Early NY questions without answers.

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Angelo Santino
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Re: Early NY questions without answers.

Post by Angelo Santino »

Pogo The Clown wrote: Mon Mar 26, 2018 6:11 pm
Chris Christie wrote: Mon Mar 26, 2018 12:57 pm 7 Maranzano - Had influence on who became boss in NYC 1931, accepted a ton of tribute money and was said to have plotted a second string of member murder, didn't last very long. Savoir flair aside, his downfall was being too much like his predecessor, by attempting the same things he used as a rally cry against Masseria for doing one year prior.

Was it ever determined if those murders Maranzano was plotting was in retaliation of a plot to kill/overthrow him by those members or was it just a power grab on his part and they got to him first? If I recall correctly Valachi claims it was a power grab while Bonanno claims he wasn't privy to any such plan by Maranzano but accepted what the other Bosses told him. What did Gentile say about it?


Pogo
Gentile retold in the same fashion as Valachi only from the opposite side: Scalaci being pressured to kill Mangano, other plots on Luciano, Genovese, Capone.

I'll never understand Valachi's adamance that Maranzano created capodecina when we have so many earlier examples of them inside the Gambinos, Genoveses, Bonannos and Chicago.
He said you are right and he tells us that we will be assigned to Tony Bender and he will be our Lt. So they drove us or we met them on Thomasson St. and he introduces us to Tony Bender. Right from the start I didn't like him. He was a conceited and a miserable person. He knew right away that he could not tell me any story as he had gotten in, I'll say a week Return to top of web page. - 371 - when he was made Lt. You know in Joe the Boss's time they only had a boss and an underboss, but no Lr. Mr. Maranzano made the new rule and put Lt. in effect.

Copied from: http://mafiahistory.us/a023/therealthing.htm

Source info:
 Valachi, Joseph, "The Real Thing
The Autobiography of Joseph Valachi," The American Mafia, mafiahistory.us, accessed March 26, 2018.

Copyright © Joseph Valachi
And yet, he claims Terranova got broken because of how he acted during Masseria's hit. The only way for this to fit would have been for Terranova to have been made a captain in 1931 and lasted only several months. The guy goes back to 1900 with his brothers Nick and Vincent and half brother Morello.
Charlie Lucky and he was saying that (...) Ciro Morello is finish. He was so shakey when they got into the car that he was not able to put the key of his car into the ignition, someone of the mob took the key off him and made him sit in the back. So he is much pretty bad ever since. This guy went on to say that he don't think that Ciro will be there too long he think they are going to break him and make him a plain soldier.

Copied from: http://mafiahistory.us/a023/therealthing.htm

Source info:
 Valachi, Joseph, "The Real Thing
The Autobiography of Joseph Valachi," The American Mafia, mafiahistory.us, accessed March 26, 2018.

Copyright © Joseph Valachi
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Pogo The Clown
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Re: Early NY questions without answers.

Post by Pogo The Clown »

Thanks for the info. Makes you think what got into Maranzano that he wanted to kill so many people. Especially a guy like Mangano who wasn't a Boss or Capone who wasn't a threat to his power in NY. Wasn't he also planning to kill Dutch Schultz as well (it was in the Under the Clock book so it could be total BS)?


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Re: Early NY questions without answers.

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Pogo The Clown wrote: Mon Mar 26, 2018 7:15 pm Thanks for the info. Makes you think what got into Maranzano that he wanted to kill so many people. Especially a guy like Mangano who wasn't a Boss or Capone who wasn't a threat to his power in NY. Wasn't he also planning to kill Dutch Schultz as well (it was in the Under the Clock book so it could be total BS)?


Pogo
Well he talked to me while he had his head down and he said Joe you know why you did not get any money from the banquet. I said no and he said that we must get the mattresses again by that he meant that we are going to war again although I thought that I will get a heart attack. Gee I said we are only back about four months and he said Joe I can't get along with those two guys - he meant Charlie Lucky and Vito Genovese. He said we must get rid of these guys before we can control anything. I wanted to say who wants to control only thing I wanted was a good living but I dare not say anything. I'll try to remember most of the names. The first one was Al Capone, Charlie Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, Frank Costello, Willie Moore Moretti from Fort Lee, New Jersey, Joseph Dodo Adonis, Vincent Mongon, Ciro Morello, Dutch Schutz. Not Mike Capollo as he was a heel at this time and as far as I'm concerned he is still a heel.

