Lucchese Crime Family Epic:
Descent into Darkness
Part I

The War

Sicily and Naples, along with most of southern Italy, used to be ruled by the Bourbon dynasty. From about 1815 until 1860, this was called the Kingdom of the Two Sicily’s.

Although there were nominally twin capitals, Naples and Palermo, the Bourbon Kings stayed mainly in Naples. The rift between the two areas grew wide. When Italian immigrants flooded into New York, the Sicilians dominated their fellow pilgrims. Their clan system gave them greater solidarity and helped in their business enterprises. Sicilian “men of honour” or mafiosi, who had, for whatever reason, moved to America, were significant activists in the creation of criminal groups. However, many men with unlawful tendencies from Naples, who were not members of the Mafia, assimilated freely in the criminal melting pot in America.

A good example of this was Al Capone. His parents were from Naples, but Al was born and raised in Brooklyn. In the early 1920’s he moved to Chicago to work with Johnny Torrio. Torrio was contemplating taking over the rackets there and needed a good, reliable strong arm to help him. Capone’s move into Torrio's Chicago organization was blessed by Frankie Uale (Yale), his immediate boss who was a crew chief under Giuseppi Masseria, then a major figure in the New York underworld.

Al Capone Credit: Tony Berardi

Once established in Chicago, Capone began needling Joe Aiello, the top Sicilian gangster in the city. Through a series of convoluted and cunning manoeuvres, Masseria claimed that Aiello, Gaspar Milazzo of Detroit and Stefano Magaddino of Buffalo were conspiring to overthrow him and claim his business. These men were either from, or had close ties to Castellammare del Golfo, a coastal town in north west Sicily, about sixty miles from Palermo.

Early in 1930, Milazzo was murdered in a Detroit fish market. In Chicago, Capone and Aiello were already at war, and in Buffalo, Magaddino had his family on a war alert. In New York, the scattered clans of the Castellammarese gangsters watched and waited.

Cola Schiro, who headed the largest of these groups in Brooklyn, was anxious and wanted to avoid any confrontation. He was all for neutrality and accord. His soldiers however, realised that without some sort of battle plan of their own, they would be doomed and destroyed by the vastly superior power of Masseria. After consultation with Magaddino in Buffalo, Salvatore Maranzano assumed command, and it was agreed that he would lead the campaign against the forces of Masseria.

Joseph Masseria Credit: AP World/Wide

Salvatore Maranzano was born in Sicily in 1886. By the time he gained control of the Castellammarese men he was 44 years old. He had married Elisabetta, the daughter of a major Mafia figure, Don Toto of the district of Trapani, and had become a respected member of the “Honoured Society,” the title the Mafia bestowed upon itself.

He stood five feet nine inches tall, was full-bodied and deep chested, with muscular arms and legs. It was rumoured that he could snap a man's neck with his thumbs and, somewhat incongruously, leap amazing distances. He dressed in a conservative style, favouring grey or navy pinstriped suits, and wore little jewellery beyond a watch and wedding band. His voice was his strongest feature. It was said that when he used it assertively, as in issuing a command, he was the bellnocker and the listener was the bell. A highly educated man, he knew several languages, including Latin, which he had learned while studying to be a priest. He modelled his vision of a criminal brotherhood on the military infrastructure of the Roman Legions, seeing himself as a Julius Caesar at the head of his cohorts.

In Sicily, he had operated under the guidance and protection of Don Vito Cascio Ferro. He was a powerful leader, believed to be the “Boss of Bosses” of the entire Sicilian Mafia. Ferro apparently had aspirations to control all American-Italian crime families under his leadership, and sent Maranzano to New York to establish a base for this purpose. However, not long after Maranzano arrived in New York, Don Vito was arrested by the Fascist government and imprisoned for life.

Maranzano was on his own.

Gradually building up his own personal criminal empire, he also linked into other groups of mobsters who were operating in and around the perimeter of the crime cartel that Masseria had been creating for the last ten years. Gaetano "Tommy" Reina led one of these bands, operating out of the Bronx and Harlem.

He ran a crew of “heavy hitters” running bootlegging activities, and controlling the numbers and Italian lottery in this densely populated area of over 500,000 people, mostly at this time of Italian extraction. His underboss was another Tom, Gaetano Gagliano, and in his “regime” or crew of soldiers was the final Tom, Lucchese, who was already making his name as an efficient killer and strong-arm guy.

In addition to his many illegal operations, Reina also ran the ice distribution business in New York, an enormously lucrative racket in the days before electric refrigeration. It may have been this business venture that had him killed, then again maybe it was something else.

The conflict between Masseria and Maranzano was heating up. Bodies were beginning to fall, but whether they were killings generated by the conflict, or simply personal grievances being settled, it is hard to say. Criminals do not normally keep recorded evidence of their malfeasance. Among the hot-blooded Sicilian and Napolese gangsters who inhabited the complex and volatile landscape of the New York underground were many dangerous people working to the beat of their own drum.

There are two possible scenarios that thread together Masseria, the underworld conflict and the death of Reina.

