Mafia6: The New York Scene

NY was slower to find the same combination of unity and purpose that Johnny and Al established in Chicago. Irish the first to see profit in Prohibition. Big Bill Dwyer set up Rum Row, the meeting point for ships and dock workers just outside of the 3 mile limit outside of NYC. His crews unloaded the booze onto speedboats, which whizzed into New York harbor.

Next came Jewish gangsters, who moved into prohibition before Italians. Rothstein bankrolled them, but most were partnered with Bill Dwyer initially. Waxey Gordon and Dutch Schultz in NYC and New Jersey, Moe Dalitz om Cleveland. Dalitz brought so much booze over Lake Erie it was dubbed "the Jewish Lake." Detroit's Purple Gang shipped booze across the Detroit River. Purple Gang's rivals were 3rd Ave Navy, but Purple Gang one of most homicidal gangs in Prohibition, and they lured 3 3rd Ave Navy boys into an apartment at Collinwood Manor, and killed them - "Collinwood Massacre." They did this because a shipment was hijacked in Sept, 1931. Purple Gang used to trash Italian bars for the fun of it. Abe Bernstein, head by 1929.

Italians' entry into bootlegging based on operating kitchen stills for $15 a month payment. But the Italians were hampered by some Old World notions, and their violence kept everyone from going ahead with their visions as fully as possible, throughout the 1920s.

Giuseppe "Joe The Boss" Masseria (c1880-1931) Short, cold, beady eyes, came to US in 1903 on the lam from murder charges in Sicily. He was part of the Morello Gang (recall Lupo), and took over from acting head Nick, after the other brothers went to jail and Nick was killed by Camorrists. In his war with remenents of the Morellos, he was once cornered in a millinary shop by a cool, accurate killer named Ricco Valenti; Valenti emptied his gun at close range, and to everyone's amazement, Joe dodged and twisted away from every one of them. He got the reputation as "the man who could dodge bullets." He double crossed Valenti and ambushed him; the trigger man - Charles "Lucky" Luciano. That ended the war, with Masseria the king of the Italians in NYC by 1925.

He had several problems: Luciano, Lansky, and a newcomer, Salvatore Maranzano. Luciano was too friendly with the Jew Meyer Lansky, and Maranzano was from the wrong part of Sicily. And they shared the same philosophy as Johnny Torrio: unity and money over anything else. Torrio and Lansky in particular, pushed the old Rothstein vision, and brought about a series of meetings in 1927, 1928, 1929. The first meeting was attended by what came to be known as the Seven group, for the 7 bosses there; by 1928 there were 22 bosses represented, and the big meeting came in 1929 in Atlantic City, NJ. (Hotel, Nucky Johnson, Al's tantrum) Significance: the new Mafia began to emerge. Birth accompanied by Second Mafia War, Castallamarese War.

Maranzano, it was believed, was the advanceman for the most important Mafia figure in Sicily, Don Vito Cascio Ferro, who wanted to move to America. All-out war developed between Masseria and Maranzano: The Second Mafia War, the Castellammarese War. Named for village in Sicily which contributed most stars of organized crime in America.

Castellammarese War started when Masseria issued death sentences for all born in the Castallammarese district of Italy, which was all of Maranzano's gang. 60 murders before Lucky stepped in and arranged for Masseria's death. Why Masseria? Well, look at Lucky's profile: grew up with best buddy, a Jewish gangster, Lansky, and shared the Chicago connection with Capone through the James Street Gang. Therefore, willing to be multi-cultural in his approach to crime. Luciano and his buddies waited while the two old men bloodied it out. Waited, and waited and waited for one of them to kill the other. By 1931, had waited long enough. Easier to get close enough to kill someone who trusts you than someone who doesn't, so Masseria killed by Luciano, and he announced allegience to Maranzano.

Death of Masseria: April 15, 1931, Luciano and Masseria drove out to Coney Island to lunch. After lunch, L and M lingered over cards. L excused himself, to go to, quote, "the can, to take a leak. I always take a long leak." Just long enough for Bugsy Siegel, Joe Adonis, Vito Genovese, and Albert Anastasia to enter the restaurant, and pump 6 bullets into Masseria.

Maranzano's structure, which he outlined at a meeting of 500 gangsters in the Bronx: boss, underboss or soto capo, consigliere (advisor) caporegimes (lieutenants) and soldiers. 5 original bosses: Luciano, Tom Gagliano, Joseph Profaci, Joseph Bonanno and Vincent Mangano. Basis for 24 families today. Maranzano dubbed himself Capo di tutti Capi, Boss of all Bosses. He also casually referred to the organization as "our thing," Cosa Nostra. (Not "LA Cosa Nostra," as J. Edgar Hoover immortalized it. LCN)

Maranzano killed four months after his reign began, when he plotted death of Luciano. He hired an Irish hit-man and paid Vince "Mad Dog" Coll $25,000 and promised $50,000 when L and L were rubbed out. Instead, M himself was stabbed and shot to death Sept 10, 1931 at Park Avenue office, by killers posing as police. Killers represent the alliance forged by Luciano and Lansky: Jewish, so Maranzano would not know them. Helping out: Tommy Luchese, Luciano's main spy in Maranzano's camp. On the way out, Luchese and the killers ran into Coll, who was on his way to M's office where he would ambush L and carry out the first phase of his contract. When told of the new situation, Coll turned and went whistling off, $25,000 the richer for doing nothing.

Sept 10: Night of Sicilian Vespers, wholesale purge of the "Mustache Petes," the Old World thinking older generation. Some 40 supposedly killed, no evidence in newspapers, crime reports, and no apparent change in leadership nationwide. This is 6 years after Capone had all but the Irish section of Chicago in his pockets. Just important city finally evolving in the direction estabished by Torrio and Rothstein.

Lansky set about the task of uniting the Jewish gangs across the country. His missionary work brought in the Purple Gang from Detroit and the Moe Dalitz forces operating in Cleveland. He followed this up with a momentous convention of East Coast forces at the Franconia Hotel in New York City on November 11, 1931. Those attending included Bugsy Siegel, a longtime partner of Lansky and Luciano; Louis "Lepke" Buchalter; Joseph "Doc" Stacher; Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro; Hyman "Curly" Holtz; Louis "Shadows" Kravits; Harry Tietlebaum; Philip "Little Farvel" Kovalick; and Harry "Big Greenie" Greenberg.

Lansky explained to the participants that Luciano had successfully united the Italian mafiosi, and that the Lansky-Luciano "combination" or national crime syndicate was the wave of the future. All the participants agreed, and the Franconia conference established a firm platform: "The yids and dagos would no longer fight each other," the quotation attributed to the loquacious Siegel.

Jewish gangsters who were thought to be constitutionally unsuited to the new "interfaith" combination of shared spoils with other ethnics, such as the "unsuited" Waxey Gordon, bootleg king of Philadelphia, were eliminated. The combination did this by continuing its business dealings with Gordon and then feeding information to Internal Revenue so that he could be put away on income tax charges. He was then replaced by the far more compliant Nig Rosen and Boo Boo Hoff.