Copied from: http://mafiahistory.us/a023/therealthing.htm

Source info:
 Valachi, Joseph, "The Real Thing
The Autobiography of Joseph Valachi," The American Mafia, mafiahistory.us, accessed March 26, 2018.

Copyright © Joseph Valachi
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Re: Early NY questions without answers.

Post by Pogo The Clown »

Thanks for this. Looks like Maranzano was planning to go all Michael Corleone in part 1 with just taking out his enemies in all the families in one fell swoop. In particular it looks like he really wanted to decapitate the Masseria family. Interesting to think how different LCN would have turned out if he had struck first and been successful.


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Re: Early NY questions without answers.

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1) Interesting they would have no boss of bosses in Sicily, yet feel the need to have one in early America, when the American groups still closely mirrored the Sicilians. Maybe this was because the mafia was so ingrained and structured in Sicily, while it was still a new frontier in America, hence needing some kind of authority figure to keep everything together.

2) The little we know about the Lucchese's Brooklyn faction points to them having some Agrigento roots, too, and D'Arco said they went back to the days when there was one Brooklyn family (which is open for interpretation). Given where this crew was based in east Brooklyn, their early members would probably trace back to Manhattan, like how some of the Gambino's south Brooklyn crews trace back to Manhattan as well. Why the Gambinos Sciaccatani (which included people from many Agrigento towns) and Lucchese Brooklyn guys from Agrigento ended up in their respective families is a big question. Would also like to know the relationship between the Sciaccatani in NY and early Philly.

7) You also have to wonder if Mineo seemingly "jumping" between families in 1928 had something to do with the geographic boundaries in place in his previous family. He would have held the same level of political influence had he stayed boss of the future Profaci family (virtually all informants agree that a boss is a boss is a boss), so maybe he was looking to get past some kind of limitation that had been put in place with his former group. Who knows. EDIT: All NYC informants stress that the families have no geographic boundaries and can recruit and set up rackets pretty much anywhere as long as they're not stepping on another family or crew's toes, and with that in mind it's even more strange that the Profaci family would have limited themselves and stayed that way by choice.

10) I've thought a lot about this. While there were other wars that may have been of relatively equal significance, the Castellammarese War was by all counts significant on both a local and national, even international level. It wasn't the bloodbath or massive re-conceptualization of the mob like it's made out to be, but it was a massive political conflict and a pretty significant violent conflict, given that most "mob wars" are just a few strategic hits like this.

As for Morello/Masseria, I haven't seen enough to have any clue what the situation truly was there. According to some, Morello was pulling the strings behind Masseria and possibly responsible for some of Masseria's so-called tyranny. But usually we hear that Masseria was beyond aggressive on his own, which would make some sense given the frankenstein organization he seems to have built. We do know that Masseria had stepped on the brakes a bit after Morello's murder and especially as the war came to a close, with Masseria asking for peace and seemingly having the support of various national leaders, but Maranzano demanding Masseria's head (which may have had less to do with Masseria posing a threat and more to do with Maranzano's own need to dominate).

Pogo -- Mangano was probably a capodecina under Mineo and seems to have been part of the former D'Aquila group who was loyal and active in supporting Masseria, while other leaders like Frank Scalise, the Castellana/Gambino/etc. clan, and Giuseppe Traina were secretly neutral or even supporting Maranzano. I believe that contributed to Maranzano wanting him dead, as Maranzano's hitlist was mainly guys who had been fiercely loyal to Masseria during the war. The one that confuses me is the murder of Jimmy LePore, a non-Sicilian capodecina in the future Mangano family who was killed. He gets mentioned but not a lot about him.
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Re: Early NY questions without answers.

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B. You and I have pushed the bar so far that at this point we're in the realm of speculation. So here's my 0.00 cents, please feel free to disagree, correct or present your own thoughts.
1 I've wondered this as well. If the BOB was created for America then why? I have speculated that America's vast territory compared to Sicily (3000 > 200) may have changed the setup slightly. But it was more a political position than anything else, a mediator more so than a King.