By the early part of 1930, it appears that Reina was in serious discussion with Maranzano about the future of both of their interests. The two men had become, if not good friends, then at least more than passing acquaintances. They sometimes dined together, and shared a common interest in good books and music. They were both an anomaly in the criminal underworld, in that they were cultured and well educated. It was understood by both parties that if Reina was to move his forces under Maranzano, he was to be allocated a large part of the Lower East side rackets then controlled by Masseria, after the downfall of Joe the Boss, as Masseria was sometimes called.

Reina seemingly discussed this opportunity with Peter Morello, a close paesano or dear friend, who hailed originally from Corleone, in central Sicily. However, Morello also known as “The Clutching Hand” was near to, and an intimate advisor of Masseria. In due course, word came down of Reina’s perfidy, and his death was inevitable. With his passing, the rackets he controlled and the lucrative ice business would fall into the lap of Masseria.

The other hypothesis revolved around Charlie Luciano, the ultimate architect of the American Mafia. He was a close aide to Masseria but was already plotting to move his allegiance over to Maranzano. According to his own account, later detailed in his autobiography, he was concerned that Reina might move over to join forces with Maranzano too early, and disturb a set piece that he, Luciano, was creating with a group of other gangsters. It was a delicate situation and Luciano called his closest friends together for a council of war.

Charlie Luciano Credit: UPI

They met one cold, snowy miserable day, January 14^th, 1930, on a fishing boat, off Oyster Bay, Long Island. Along with Luciano were Joe Adonis, Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, Benjamin Siegel and Tommy Lucchese, who had just had dinner with Reina and brought some disturbing news. It seemed that Masseria was planning to kill two other major Castellammarese figures-Joseph Bonanno and Joe Profaci. If Masseria succeeded in that and was also able to control Reina, maybe everyone else could also be kept in line. Putting himself in Masseria’s place, it occurred to Luciano, that if that plan worked, it would appear to Maranzano that Luciano had in fact killed two of his most powerful aides, and also was working to prevent Reina’s defection into the Maranzano camp. That way, it would only be a matter of time before Maranzano would be forced to come after Luciano, all guns blazing.

Luciano decided that Reina had to go. Bonanno and Profaci had to be covered at all costs, and nothing must happen to them. For the killing of Reina he chose Vito Genovese, and instructed him that as a matter of honour, Reina had to be killed face to face. According to Luciano, the murder was a regrettable necessity. “I really hated to knock off Tom Reina,” he said “ and none of my boys did either. Reina was a man of his word, he had culture, and he was a very honorable Italian. He practically ran the Bronx. But he hadda be eliminated so I could keep on livin’ and keep on moving up.” The stage was set, and for Reina the final act was soon to be.

Every Wednesday, Reina had a date he never broke. About 5.30 pm he would leave his home at 3183 Rochambeau Avenue, near the Woodland Cemetery in the north Bronx, and drive the five miles south to the house of a favourite aunt who lived at 1522 Sheridan Avenue, just across from Claremont Park. They would have dinner and chat for two or three hours. On a cold winters night, February 26^th, 1930, the penultimate day of the shortest month in the first year of the new decade, he went for his last supper.

At about 8 pm he kissed his aunt goodbye and left her house. As he stepped onto the sidewalk, someone moved out of the shadows behind a parked automobile. Reina recognised him and raising his hand started to greet the man who smiling in return, raised a sawn off double barrel shotgun and fired both cylinders at point blank range. The shots blew most of Reina’s head off and his dead body flew back into the stone wall that fronted the property and crumpled to the ground. Vito Genovese quickly walked to a waiting car and disappeared into the night.

Vito Genovese Credit: AP World/Wide

The murder of Tom Reina was the catalyst in the War. His crew backed up under the leadership of Gaetano Gagliano, who in turn promoted Tommy Lucchese into his number two man position. They moved on Masseria by removing his chief aide, Peter Morello. On August 15^th, 1930, he was in his office at 362 East 116^th Street in Harlem, checking out receipts with one of his numbers collectors, a man called Giuseppe Pariano. At about 3 pm two men walked into the office and shot both men dead. As a bonus, the killers -- Albert Anastasia and Frank Scalise -- walked away with over $30,000. They had been sent there by Luciano who was now working closely with Gagliano and Lucchese in writing their own script in the rapidly evolving drama that was to lay the foundations for organized crime in America in the years to come.

Luciano and his men spread around the story that Masseria, using one of his top killers, a man called Joe Catania, orchestrated Reina's murder. Masseria then alienated even more people by appointing as Reina’s successor Joe Pinzola. A huge, fat gross man, with a handlebar moustache, and always reeking of garlic, he quickly earned the hate and distrust of the men he controlled, and came to the end of his own personal highway barely seven months after the murder of Tom Reina.

Lucchese maintained an office in the Brokaw Building at 1487 Broadway, Manhattan. On September 9^th, 1930, he arranged a meeting here with Pinzola, and then, after excusing himself and leaving, two men entered the office and shot Pinzola repeatedly in the upper chest and head. When the police arrived at about 9 pm they found Joe’s body sprawled and bloody on the floor, covered in the invoices and office receipts he had been checking as the gunmen burst in and killed him.

Although Tommy Lucchese was subsequently arrested and charged in connection with the murder, he was never brought to trial, maintaining a long record of successful evasion that would continue through the rest of his criminal career.