Lucchese Crime Family Epic:
Descent into Darkness
Part I

I could a tale unfold.
- Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

The Three Tommys

Like the other barrier islands on which it sits, Lido Beach was originally a barren, uninhabited sandbar. It came to life when William Reynolds dredged the channel at the southern tip of Nassau County, Long Island, to create the resort of Long Beach.

In 1929, after Reynolds had been defeated for re-election as Long Beach mayor, he moved his interests and activities into the unincorporated area that stretched east from the city boundary three miles across to Point Lookout. Just across the border he built a Moorish-style resort and called it the Lido Beach Hotel. Over the years, the small town of Lido Beach grew and became a favourite destination for New Yorkers searching for a home, close enough to the city but far enough away so that they could feel isolated from the stress of big city life.

Between Lido Boulevard and the beach that flanked the island to the south, roadways of smart, expensive residential homes sprang up over the years. On one of these, Rogat Street, just off the main road, lived a man and his family. He had a wife called Kitty, a daughter called Frances, a son called Baldassare and according to the police, he had probably killed at least thirty men, perhaps more, in a life time devoted to his business.

He ran an organization that employed hundreds of men who worked around the clock creating wealth and riches for themselves, but above all to fund his life style and maintain his power base, He controlled industries and corrupted legal and political figures on a scale that was breathtaking. His influence was so inimical, it literally exercised a hidden tax on the people of the greater New York area. The terrifying thing about this man however, was that he was only one of five, who were also simultaneously raping and desecrating an entire population to satisfy their own capacious greed and ambition. He and his fellow reprobates ran an unholy alliance that became known as Cosa Nostra, the Italian-American underworld of crime. His name was Gaetano Lucchese.

Gaetano (Thomas) Lucchese Credit:UPI/Bettmann, New York

A few hundred yards from his home, back towards Long Beach and just next door to the Lido Hotel, there was a fancy white stucco building that housed a restaurant and bar called the Azores. A prime wining and dining spot for businessmen, especially from the garment and construction industries of Manhattan, it was owned through a “front” man called Morton, by Lucchese. Every evening he would stop off here on his way to his home, and meet and talk to his friends and business associates. There was a particular spot by the bar that was always reserved for him, and the counter in front was kept clean and dry, no matter how busy the place became. The bar keeper would polish the cocktail glasses Lucchese drank from so hard, that at times they broke under the stress.

Lucchese was a small man, barely five feet two inches in height, and very slim. He had a nervous habit of continually looking around and moving his hands. As he stood by the bar, they would be moving constantly, playing a tattoo across the wood surface, picking up and revolving his glass and rubbing out invisible creases on the cloth of his immaculate suit. When he was nineteen, he lost an index finger in a machine shop accident. In 1923, he was arrested for stealing a Packard automobile and sentenced to three years in prison. Paroled after thirteen months, it was the only time he ever spent in prison throughout his long criminal career. Apart from his time in the slammer, his arrest also provided him with a nickname that he came to loathe. While being fingerprinted, one of the cops said “Hey it’s Tommy Three Fingers,” referring to Mordechai (Tommy) Brown, a famous baseball pitcher. Lucchese's friends began to call him “Tommy Brown” but no one, in their right mind at least, called him “Three Fingers Brown” to his face.

He assumed control of the crime family that was to bear his name in 1953, after the death by natural causes, of the previous leader, Gaetano (Tom) Gagliano. Lucchese had been his underboss since the family was consecrated by Salvatore Maranzano in 1931 following the end of a massive internal war that had wracked the New York underworld for over a year. Gagliano himself, had taken command of the original unit in March 1930, after the current boss Gaetano (Tom) Reina had been murdered, an event that many believe signalled the beginning of what became known as “The Castellammarese War”.

This struggle, in which dozens of men were killed and wounded, was the first and only full scale underworld battle for the control of a major city and metropolitan area within the United States. The conflicts of Chicago were essentially turf wars between Irish and Italian gangs, and it was mainly interfamily fighting which occurred in Cleveland, at least until Danny Greene, an Irish-American hoodlum tried to wrestle control of the city away from the local Mafia family, in the 1970’s.

In New York, two major factions opposed each other and fought for control not just of illegal liquor distribution, but of all the many other opportunities that were available: from extortion and numbers, to drugs and loan-sharking. The outcome of the war would determine the future of organized crime, not just in New York, but across the country as a whole. This is what made the conflict in New York unique. The resolution of the war and the eventual symbiotic relationship that grew out of the emergence and growth of the five Mafia families that arose from it would create a situation without precedent. For the next sixty years these crime groups would dominate the criminal landscape of the biggest city in the country, and in addition, through their control of unions and corrupt officials, generate billions of dollars of illegal earnings, all tax free.

In there, almost from day one was Gaetano Lucchese, who would play an important and pivotal role in many of the events and incidents.

The origins of the Castellammarese War are vague and complex. There are many theories as to why it started, but it is generally agreed when it started. To trace its origins in one interpretation, it is necessary to introduce an Italian from Naples, whose surname translated into English means castrated male chicken.