2 I don't have the answer. Why did Palermitan Tommy Lucchese come up under the Corleonesi Reinas and not the Gambino or Colombo Families? This was during the 1920's, so kinda late in the game so neighborhoods played a larger factor and hometown origins weren't as big as a factor. Somehow the Corleonesi rooted Reina family came to include Palermitani and Agrigentesi. My own speculation is that Lucchese's affiliation was regional (ie in Reina territory) or D'Aquila laid off some members to buff up Reina's faction which is highly unrealistic and never done at that level.

7 is a big mystery but a few things: 1 The 'territory' theory of Mineo being required to keep it to BK is just that, so I wouldn't use it as a factor to form solid theories. It's just interesting that the Mineos/Profacis were smack dead in Gambino BK and didn't expand much into the city and despite this had very little recorded warfare. But for me to say that is what happened without a "maybe" is akin to labeling Sabella a former Traina protege so I try not to get too excited.

8 Yes, the war lead to a major political change. But after reading several informants who were there at the time, they mis-recall broad details. Some had no idea why there was a war, others don't even speak of it while mentioning Luciano taking over Masseria's group. I just don't think everyone was given the bird's eye Valachi was, nor sat down and explained the organization, for existing members it would be redundant. But for Little Italy, James St, East 13th, parts of Bay Ridge up to the Bridge had alot of intermingling between members of different families. From what I'm seeing from other sources who were there, they state something going on but it doesn't directly involve them despite their affiliations. They might be ordered not to deal with a certain Family (this occurred as early as the 1920's) but they could still be on friendly terms, attend social functions (within reason.) It wasn't "kill on site" for many of these other members. The only way I can see their live's changing due to the War would be if Maranzano did indeed create Capodecina and they were all assigned to someone. And if that didn't happen then the only thing that would impact these guy's lives would be that their fate, if brought to the general assembly, would now be decided by a 7 assholes as opposed to 1. More democratic for sure, but if you're one of those 60% we don't read about who toe the line and lead mundane lives I don't see much changing. Maybe, most likely it had to do on a city by city bases with different levels of change? With NYC I see very little whereas Philadelphia may be different. I see the major Mafia change involving having to adjust with the loss of America's largest crime wave. That in and of itself lead to alot of the underworld turmoil and murders and things calmed down nationally after repeal, many gangs withered and died: the Irish faded, the Jews invested and grew old. It was the Italians who tried to stay in crime and excel at it. Those who reaped bootleg proceeds invested into businesses and lived upper middle class lives. Those who weren't smart or fortunate to have a fortune to wither or climb out of the Depression, went into gambling houses and eventually prostitution. Just my opinion, please feel free to counter or enlighten.

I don't have an answer as to how the arrangement worked other than at Morello was said to be this and Masseria said to be that. We know Masseria was boss and Morello was Under. This could evolve into an earlier Was It Salerno or Chin argument. I tend to believe and theorize that what makes the Gen the Gen is the ability to pull together factions and steer it amicably with less emphasis on who's at the top. It's not a top-heavy organization, maybe that was the agreement they made when factions joined it in the 1920's, maybe that began later with Costello. You don't see a boss taking over, demoting 3/4's of the captains and installing his brother and uncle into admin slots. Instead you see factional representations:

1 Masseria - Bowery/American Sig
Morello - East Harlem/Corleonesi
Pollaccia - Brooklym/Palermitan
Yale - Brooklyn/American Ital

2 Luciano - Lower East Side/American Sig
Genovese - Thompson St/American Napolitan
Costello - East Harlem/American Calabrese

up to Genovese's takeover, the leadership was distributed to NJ, NYC and Brooklyn. Or maybe this is just a coincidence like Mineo keeping it to Brooklyn may be. I'm spitballing.
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Pogo The Clown
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Re: Early NY questions without answers.

Post by Pogo The Clown »

Great thread guys. Another question. Any idea what the beef was between Maranzano and Luciano-Genovese that led to them plotting to kill each other? They conspired to eliminate Masseria and both benefited from his removal (Maranzano winning the war and ecoming BOB and Luciano-Genovese taking over the Masseria family). So what led to their fallout so soon afterwards? I don't recall Valachi or Bonanno exponding on it. What did Gentile say?


