Maranzano's rallying speeches should be taken with a mountain of salt. Nothing in Joe Masseria's past suggests he would engage in ethnic cleansing of the Castellammarese. Joe the Boss welcomed Sicilians and non-Sicilians of every region into his Family. Two of his “four we are” burglary partners—the brothers Salvatore and Giuseppe Ruffino—were in fact Castellammarese.26 Masseria cared about greenbacks, not bloodlines.
Nonetheless, Maranzano played the ethnic-identity card effectively. Several Castellammarese and Palermitani (the fellow townsmen of D'Aquila) rallied behind Maranzano. The charges resonated: “Masseria has always been our enemy, so much that he had our boss Totò D'Aquila killed,” said Vincenzo Troia.27
FOLLOWING THE MONEY: ECONOMIC ROOTS OF THE MAFIA REBELLION OF 1928–1931
Though less trumpeted as an “official” cause, the Reina Family and the Castellammarese clan also had strong economic motives to depose Masseria. By 1930, the Masseria Family, along with its allies, had achieved territorial dominion over most of Lower Manhattan and South Brooklyn, and also much of East Harlem. The major untapped territories were held by the Reina Family in East Harlem and the Bronx, and by the Castellammarese elsewhere in Brooklyn.
For the Reina Family faction, the replacement of Gaetano Reina with Masseria's ally Joseph Pinzolo was seen as power play in East Harlem. As exemplified by Joe Valachi's account, the anti-Masseria coalition complained that when a soldier made a lot of money, “Joe the Boss will send for him and he will tax him so much and if the guy refused, he will be a dead duck.”28
For many in the Castellammarese clan, and others in Brooklyn, it was the Masseria Family's demands for money tributes that spurred the resentment against Joe the Boss. According to Bonanno, in the summer of 1930, Masseria coerced a $10,000 payment from Cola Schiro, the boss of the Castellammarese clan in Brooklyn. Then, on July 15, 1930, Vito Bonventre, one of the wealthiest bootleggers among the Castellammarese clan was shot down in Brooklyn. Maranzano portrayed this as a Masseria protection racket muscling in on their businesses.29
Even Maranzano had something of a financial angle. In the midst of the conflict, Maranzano gave his soldiers a contract to kill Joseph “Joe the Baker” Catania of the Masseria Family. His soldiers dutifully carried out the hit on Catania, though they were not told the full reasons. His soldiers later learned “that Joe Baker was hijacking [alcohol] trucks on Maranzano.”30
Or take Joe Profaci. Profaci was not a Castellammarese. But he wanted to protect the growing profits of his olive oil company and the illegal numbers lottery in Brooklyn. Despite his wealth, Profaci was known as a cheap boss, and he did not have enough men to take on Masseria himself. The armchair general Profaci started going to strategy meetings of the Castellammarese, boasting “we are going to get rid of these [Masseria] guys, all of them.”31
SALVATORE MARANZANO VS. JOE MASSERIA
Central to his version of the “war,” Bonanno repeatedly ridicules Joe Masseria's weight and slovenliness as metaphors for a defective character. “Joe the Glutton,” as Bonanno calls him, “attacked a plate of spaghetti as if he were a drooling mastiff.” This somehow becomes interpreted as reflecting flaws in Joe the Boss's leadership. “Maranzano believed that Masseria was the type of man who, under intense pressure, would get crazier and crazier and fatter and fatter,” asserts Bonanno.32 This image has stuck. Most recently, in the Home Box Office (HBO) series Boardwalk Empire, Masseria is portrayed as a doughy, treacherous bully.
In reality, Salvatore Maranzano was less svelte than Joe Masseria. At 5 feet, 4 inches Masseria weighed 155 pounds for a body mass index of 27, while Maranzano, at 5 feet, 8 inches, weighed 218 pounds with a body mass index of 33. Or, as a doctor put it, Maranzano had a “tendency to obesity.” A vain man, Maranzano took to wearing a “rubber abdominal support”—a male girdle—underneath his suits to try to smooth down his gut. And while Maranzano dressed well, Masseria was no slouch either: he was a tailor in his youth and is described as almost invariably wearing a suit and hat.33
Although Salvatore Maranzano spoke more eloquently than Joe Masseria, their characters were not so different. Frank Costello saw right through Maranzano. Like Masseria, Frank Costello used his native intelligence to become a wealthy bootlegger and well-coifed powerbroker in New York. Nevertheless, Costello never bought into Maranzano's image. Comparing his one-time boss Masseria to the pompous Maranzano, Costello told his friend that a “greaseball is a greaseball,” by which he meant “that Maranzano, despite his polished appearance was of the same ilk as Masseria.”34
3:50 P.M., FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 1930, EAST 116TH STREET, ITALIAN EAST HARLEM: THE SNEAK ATTACK ON GIUSEPPE MORELLO
East Harlem was enduring a sweltering summer in 1930, with temperatures topping 100 degrees, until the heat wave broke the second week of August. That week, Giuseppe Morello went to his second-story office in a building he owned at 352 East 116th Street.
