operational) don't correspond to my rank (organizational.) Make sense?

This matters because outsiders would look at individuals who have a high-level operational activity (Villain dominates Chicago) and many would think he's a mod (capo) when he isn't. It doesn't take away from his importance in the overall function of the forum.

Maybe B. be can articulate it better because I must not be good at explaining it.

Salut.

Right, absolutely. These are good analogies, guys.

I think in the context of the Amuso and Crea conversation, I was trying to clarify that the title of boss seems pretty loose and complicated nowadays with the stuff that comes out. There's a limit to what that title means. Just because Amuso has the ability to take him down, or veto his choices..it doesn't mean Crea has many, if any, equals. And it doesn't mean if you put Amuso on the street he would be able to run things.

The phrase "running shit" may not be what it was to a Carlo Gambino, Tommy Lucchese or Chin Gigante.

Or else it would be like saying Soliai is the boss, and therefore he decides each day what type of topics will be posted, what charts, etc. He can take people down, etc -- but he isn't driving the conversations on here (all due respect). If CC, Villian, B or Gohn or whoever else took their knowledge and shared it on another site - its likely a lot of us would head there and check it out. Everyone actually deferring to you for the most part, counts for more than just being a mere capo or figurehead.

There's probably a limit to comparing the boards to LCN, but yeah.

[Villain]

Besides the title or organizational authority, theres not much difference between a capo who controlled a crew for 30 years, and a operational made guy who operated a crew for 30 years. We also must not forget that in certain situations some capos kicked up less money than some operational guys, which made the latter ones more powerful and closer to the bosses, since some of the operational guys were connected directly to them.

Chicago had non-made guys who were involved in prostitution, loan sharking, gambling, union racketeering and corruption and had a seat on the Outfit's top admin. They had the same authority as the rest of the capos and made guys, except for the boss and top boss, so its hard to label these guys as "operational", meaning they werent involved in some specific operation but instead they were involved in every possible illegal activity, had the power to punish made members and had the ear of the bosses. If some non-made "operational" guy can win a sit down with a made guy, or ask for a made guy's life, than theres very little difference.

Just like Hesh from the Sopranos when he had a sit down with Junior and when Johnny Sack reffered to Hesh as "friend of ours" lol Hesh attended every possible gathering except for the making ceremony....so what lol

[Angelo Santino]

The organization deals with membership. Soldier, captain, underboss, boss. These ranks do not equate to criminal activity. A family, could theoretically (although its never happened) be 100% legitimate. A mafia family is like the Freemasons or the Knights of Malta. It's a network where members can socialize and trust one another to adhere to the same principles. The mafia just happens to be composed of criminals for the most part.

Given that, these are operational criminals, a criminal freemasonry. They are engaged in most aspects of crime with few exceptions but these crimes do not equate to organizational rank. There is no, nor has there ever been, a Finance Capo, a Drug Capo, a Hitman Capo etc. There are captains who functioned in that capacity but that is beyond their organizational rank and runs into the operational aspect of things.

But there's a grey area, outside of the organizational exists an operation- call it the Partnership, the Outfit, the Arm, whatever and this allows for non-members to play a role and be a part of. There is a Mafia organization within what's called the Gambinos and then there's the so-called Gambino Family which Joe Watts is a part of, despite not being an organizational member he can be an operational one. Same with other families elsewhere.

If I make an Organization Chart- I'm only including Made Members (Soldier, capo, under, consig, boss). If I'm making an Operational one, it would be foolish and misleading to exclude Joe Watts and other associates that are integral to how the operation runs. Then we can cover crew bosses and whatever else outsiders choose to label individuals for clarity.

One journalist whom I highly respect, clocked 17 captains for a non-NY family in the 60's and my heart sunk. When I approached him he answered that we're kinda just splitting hairs. All due respect, no we're not. A Boss is going to know who the capodecina are in his borgata, he's not going to get confused and say "Hmm, this guy's been crew boss for awhile, fuck it, let's just call him a capo." That is a fallacy from outsiders like us trying to make sense of a secret organization that only insiders can know and wiretaps can pick up.