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Re: Early NY questions without answers.

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Pogo The Clown wrote: Tue Mar 27, 2018 6:02 pm Great thread guys. Another question. Any idea what the beef was between Maranzano and Luciano-Genovese that led to them plotting to kill each other? They conspired to eliminate Masseria and both benefited from his removal (Maranzano winning the war and ecoming BOB and Luciano-Genovese taking over the Masseria family). So what led to their fallout so soon afterwards? I don't recall Valachi or Bonanno exponding on it. What did Gentile say?


Pogo
Gentile said Masseria had been looking for peace near the end of the war and asked his men to stop carrying firearms, but his men like Luciano and Genovese were upset when he wouldn't let them re-arm and began plotting Masseria's death because of this and other behavior from Masseria. After they killed him, they communicated to Maranzano that it was done for their own reasons, not for him, and if he went after any more of their people they would go back to war against him. Gentile says Luciano and Genovese killed Masseria first because he was weaker at the time and they didn't want him back in power given everything he did wrong. He says Maranzano had drawn up a list of more men to be killed, placed spies around Vincent Mangano to provoke him, and apparently dispatched hit teams (I think Valachi says he was told by Maranzano "we're going to have to go back to the mattresses"). He apparently asked new boss Frank Scalise to kill Vincent Mangano, but Scalise said he had no problem with Mangano. Maranzano asked Scalise to meet with him in Buffalo but on the train he believed he saw hitmen so he returned to NY and met with Joe Biondo, Luciano, and other leaders who together put the Maranzano hit in motion.

It's funny because Luciano was no doubt a major part of the Maranzano murder, but even that was done more because of issues between Maranzano and the Scalise/Mangano family, which goes against the "Luciano and Genovese, the young turks, took out Masseria and Maranzano, the mustache petes" story. Mangano was around the same age as Maranzano and had been a player in a heavily Sicilian group for years, so he wasn't exactly a fresh Americanized face on the scene, and it was the conspiracy to murder Mangano that led to Maranzanio's undoing. No doubt everyone on Maranzano's alleged hitlist benefited greatly and there was a strong coalition to take out Maranzano with Luciano and Genovese supposedly playing a major role in the murder itself, but the anti-Maranzano group made their move following the Scalise/Mangano problem.
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Re: Early NY questions without answers.

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Thanks for the breakdown. That puts thing in better perspective.

After they killed him, they communicated to Maranzano that it was done for their own reasons, not for him, and if he went after any more of their people they would go back to war against him.

To add a different pespective Bonanno describes a meeting between Maranzano and Luciano 2 weeks before Masseria's murder where it was decided that Luciano would kill Masseria in exchange for peace with Maranzano. So there was coordination between them before the hit. Seems that Maranzano got paranoid after the war.


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Re: Early NY questions without answers.

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Pogo The Clown wrote: Tue Mar 27, 2018 7:07 pm Thanks for the breakdown. That puts thing in better perspective.

After they killed him, they communicated to Maranzano that it was done for their own reasons, not for him, and if he went after any more of their people they would go back to war against him.

To add a different pespective Bonanno describes a meeting between Maranzano and Luciano 2 weeks before Masseria's murder where it was decided that Luciano would kill Masseria in exchange for peace with Maranzano. So there was coordination between them before the hit. Seems that Maranzano got paranoid after the war.


Pogo
Interesting. Maybe the Luciano/Genovese/Capone/etc. faction decided to clue Maranzano in beforehand so that there'd be no confusion who took Masseria out. Gentile says they sent Vincenzo Troia to tell Maranzano who killed Masseria immediately after the hit and to tell him they did it for their own reasons, not Maranzano's. Should have mentioned in my earlier post that Al Capone, who was still a Masseria captain at the time, was a big part of the conspiracy to murder Masseria.

