Complete lists of pre-1931 bosses of all NY families?

[PolackTony]

I favor the idea that it is him, that is all, but would be open to other candidates if they presented themselves.

Wasn't the first name of "Mumbrao" given as Salvatore? I remember back in like the 90s that Mineo was always called "Salvatore Mineo", with "Manfredi" being added later by researchers. (I don't recall ever seeing "Manfredi" before like 2010.) Actually "Al Mineo" was even more common than "Salvatore Mineo." (Did people really call him "Al"? Where'd that and the "Salvatore" version come from?)

The papers called him “Alfred Mineo” when he was killed in 1930. To be clear, in case anyone reading this is confused, his actual name was Manfredi Mineo, and presumably used “Alfred/Al” as an English name (though he used Manfredi in all of the documents of his that I’ve seen).

Manfredi >>> Alfred

[HairyKnuckles]

Some of the things talked about in that Attardi interview makes your head turn. Was Attardi lying or did he give an incomplete story and Jack Anderson took the liberty to fill in the blanks?

About the numbers, it´s written that the Family Attardi belonged to (the Gambino Family) was the smallest of the New York based Families, which is certainly inaccurate.

On Mambrao, it says "D'Aguila was murdered by his own underboss, Salvatore Mambrao, who himself became the first victim of another gang war declared by Salvatore Maranzano." We know that Mineo was killed early 1931 and yet, Attardi claims the warfare ended with a peace treaty worked out in Atlantic City in 1929. "Carra was in the thick of the street warfare. ""I was one of about 50 men,""he said, ""that had been marked to be killed by the Maranzano gunmen."" Then in 1929, the top gang leaders held a peace conference in Atlantic City, divided up the territories and put the Mafia on a more businesslike basis."

On one occasion, Lucky Luciano is refered to as "boss of the bosses", which is inaccurate.

But the most surprising story in the interview is Attardi´s claim that Anastasia secretly tape recordered Mangano so that he could set him up for execiution. ""Under the terms of the Atlantic City peace conference, gangsters were forbidden to gun down one another without cause. However, the cunning Anastasia had a plan. Carrying a concealed microphone, he called upon Mangano in his Brooklyn office and carefully guided the discussion. The conversation was recorded by some of Anastasia's guys who were sitting in Anastasia's car,"" reported Carra. The Murder, Inc. chieftain then took parts of Mangano's conversation out of context, re-recorded them and presented them to the top Mafia leaders. Fooled, they issued a contract for Mangano's death."
- Yeah right.

The article ends with "Carra has throat cancer. He can no longer speak without the aid of an electric voice box, which magnifies and somewhat distorts the vibrations of his vocal cords."
- Could it be that Jack Anderson simply misheard names and words mentioned by Attardi using that electric voice box when speaking? I guess we´ll never know.

[PolackTony]

Re: "Mumbrao", while no it isn't definitive there are notable phonetic similarities to "Mineo"

bilabial consonants at beginning of first and second syllables, identical terminal vowels

insertion of alveolar approximant is odd but otherwise close match

Peter Sardini, the death row inmate who was the source for the Peraino hit, claimed that Musacchio was ordered to carry out the hit by a boss named “Manfredo”.

Manfredo and Manfredi are of course the same name, so that’s not really even an error. Manfredo is the Italian version and Manfredi the Sicilian version. Given that Mineo was educated and had ties to Northern Italy, he presumably used both versions.

I don’t have a copy of the Parade article with Anderson’s interview of “Jim Carra” (Attardi). IIRC, however, Anderson gave the name of the boss killed in 1930 by Maranzano’s as “Mambrao”, rather than “Mumbrao”.

Either way, Attardi may have well been saying “Manfredo”. Replacement of an unvoiced by a voiced consonant (here, f >>> v) is common in Sicilian dialetti. Hence, to Anderson’s ears, Manfredi could very likely have sounded something like “Mahm-VRAY-oh”, which he then wrote as “Mambrao” (I’ve also seen attestations of speakers in Sicily realizing “v” somewhat similar to Spanish, sort of between a fricative and a plosive).

[Antiliar]

Here is the 2-page long article:

Parade 1968Jan28 p1 Jim Carra.jpg

Parade 1968Jan28 p2 Jim Carra.jpg

[Antiliar]

Manfredi Mineo's death certificate:

Mineo, Manfredi - Death Cert edit.jpg

[chin_gigante]

Here is the 2-page long article:

Thanks for posting that! I'd never seen it before

[Ivan]

ttardi may have well been saying “Manfredo”. Replacement of an unvoiced by a voiced consonant (here, f >>> v) is common in Sicilian dialetti. Hence, to Anderson’s ears, Manfredi could very likely have sounded something like “Mahm-VRAY-oh”, which he then wrote as “Mambrao” (I’ve also seen attestations of speakers in Sicily realizing “v” somewhat similar to Spanish, sort of between a fricative and a plosive).

Thank you for this contribution to solving the mystery of the seemingly random alveolar approximant. Do you have linguistics training, either formal or self taught? Sounds like you know your shit.

[Angelo Santino]

The Mineo link between the Colombos and Gambinos is still very confusing.

1 Salvatore Mumbrao for starters. Al/Sal rhyme and "Mumbrao" was likely the Agent phonetically writing what Attardi said. Did Attardi say "Mum-Brow" or "Mum-bray-o"? We can't definitively confirm it but it does indeed sound like Mineo was indeed "Mumbrao."

2 We know in 1912 Mineo and D'Aquila were head of separate families. We don't know if the Gambinos were broken up or if Mineo was allowed to form his own thing. His HQ's during that time was on Oak Street dead smack in Gambino territory going back to the 1870's.

So at some point it appears that Mineo vacated Boss of the Colombos to be D'Aquila's Underboss. But we don't know when, two decades is a long time and almost everything we know of these men could be written on a single page. And given we have no informants who provided insight into this, I think it's safe to say there is alot that we don't know.

There is one single example from the Sangiorgi of the Boss of Perpignano simultaneously being the underboss of Passo di Rigano. That came from Siino himself but in the annals of history, we don't generally see this so I'm not suggesting this was the arrangement between D'Aquila and Mineo but I thought I would throw that out there.

Beyond all this, the Gambinos and Colombos have always enjoyed a close relationship, both in territory and genealogy. Before 1912 there was one stream of Palermitans to flow on, after 1912 there were two streams.