Late in the afternoon of Friday, August 15, Morello was sitting around a table in his spartan office with building contractors Joseph Perrano and Gaspar Pollaro. They were talking business. Around 3:50 p.m., there was a knock at the door, which Morello got up to answer. As Morello cracked open the door, two men pushed their way in. They fired at the sixty-three-year-old Morello, who “kept running around the office,” until he succumbed to five bullet wounds. After being shot, Perrano dove out the second floor window and perished. Only Pollaro barely survived.35
There is no sign that the Masseria Family even knew a “war” had been declared. Giuseppe Morello was hardly expecting trouble: he went into his office ]unarmed and answered the door himself. He never knew his killer, Sebastiano “Buster” Domingo, a hit man imported from Chicago. Salvatore Maranzano wanted an early knockout of the veteran consigliere because, if Morello went into hiding, he “could exist forever on diet of hard bread, cheese and onions.”36
The Reina Family faction in East Harlem was equally surprised by Morello's murder only blocks away. Until that evening, they had no idea there were other rebels. Gagliano and Lucchese were “sneaking” around, “not knowing there was someone else who had the same intentions.” Throwing their support to the coalition, they got their vengeance when Girolamo “Bobby Doyle” Santuccio killed replacement boss Joseph Pinzolo on September 5, 1930.37
2:45 P.M., WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1930, PELHAM PARKWAY SOUTH, THE BRONX: THE LIEUTENANTS FALL
The anti-Masseria rebellion got its next big break a few months later when soldier Joe Valachi spotted Joe the Boss entering an apartment complex in the Bronx with two of his top lieutenants during the conflict, Alfred Mineo (a Brooklyn boss in his own right) and Stephen Ferrigno (Mineo's deputy). Maranzano dispatched three of his best shooters: Girolamo “Bobby Doyle” Santuccio, Nick Capuzzi, and Sebastiano “Buster” Domingo. Smuggling shotguns in guitar cases, they set up a gunner's nest in a ground-floor apartment.
On Wednesday, November 5, Masseria held a conference with a half dozen of his men at the apartment complex. Around 2:45 p.m., Ferrigno and Mineo left ahead of their boss. As they walked around the garden, shotgun blasts killed them instantly. Hearing the blasts, Joe Masseria hid inside the apartment until the police arrived. Joe the Boss had narrowly evaded gunfire again. But the rapid loss of Masseria's top two lieutenants, his consigliere Giuseppe Morello, and his ally Joseph Pinzolo, was destabilizing the Masseria Family.38
3–1: Maranzano hit man Girolamo “Bobby Doyle” Santuccio, ca. 1930. (Used by permission of the John Binder Collection)
DECEMBER 1930, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE MAFIA
The Mafia clans on the sidelines were unhappy with the bloodshed. Gangland shootings were bad for business. The Masseria Family was being decapitated. The clans called for a general assembly of Mafia representatives to take place in December 1930 in Boston.
The general assembly tried to make peace by stripping Masseria of the title of capi di capi and temporarily replacing him with the well-liked Gaspare Messina. The assembly then set up a commi
ssion to try to negotiate a peace between the two sides.39
Salvatore Maranzano would have no talk of peace with Joe Masseria still alive. Maranzano thwarted peace negotiations and made overtures to potential defectors. “Those who want to cross into my ranks are still in time to do so,” said Maranzano. He sent word that if Joe the Boss were disposed of by his own men, there would be no other reprisals.40
THE BETRAYAL OF JOE MASSERIA
Joe Masseria's erstwhile lieutenant Charles Luciano had had enough. Luciano had not joined the Masseria Family for the vainglory of bosses. His cabal wanted to end the conflict. And the quickest way was to remove their weakened boss.