It's too bad we don't know the exact motivations behind some of what happened during/after the war. The Jimmy LePore murder happened within hours of Maranzano's murder and LePore has been said to have been a Maranzano loyalist but what's that based on? LePore was non-Sicilian and Valachi said he was a captain in the Mineo/Scalise family, apparently a major bootlegger. Let's say he was friendly with Maranzano -- what made him so much more threatening than say Frank Scalise who was in Maranzano's pocket up until that point, or some of the Reina leaders who joined Maranzano during the war and killed Masseria/Mineo guys? The New Jersey underboss Sam Monaco and member Luigi Russo were murdered shortly after the war, too, and said to have been killed for being Maranzano supporters. Why them? Anthony Rotondo claimed boss Stefano Badami had Monaco killed, but Badami would most likely step down or be deposed as boss after the war or within the next couple of years, so it's not clear where he fits in.

We don't even see Maranzano's own people get hurt after the war, do we? Valachi and some of the low-level guys who weren't part of the Castellammarese or even Sicilian group who served as Maranzano's bodyguards were apparently at risk of being killed, but I can't think of any who were actually killed. Valachi says Buster Domingo was killed shortly after Maranzano for his closeness to him, but he didn't get killed until two or three years later and I believe he held captain rank for that period of time, so his murder wasn't related to Maranzano. Valachi also talked about how Domingo secretly despised Maranzano later on and Valachi/Domingo made a pact to kill him if he crossed either one of them. None of his inner circle like Joe Bonanno, Angelo Caruso, etc. seem to have been at risk of getting killed. In Joe Bonanno's book, he goes from glorifying Maranzano to suddenly talking about how he changed, was acting sinister, and I believe Bonanno says he kept his distance from him in the months leading up to his murder, so there must have been some kind of understanding between the other Castellammarese and Maranzano's murderers, even if it wasn't stated explicitly. So why are we left with this odd bunch like LePore and the Jersey guys instead?

One thing too is Maranzano may have blamed Masseria for murders Masseria had little to nothing to do with. At assembly meetings during the war, Maranzano gave dramatic speeches about how Masseria was responsible for the murders of D'Aquila, Reina, and Milazzo, the St. Valentines massacre, and murders of leaders in Cleveland and I believe elsewhere. He used these murders to recruit certain factions or even entire families into his campaign against Masseria. For example, he used the D'Aquila murder to gain sympathy from Giuseppe Traina and assistance from Frank Scalise's faction, the Reina murder to recruit the Gagliano/Lucchese faction which was said to be very small at that point, and of course Milazzo was used to rally his paesani in NYC and cities like Buffalo and Philadelphia with powerful Castellammarese leaders. One theory on the Reina murder points to him possibly being killed due to an ice carting feud, Milazzo's murder could have been more a result of the continual internal feuding that had been happening at the top levels of Detroit, same with Cleveland, and murders in Chicago were happening for all kinds of reasons.

It's possible Masseria did orchestrate some or all of these killings, but people make it out like Masseria had some master evil plan. More likely, he put weight behind certain guys/factions and gave his approval, influence, etc. as he saw fit, probably abusing his power to varying degrees when he had the opportunity or motivation, which from what we know, is exactly what Morello and D'Aquila did before him. And then his successor Maranzano stepped in and immediately tried to meddle in everyone's business and start killing people. Based on all of this, Masseria seems like a pretty average boss of bosses in the small sample size we have.
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Re: Early NY questions without answers.

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General early NY questions I have:

- Was the cap system in place pre-1930s and were the limits always the same? When did they start having the 150-300 member families we now know them for and what kind of discussions took place among family leaders as the families became huge? Was it gradual or were certain periods like the 1920s an exponential recruitment period?

- Did families have to wait for a member to die in order to replace him with a new member in the late 1890s-1920s? There would have theoretically been fewer elderly members in the US at this point and we don't know if the families had cap limits, so having to rely on replacements like they did later would mean barely anyone was getting made.

- Is there any truth to what Valachi said about the books being closed for around 20 years before the late 1920s? This can't be 100% true, but maybe the books were very rarely opened before that point... hell, possibly because they had fewer elderly members dying. Jack Dragna told Jimmy Fratianno he was made in 1914, but that was the year Dragna returned to the US from Sicily so he could have been made in Corleone.

