B. wrote: ↑Tue Sep 20, 2022 6:28 pm
Everything I know about that era I learned from CC, but he and I have gone back and forth on it and sometimes lean different ways. He has a lot more info than I do on it and this is just my own thinking.
Thank you but please always continue to scrutinize and be skeptic when you feel it's relevant. Yes, I have more documents but that's my only "advantage" on you when it comes to understanding and furthering the knowledge base. I'll never take it personal if I'm shown to be wrong about something and in fact grateful for the learning curve.
- I see the Lucchese Family as more of an heir to the Morello Family since we see Corleone and inland Palermo villages play a bigger role in that Family with a lot more of the old Corleonesi ending up with them. Aside from the Terranova crew which had guys like Dick Amato (who was very young) and probably Liborio Bellomo from Corleone, I'm not sure how many Corleonesi actually show up with that group. Might be forgetting some names and maybe CC's 1963 chart will have some surprises.
You've said this before and back in the early 2000's the esteemed Dave Critchley held that belief. My thinking is evolving and once I finish the Genovese and Lucchese charts I may have an epiphany. But just to answer your question- there were alot of Corleonese Morello loyalists killed in 1921, Vito DiGiorgio might even have been a casualty, people were killed as far as California over this. The list is in the article.
I still feel both the Gens and Lucs are both brothers from the same father, both can trace their lineage back to the Family of Morello-LoMonte-Loiacano. Measuring them in terms of how many of these paesans went with who is like comparing which brother has more of their father's eyes.
A few things to consider:
1 Morello didn't join Masseria, Morello had part of a fractured network under him. In most internal mob wars we often see two opposing forces which amount to 20% on each side with about 60% of the Family being neutral. Most of the membership doesn't want a war and mostly don't care to get into the politics. So we can imagine that "most" of the family didn't go with Morello. Think about it, you're a member of this Family, you respected Don Piddu who goes away, LoMonte replaces him, then Loiacano afterwards, all the while your life mostly revolves around whatever it is you're doing daily to make a living. Then in 1921 Morello kills the Rappresentante without an Assemblea ok, and the edict comes down that Morello and anyone with him will be killed, would you risk "being in violation" over your respect for Piddu from 10 years ok or tow the line and go with the D'Aquila/Assemblea edict? I imagine most of the membership opted for the latter.
2 The Corleonese stronghold extended from East Harlem to Lower Manhattan and the Bronx. We see both the Gens and Lucs moving along those same tracks. But traditionally, the modern Luccheses were more represented in the Bronx and the Genoveses in East Harlem and Lower Manhattan.
3 If things went the other way and Morello and Masseria were 3-Capo'd, rather than the Genoveses we'd have four Families today. Had Maranzano been murdered later on, he likely never would have been recognized as the boss and rather just a rebel faction or roque leader of "the Maranzano gang" while the Bonannos kept Parrino as boss.
- We don't know the extent though of older members who went with the Genovese and there's probably no "true" successor when a Family disbands unless the national leadership specifically designated one of them a new offshoot and the other was seen as continuous with the Morello Family. Like we talked about on here recently, Gentile and Magaddino both say when a boss dies a Family is "formed" when the new boss is elected, so if they saw the Morello Family as having been fully "broken" it's possible neither was officially the successor.
We do though, there's a list of murdered Corleonese in the article, they didn't last long but they were Corleonese. Luciano was made in 1917 so we can infer he went with Morello, Frank Yale didn't seem in 1921 as a "brand new" member, and likely was with the Corleonese before the split. There's former boss/BOB Morello, former Acting Boss Pecoraro, Ciro Terranova all which provide the DNA link between the Corleonese and the Genovese.
As far as "true" successor. Well, the next boss after Loiacano that was sanctioned by D'Aquila and the Assemblea was likely Giacamo Reina of the Luccheses. But the Genoveses were built on the foundations of the Corleonese family regardless of who was the "official boss" in good standing with the assemblea. If one wants to label the Gens the illegitimate child of the Corleonese they can, but it was still their child and not the milkman's.
- Could have a similar debate over the Gambino and Colombos since they probably had roots in the same Lupo Family. I think we all agree there is more evidence the D'Aquila/Gambino Family was the continuation of the Lupo Family but Mineo's Family (the Colombos) are so mysterious there could be any number of connections we're unaware of and they were more of a pure Palermitano group but Lupo's Family also had the Agrigentini who ended up w/ D'Aquila. Lupo, D'Aquila, and Mineo all have confirmed ties to Palermo boss Antonino Grillo (Mineo's bro-in-law) and he appears to have been involved in the formation of the D'Aquila and Mineo Families (Grillo accompanied Mineo when he arrived to the US) as well as saving Lupo from his death sentence (Grillo accompanied Lupo back from Sicily after he sought help there) and D'Aquila sent emissaries to support Grillo and Lupo's in-laws the Motisis in the 1920s Palermo war.
My theory and it's only that, is that given the overrepresentation of Palermitans in New York, that family would have likely outnumbered the other two families 2:1. And given Lupo's conviction it could have been decided not to put all their eggs in one basket. We know that Palermo and New York were joined economically and socially. Ignazio Lupo was a commercial grocer, in the early 1900's his revenue amounted to over 500K (17 million in 2022) today. His business contacts in Palermo were likely Mafia on the opposite end, just like it was in New Orleans 50 years prior.
- Morello was an outcast condemned to die according to the official national leadership and there may have been concern over him belonging with the Lucchese Family, just as they didn't want him to head his old Morello Family. We know he still had close relationships to the Luccheses and likely was the one influencing Masseria's abuse and control over them through Reina's murder but there was clearly a political reason why he was placed with the Genovese and they were very concerned over him exercising influence initially.
I don't think he was "placed" as much as he was "allowed" to stay within his own faction but could not boss it, but Masseria could. This faction should have been murdered but they weren't. They either had the political clout or the strength to bring D'Aquila to the table and retract the death penalty with terms.
- There's a tendency to think because Morello ended up with the Genovese that makes them the true successor of the Morello Family, which I understand, but the "Morello" Family was not him alone. When Joe Bonanno got deposed if he had transferred to San Jose or something we wouldn't see San Jose as the "Bonanno Family". While we don't have a definitive answer I don't think we can use the presence of Morello and Terranova alone as evidence that Genovese = Morello Family.
I do take that into consideration, especially given that his compaesani were murdered in 1921-1922 who were loyal to him, not to mention the other members who were members in the 1900's and 1910's who went Genovese.
Very open to other interpretations, as there's no real science we can use to say for sure.
I think the charts will be very revealing. We may be able to trace what factions went with who. The Lucchese Marineo link in Lower Manhattan is interesting because Loiacano was Marinese in lower Manhattan and Salvatore Mauro (k 1922 I think) was also part of this faction.