Charles Luciano, the high-stakes gambler, secretly accepted the overture from Salvatore Maranzano. They met in a private house in Brooklyn in the spring of 1931. The conversation between the men was veiled, but gravely clear:
“Do you know why you are here?” Salvatore Maranzano began.
“Yes,” Luciano answered. He never would have stepped foot there had he been unsure.
“Then I don't have to tell you what has to be done,” Maranzano continued.
“No,” he replied.
“How much time do you need to do what you have to do?” Maranzano asked.
“A week or two,” he answered. And with that, Luciano set out to betray his boss.41
2:00 P.M., WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 15, 1931, NUOVA VILLA TAMMARO RESTAURANT: THE ASSASSINATION OF JOE MASSERIA
Joe Masseria spent the winter behind guards at his penthouse atop a fifteen-story complex at 15 West 81st Street just off Central Park. Joe the Boss could not stay cooped up forever.
On Wednesday afternoon, April 15, 1931, Masseria's men persuaded him to venture out to a restaurant called the Nuova Villa Tammaro on Coney Island, Brooklyn.42 Contrary to his image as a slob, Joe Masseria dressed dapperly: a light grey three-piece tailored suit with handkerchief, a white madras shirt, and black Oxford dress shoes. Properly attired, he went downstairs to his armored sedan and rumbled off to Coney Island.43
Around 1:00 p.m., Masseria's sedan arrived outside the Nuova Villa Tammaro. As Masseria walked to the restaurant, he breathed in the warm sea breeze of Coney Island.44 Contrary to myth, Masseria did not gorge on pasta that afternoon. The purported glutton skipped lunch. Masseria sat around a table with a few men he knew, playing cards for cash and silver. The proprietor Gerardo Scarpato later claimed that he had just stepped out for a walk.45
For the first time in his life, Giuseppe Masseria did not see them coming. At 2:00 p.m., as Masseria was sitting in his chair, he was shot from behind. Four bullets hit his back. The fifth and fatal bullet ripped through his brain and exited his eye socket. He fell out of his chair onto the floor. Joe the Boss was dead.46
The gunmen walked out of the restaurant in a hurry. Whether from nerves or shock, they left behind four overcoats. The assassins got into an automobile and sped off. Police found their abandoned car about two miles away in Brooklyn. The automobile had been reported stolen; its license plates were unregistered. In the back were a pair of .38 revolvers and a .45 automatic.47
The question of who betrayed Joe Masseria has focused on famous mafiosi. Multiple insiders confirm that Charles Luciano planned Masseria's assassination. Joe Valachi later testified that he had heard that Vito Genovese, Frank “Cheech” Livorsi, Joseph “Joe Stretch” Stracci, and Ciro Terranova were among those present at the Nuova that afternoon.48
But there was another gangster who has since been largely forgotten. In April 1931, John “Silk Stockings” Giustra was a thirty-two-year-old racketeer on the Brooklyn waterfront. The New York Police Department identified Giustra as their prime suspect in the shooting. In 1940, an internal NYPD note stated: “Confidential information was received by the Detective in the case that the person who shot and killed the deceased was one John Giustra,” and that one of the coats left behind “was identified as the property of [Giustra].” Because Giustra himself was murdered on July 9, 1931, the NYPD closed the case.49 In 1952, another informant on the waterfront stated: “John ‘Silk Stocking’ Giustre [sic] murdered Joe the Boss and thought he would take over from him,” but Phil Mangano, Albert Anastasia, and others “double-crossed Silk Stocking.”50 The conflict may have been affected by yet another individual's crass ambitions.
WEDNESDAY EVENING, APRIL 15, 1931, CHARLES LUCIANO'S RESIDENCE
That evening, Charles Luciano gathered his men at his Manhattan residence. Luciano summoned Vincenzo Troia, an ally of Maranzano, to his residence for a message. “Vincenzo, tell your compare [godfather] Maranzano that we killed Masseria not to serve him, but for our personal reasons,” Luciano warned.51 They wanted to go back to making money.