- When and where did the consigliere position come about? In a report I saw, Sicilian mafia informant Dr. Allegra claimed each family had a boss and consigliere, I believe, but didn't mention underboss, though it sounds like the consigliere he mentioned was actually more of an underboss. I think Valachi said the consigliere position was created after the Castellammarese war and that there was a separate committee/panel in the NYC area consisting of consiglieres from different families in the area. We hear about Maranzano and Luciano both creating it, but consiglieres pre-1931 have been mentioned. We know it was not a position the boss could appoint directly and that it was voted on by the entire membership, which gave the consigliere power distinct from the boss (in theory). We also have heard that the consigliere can't be promoted back to the position if he steps down. Informants like Fish Cafaro, DiLeonardo, and others have stressed the power of the position, some saying it was arguably the most powerful position after boss. Magaddino claimed he never named a consigliere, though he apparently did near the end of his reign for whatever reason.

- Who were the earliest NJ-based members of NYC families? We know of some examples like John Lupo, but I'd be curious when the first real, concrete NJ members of the 5 families started showing up. Angelo Bruno claimed the Newark family was split up and distributed among the other families and we can trace some NJ-based members back to the Newark family, but I wonder if there were Newark and NYC-based NJ members operating at the same time. In one report with info from Gentile, the D'Amico Newark family is called a "New York-New Jersey" family. Were they just referring to the greater NYC-NJ area, or did the Newark family have a NYC crew/faction like the Elizabeth family later would? If so, what happened to them after the family was disbanded?

- When and how did the families get connected to areas outside of the immediate NYC area? The Gambinos and Connecticut, Baltimore, and Trenton; DeCavalcantes and Connecticut; Genovese and Springfield. CT isn't that far from CT, but why did those two families have crews there and not others, and why did the DeCavs have an underboss and captain there over relatively few members? I also wonder how early the NY families started branching out into FL. There was a family in Tampa and we know members like the Arcuris had bounced between both FL and NY, but curious when the families officially had a presence with members, crews, etc. in south FL.
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Re: Early NY questions without answers.

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- Is there any truth to what Valachi said about the books being closed for around 20 years before the late 1920s? This can't be 100% true, but maybe the books were very rarely opened before that point... hell, possibly because they had fewer elderly members dying. Jack Dragna told Jimmy Fratianno he was made in 1914, but that was the year Dragna returned to the US from Sicily so he could have been made in Corleone.
It's ludicrous. By 1920 insiders estimated NYC membership to be 2-3000 total. I find that to be far too high but it still tells us there were alot... by 1920.
- When and where did the consigliere position come about? In a report I saw, Sicilian mafia informant Dr. Allegra claimed each family had a boss and consigliere, I believe, but didn't mention underboss, though it sounds like the consigliere he mentioned was actually more of an underboss. I think Valachi said the consigliere position was created after the Castellammarese war and that there was a separate committee/panel in the NYC area consisting of consiglieres from different families in the area. We hear about Maranzano and Luciano both creating it, but consiglieres pre-1931 have been mentioned. We know it was not a position the boss could appoint directly and that it was voted on by the entire membership, which gave the consigliere power distinct from the boss (in theory). We also have heard that the consigliere can't be promoted back to the position if he steps down. Informants like Fish Cafaro, DiLeonardo, and others have stressed the power of the position, some saying it was arguably the most powerful position after boss. Magaddino claimed he never named a consigliere, though he apparently did near the end of his reign for whatever reason.
I cannot go into details here, but there is evidence of "Consigliere" and "Capodecina" existing in Agrigento before 1900 along with a few names. I can't reveal my sources but it will come out at some later point. Here's an excerpt from 1820 in Italian relating to British government: translation:

