1963 Chart Discussion/Suggestions.

[Angelo Santino]

Subject to change but not my much-

Bonanno - 177
Colombo - 108
Gambino - 304
Genovese - 278
Lucchese - 73

I suspect I'm missing Lucchese names, otherwise the tally is 940.

It makes me think back to the SS informants in the 20's who stated the NY membership to be 3000 or Gentile's 2000 estimates in the 1920's. I doubt anyone was literally counting heads so their exaggerations were simply a way of saying alot. One Syrian Detroit informant who seemed to know the lay of the land estimated NY had 1500 members in the 1960s. The latter number seemed to be the most realistic and accepted by most but maybe the count was lower.

I am not under any illusion that we have each and every made member in 1963 on this chart but how many could have escaped scrutiny? 50, 100, 200? I have a hard time believing we have 500 unidentified strombergs to put us at the 1500 mark.

Fast forward to 2000, Michael Leonardo identified the Gambino cap at 260 if I recall correctly. Thanks to Pogo's records, he has 27 members being killed after 1963 before 2000 as well as three flips which- if we go by the rules- would mean the Gambinos lost 30 slots. This is an imperfect math with tons of variables but 304 and 290 (starting at 2002 caps and adding killed/flipped members) isn't that far off.

In case you missed it here is JD's write on Gsmbino deaths from 1958-1975. Includes some more murdered members that I missed.


https://lcnbios.blogspot.com/2022/10/ga ... -1975.html

Even so, the 30-40 subtraction difference between 300ish in 1963 and 260ish in 2000 would coincide. Of course that doesn't account for everything, there were allowed additions during holidays and likely other factors at play that others here know about about in this recent period (63-2000).

The Bonannos gave contradicting estimates for their Family's size but the high number was 300 but more realistic approximations put them in the 180-200. There's nothing concrete which points to the Genoveses having 400 members, most informants put it at 300. Including all this it's still hard to push NY's membership size up to 1500 let alone over that number. At least this is how it appears now.