LATE MAY 1931, CONGRESS PLAZA HOTEL, 520 MICHIGAN AVENUE, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE MAFIA
With Masseria's blood still on the floor of Nuova Villa, Maranzano called Al Capone in Chicago. Capone had succeeded in eliminating Joseph Aiello and had become the unquestioned crime boss of the City of Broad Shoulders. They agreed to call a general assembly of the Mafia.52
In late May 1931, Al Capone hosted the Mafia's general assembly at the Congress Plaza Hotel on Lake Michigan. A few hundred representatives from Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York, and elsewhere traveled across the country to Chicago.53 The mob was in disarray. “In the general assembly…an indescribable confusion reigned,” recalled Nicola Gentile, who attended the conclave. “Some representatives, mindful of the past dictatorial regime of Masseria…had proposed to elect for the job of boss of the bosses a commission composed of six,” Gentile said. The idea of a power-sharing commission had a lot of support.54
The ambitious Salvatore Maranzano outmaneuvered them. Maranzano cynically cut a deal with the Neapolitan Al Capone, the man whom Maranzano only recently had said was “staining the organization” of the Mafia. In exchange for Capone agreeing to “affirm Maranzano's supremacy in the national scene,” he would recognize Capone in Chicago after all. Next, Maranzano cajoled or intimidated the smaller clans. It worked. “Maranzano was thus elected boss of the bosses of the United States mafia,” explained Gentile.55
JUNE 1931, FEDERAL GRAND JURY, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
“CAPONE IS INDICTED IN INCOME TAX CASE,” blared the June 6, 1931, edition of the New York Times. Weeks after the general assembly departed Chicago, the United States attorney for Chicago announced that Alphonse Capone was being indicted on charges of income tax evasion on $1 million of illegal income ($14 million in present dollars).56
Capone's tax indictment shook the underworld. New York mobsters hardly bothered filing income tax returns, and they certainly did not pay taxes on bootlegging and other illegal income. They would have a very difficult time explaining their assets.57
AUGUST 1–3, 1931, NUOVA VILLA TAMMARO, CONEY ISLAND, BROOKLYN: MEET THE NEW BOSS OF BOSSES
The Castellammarese threw a banquet in honor of Maranzano from Saturday, August 1 through Monday, August 3, 1931, under the guise of a local Italian festival. Pouring salt in the wound, they chose the same site where Joe Masseria was killed: the Nuova Villa Tammaro restaurant, freshly scrubbed of blood stains.58
3–2: Nuova Villa Tammaro restaurant after shooting of Joe Masseria, 1931. Salvatore Maranzano would celebrate his ascension to boss of bosses at the same site in August 1931. (Photo from the New York Daily News Archive, used by permission of Getty Images)
The bacchanalian weekend was an intoxicating experience for Maranzano. The clans sent fat envelopes of cash as tribute to the capo di capi. “In the banquet room, on the immense decorated table, with magnificent lavishness, there towered a grandiose tray on which handfuls of dollars were placed,” described Gentile. The piles of money totaled $115,000 ($1.7 million in current dollars). “Compare, these victories have made me drunk!” admitted Maranzano. “I feel a ball of fire inside!”59
Like a dictator's parade, there was a palpable phoniness to the honors. The attendees were greeted by Maranzano's soldiers, who steered each attendee t
o the cash tray. “Viva il nostro capo!” shouted his soldiers. “Long live our boss!” Street guys put on airs for the refined boss. “Many, who, even being boors, cared to appear like gentlemen,” Gentile recalled. His supplicants praised him a little too much, laughed a little too loudly. “I would like to go to Germany to be more secure,” Maranzano mumbled nervously.60
EAGLE BUILDING CORPORATION, PARK AVENUE, GRAND CENTRAL BUILDING
The capo di capi sets up his empire. He opens an elaborate suite of Art Deco–style offices on the ninth floor of the bustling Grand Central Building at 230 Park Avenue. In the mornings, he walks through the spectacular expanse of Grand Central Station. The Eagle Building Corporation is the official name of the enterprise, though no one knows what it does exactly. He hires an English-speaking secretary. File cabinets contain the meticulous paperwork of business concerns. To be closer to work, he leases a luxurious apartment on 42nd Street in Manhattan.61
Beneath the surface is something else. The nominal president of Eagle Building Corporation is James Alescia, a convicted narcotics trafficker who served time at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. In the afternoons, the anteroom is full of gangsters waiting impatiently to see the big man. He keeps even important mafiosi like Steve Magaddino waiting an hour or more to see him. The capo di capi can do that.62
SAME AS THE OLD BOSS OF BOSSES
As an aficionado of ancient Rome, Maranzano should have learned from Caligula, who sought to concentrate all power in himself (“Let there be One Lord, One King,” he declared). He became the first Roman emperor stabbed to death by conspirators.63
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