In order to make the execution of justice exact and regular, he divided England into Counties, the Counties into Centine, and Centine into Tens (Capi). Every Head (Capo) of the house was the family, the slaves, and the guests, even if they lived with him for more than three days. Ten Heads of House, neighbors, formed a Guild, which was called Decina, Decennaria, or free township (borgata), was responsible for the conduct of each one, and presided over a Head (Capo) named head of ten (Capo Decina), Head Township (Capo Borgata), or Rector of the village. Anyone who had not registered in Decina was punished as a bandit, and no one could change his residence without a guaranty or certificate from the township head (Capo Borgata) to which it belonged.
^This was released in the 1820's and while not mafia related, it shows that these terms and form of government were A) not new in 1931 and B)that it was based/modeled on a government setup for members to politic over, not as an "army" of "soldiers" awaiting orders. And the English played an important port in Sicily's agriculture after the fall of the Bourbons. While not large in numbers they were landowners who hired en masse and left people in charge of their estates. British connections/influence to Sicily was linked to the citrus industry and when that industry died so did the connection. You know the image of rustic Italy with a old fashioned Italian Famiglia gathered together with bread, pasta, soup wine etc? Peasant Italians and Sicilians ate very poorly until the mid 20th century, the Family meal was a nuclear family tradition afforded only to the aristocracy who mixed and mingled with British landowners. So in other words, the British are accountable for Fine Italian Dining and for how the Mafia structured itself, not the Arabs.

It may also show why culturally, eating a shitload of food was a symbol of status and probably why the Mafia as a subject is so linked to it.

Each Family arrangement is a little different and some positions have been more influential in some families and not others and people occupying these positions aren't created equal. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

--1 Perhaps the NYC Families were in different states of structure (Gen had consig but not capodecina, Mineo had capodecina but not underboss etc) and as unlikely as it is it's still a possibility and perhaps Maranzano aligned everything to match. Again I doubt it.
--2 Perhaps the role of Consigliere changed, maybe it took less of a Boss' intermediary/senior/messenger to more of a Family member arbitrator.

The more I go through this hierarchy subject, the evidence for and against. I'm convinced of two things:
---1 Something occurred in 1931 which lead to some political reform.
---2 But everything that was said to be created in 1931 there's evidence of existing earlier, including initiation rituals, associates and members, every single rank, national meetings, 'commissions' from multiple different sources. The only exception is the changeover of BOB to Commission, which if you go back to Sicily and the possibility that this rank did not exist there before the 1910's, there still existed a political bureaucracy and it could be just a case of history repeating itself.
- Who were the earliest NJ-based members of NYC families? We know of some examples like John Lupo, but I'd be curious when the first real, concrete NJ members of the 5 families started showing up. Angelo Bruno claimed the Newark family was split up and distributed among the other families and we can trace some NJ-based members back to the Newark family, but I wonder if there were Newark and NYC-based NJ members operating at the same time. In one report with info from Gentile, the D'Amico Newark family is called a "New York-New Jersey" family. Were they just referring to the greater NYC-NJ area, or did the Newark family have a NYC crew/faction like the Elizabeth family later would? If so, what happened to them after the family was disbanded?
No later than 1900 for both the Gambinos, no later than 1920's for the Genoveses and Bonannos. I don't know if full crews existed but members were there. Remember back then if you were wanted by the 19th precinct police you could move outside of NY to Jersey, Watertown, Rochester etc and you could avoid scruitiny and hide out for years. Mafiosi moved around alot more than they do now and when wanted by the police they certainly didn't ask the boss permission to relocate.
- When and how did the families get connected to areas outside of the immediate NYC area? The Gambinos and Connecticut, Baltimore, and Trenton; DeCavalcantes and Connecticut; Genovese and Springfield. CT isn't that far from CT, but why did those two families have crews there and not others, and why did the DeCavs have an underboss and captain there over relatively few members? I also wonder how early the NY families started branching out into FL. There was a family in Tampa and we know members like the Arcuris had bounced between both FL and NY, but curious when the families officially had a presence with members, crews, etc. in south FL.
Chain migration, America is 3000 miles to Sicily's 200 and the mafia was an exclusive society with a culture of mingling with each other. We've read about Vincenzo Troia, Salvatore Maranzano, Salvatore D'Aquila and Al Mineo from the American perspective. But then when you read things from the Sicilian side, from Allegra, Calderone, San Giorgi etc: Troia was heavily involved with the Palermitan Mafia as was Maranzano who was there in the 1920's. Not to mention that during the 1920's Palermo war these men were involved in mediating and D'Aquila even sent money to Palermo from NYC, and also during this time, Al Mineo's brother in law was a boss of one of these Families and arrived with him to America a decade prior. This was all within a 10 mile radius of Palermo, these men all appeared to know each other and have history. And yet 9 years later Maranzano plotted against Troia when people suggested him for BOB.
Last edited by Angelo Santino on Wed Mar 28, 2018 11:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Pogo The Clown
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Re: Early NY questions without answers.

