Salvatore Maranzano

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Salvatore Maranzano
Born July 31, 1886
Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Italy
Died September 10, 1931
New York City, Upper West Side, Manhattan, U.S.

Salvatore Maranzano (July 31, 1886 - September 10, 1931) was an organized crime figure from the town of Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, and an early Mafia boss in the United States. He was the first and only official "Boss of Bosses" of the American Mafia.

Contents

[edit] Biography

As a youngster, Maranzano had wanted to become a Catholic priest and even studied to become one, but later became associated with the Mafia in his homeland. Maranzano had a very commanding presence, and was greatly respected by his underworld peers. He had a fascination with Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire.

Maranzano came to the United States in 1925, settling in Brooklyn. While building up a legitimate business as a real estate broker, he also built up a growing bootleg liquor business. He soon became the leader of a large cluster of mafiosi from Castellammare del Golfo, including Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonanno, Joseph Profaci, and Stefano Magaddino. All of them had been sent to the United States by Vito Cascio Ferro, the leading Mafia boss in Sicily, with orders were to organize the American Mafia and bring it under Don Vito's control. However, Don Vito was arrested and later died in a Fascist prison. Maranzano then decided to organize the American Mafia under his control.

Maranzano began to invade the territory of Joe "The Boss" Masseria. Maranzano hijacked truckloads of Masseria's liquor and started taking over Masseria's bars. This led to a bloody underworld battle known as the Castellammarese War. While outnumbered at the outset of the war, Maranzano and his fellow Castellamarese grew stronger as the war progressed. The war ended after one of Masseria's lieutenants, Charles "Lucky" Luciano helped orchestrate Masseria's murder.

Maranzano was now the most powerful gangster in New York. Two weeks after Masseria's murder, Maranzano called together several hundred Mafiosi at a banquet hall at an undisclosed location in Upstate New York. Maranzano laid out his vision of a new gangland, structured on hierarchical lines. The New York Mafia would be organized into Five Families, headed by Luciano, Profaci, Vincent Mangano, Thomas Gagliano and Joseph Bonnano. In addition, Maranzano created a position for himself--Boss of All Bosses.

Maranzano also laid down some rules for a Mafia Commission; among other things, he outlawed random killings, and he prohibited anyone in The Commission from talking about the Mafia or its activities to anyone outside, even if the outsider was just the gangster's wife. Anyone who broke any of these rules would be punished by death.

Maranzano's scheming, his arrogant treatment of his subordinates, and his fondness for comparing his organization to the Roman Empire did not sit well with Luciano and his ambitious friends, like Genovese, Frank Costello and others, however. Despite his advocacy for modern methods of organization, many younger mafiosi resented him as a "Mustache Pete"--an old-school mafioso too steeped in Old World ways. For instance, he was opposed to Luciano's partnership with non-Italian gangsters such as Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. In fact, Luciano and his colleagues had intended all along to bide their time before getting rid of Maranzano as well.

Maranzano realized this soon enough, and began planning the murder of Luciano, Genovese, Costello and others. Maranzano did not act quickly enough, though: by the time he hired Mad Dog Coll to murder Luciano and Genovese, Luciano, aided by Meyer Lansky, had already found out about Maranzano's plans. Luciano arranged for Samuel "Red" Levine and three other gangsters provided by Lansky to go to Maranzano's offices, posing as police detectives. Once inside his office on the 9th floor of The Helmsley Building, they disarmed Maranzano's guards. The four men then shot and stabbed Salvatore Maranzano to death. As they fled down the stairs, they met Coll on his way upstairs for his appointment with Maranzano. They warned him that there had been a raid and he fled too.

Following Maranzano's death, Luciano and his colleagues reorganized the Five Families and abolished the position of "capo di tutti capi." Most of Maranzano's crime family was inherited by Bonanno and became known as the Bonanno family.

Maranzano's wife, Elisabetta, died in 1964. Both are buried in Saint John's Cemetery, Queens, located in New York City's, buried near the graves of Luciano and Genovese.

Preceded by
Cola Schiro		 Bonanno Crime Family Boss
1930-1931		 Succeeded by
Joe Bonanno

[edit] Popular Culture

See also Al Capone in Literature
  • Maranzano played a small fictional role in Mario Puzo's The Godfather. Maranzano refused Don Vito Corleone's proposal to share his monopolized control over the gambling rackets in New York City, in exchange for police and political contacts and expansion into Brooklyn and the Bronx. This sparked the great mob war of 1933. Maranzano, purportedly good friends with Al Capone, arranged for two of Capone's gunmen to come to New York to take care of things, and finish Corleone. These gunmen were swiftly taken care of by Luca Brasi. With Capone's humiliation, and the odds even up, Corleone then sent the reserve of Tessio's regime after Maranzano. Maranzano's soldiers were deserting him, fleeing his losing cause. Desperate for peace, Maranzano agreed to sit down with Corleone in a restaurant in Brooklyn. Maranzano's bodyguards fled the restaurant as Tessio and four of his men came in and shot Maranzano to death while he still had half-chewed bread in his mouth.

[edit] Further reading

  • Davis, John H. Mafia Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
  • Reppetto, Thomas. American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1994. There is were he died, July 2006

[edit] External links