Post by Pogo The Clown »

Chris Christie wrote: Wed Mar 28, 2018 10:23 am By 1920 insiders estimated NYC membership to be 2-3000 total. I find that to be far too high but it still tells us there were alot... by 1920.

I'm sure the number is exaggerated but if even 1/4 of that number is true those guys must have been starving. In the days before prohibition there just weren't many ways for these guy's to earn. There was no labor racketeering besides what went on in the Brooklyn docks. Sports betting was almost nothing. Even less for drug trafficking. Seems that counterfitting was done after the 1910 bust. Some families were involved in the Italian lottery but they hadn't yet taken over the Harlem numbers rackets.


So I wonder how these hundreds of made members (and many more associates) were supporting themselves during this era. Extortion, minor local gambling, loansharking and fencing stolen goods only goes so far with 4 families and thousands of members and associates competing for it. The number of members involved in legit businesses were surely in the minority. There just doesn't seem to have been any big money pre-prohibition.


Pogo
It's a new morning in America... fresh, vital. The old cynicism is gone. We have faith in our leaders. We're optimistic as to what becomes of it all. It really boils down to our ability to accept. We don't need pessimism. There are no limits.
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Angelo Santino
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Re: Early NY questions without answers.

Post by Angelo Santino »

Pogo The Clown wrote: Wed Mar 28, 2018 11:31 am
Chris Christie wrote: Wed Mar 28, 2018 10:23 am By 1920 insiders estimated NYC membership to be 2-3000 total. I find that to be far too high but it still tells us there were alot... by 1920.

I'm sure the number is exaggerated but if even 1/4 of that number is true those guys must have been starving. In the days before prohibition there just weren't many ways for these guy's to earn. There was no labor racketeering besides what went on in the Brooklyn docks. Sports betting was almost nothing. Even less for drug trafficking. Seems that counterfitting was done after the 1910 bust. Some families were involved in the Italian lottery but they hadn't yet taken over the Harlem numbers rackets.


So I wonder how these hundreds of made members (and many more associates) were supporting themselves during this era. Extortion, minor local gambling, loansharking and fencing stolen goods only goes so far with 4 families and thousands of members and associates competing for it. The number of members involved in legit businesses were surely in the minority. There just doesn't seem to have been any big money pre-prohibition.


Pogo
You're viewing it from a latter-day perspective. Most members worked legitimate jobs ranging from cart handler to dock worker to saloons, carriages, horse feed, plaster, contracting, ice, shoe businesses etc... the rackets including kidnapping & extortion, arson for insurance; counterfeiting and fraud; robberies. Then like now, it wasn't a middle class lifestyle and its members were diversified and their level of criminality depended on the individual. It wasn't like post-1950 with bosses demanding thick envelopes under the risk of being shelved/demoted.

An earlier form of rackeetering would be control or have a say in a shipment of fruits and products from Italy and how much they are sold for for crate in certain areas, where's its sold and the ability to set a low price for yourself. And then having the option to move your store's product to another location, set fire to the store, blame that damn dreaded Black hand Society and claim insurance on the product damage.

Another example would be stock swindles. Morello had the Ignazio Florio Corporation which shares selling for 100 for construction projects in the Bronx, it crashed and Morello and Milone kept it.

Or at it's simplest: arranging with a local business to have a no-show job with pay as a seamstress or a janitor.
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Pogo The Clown
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Re: Early NY questions without answers.

Post by Pogo The Clown »

Chris Christie wrote: Wed Mar 28, 2018 11:55 am Most members worked legitimate jobs ranging from cart handler to dock worker to saloons, carriages, horse feed, plaster, contracting, ice, shoe businesses etc...

If I wanted to work I could get a job at Wendy's.


Did those legit members have to kick up a piece of their earnings to the leaders or was the whole "kicking up" concept more of a byproduct of the organizations development into more of a total criminal operation? Thanks.


Pogo
It's a new morning in America... fresh, vital. The old cynicism is gone. We have faith in our leaders. We're optimistic as to what becomes of it all. It really boils down to our ability to accept. We don't need pessimism. There are no limits.
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