Dan Kerbacher

Art~002

Salvatore Maranzano

Sicily had been under foreign occupation for more than two-thousand years until it fell under the control of Italy in 1860. Sicily was taken by the Romans after the first Punic war and they turned it into a colony for granary and wheat. The outsiders considered the Sicilian society to be brutal, and secretive. This is where the myth of the “secret society” first began. Between the years of 1860 and 1870, Italy and the rest of the world, eventually, discovered “the Mafia.”

Salvatore Maranzano was born in Sicily in 1868. He was educated in the local seminary in Castellammare del Golfo.

Maranzano was regarded as a Mafia hero in Sicily before he came to the United States in 1925. There are claims that he probably descended from Sicilian nobility.

He was nearly forty years old when he showed up in New York City. He was immediately welcomed by the Mafia group in Brooklyn that was predominantly Castellamarese. This group was headed by a man named Cola Schiro.

Salvatore, initially, had intentions of becoming a priest, but by the time he had arrived at Ellis Island in New York City, those ambitions had faded. He viewed New York City as the land of golden opportunity, especially because of his Sicilian upbringing, which was ambitious in nature. Salvatore had a very commanding presence, and was greatly respected by his underworld peers. In the 1920’s, he organized a group of other familiar gangsters who were from the same area, such as Stefano Magaddino, Joseph Profaci, and Joe Bonanno. They became involved in bootlegging, prostitution and drug smuggling. These and many others across the country sought respect from the natives of New York, who considered them to be just simple people. Joe Valachi described him:

I was led to the other side of the table and the other guy said ‘Joe, meet Don Salvatore Maranzano. He is going to be the boss for all of us throughout the whole trouble we are having.’ This was the first time I even saw him. Gee, he looked just like a banker. You’d never guess in a million years that he was a racketeer. (Nash, Jay R. (K-R) (1990). Encyclopedia of World Crime. Penn State University Libraries: Crime Books, Inc.)

Salvatore had a plan to affiliate people of common allegiance to the world of organized crime. He believed that his ultimate role was to be capo de tutti capi, or the role of super-boss. He was considered a small-timer in the 1920’s, yet soon would become the founder of the United States Mafiosa, or Mafia.

Guiseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria was just another mainlander who, unfortunately for him, treated the Sicilian minority as a simple entity. Upon his operations in Brooklyn, NY, known as Bonanno-Profaci, Salvatore Maranzano took that as an opportunity to go to war. In 1928, the Castellammarese War had begun. Salvatore brought together many gangsters to shoot down the Masserias. This upset “Joe the Boss” and caused him to retaliate. At the peak of this war, in 1930, a Masseria lieutenant, Gaetano Reina, was murdered. In retribution, Joseph Pinzolo, of the Maranzano’s was killed. Maranzano was upset and would not rest until the threat of the Masseria was completely non-existant. Rattled by the war, some of the other ambitious Italians took action. One of them, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, ordered an assignation of Joe the Boss, who he earlier owed allegiance to. Together, he and Vito Genovese commanded Masseria’s assassination. On April 15, 1931, on Coney Island, at a restaurant called Scarpato, Joe Adonis, Albert Anastasia, and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel killed Guiseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria. Throughout the years of 1930 and 1931, sixty bodies were left on the streets of America from these killings.

Maranzano took this as an opportunity to assemble a new order. He gathered together New York’s top muscle to form this new fashion. Maranzano rented a large hall on Washington Street in the Bronx. There were chairs designated to bosses, with emblems of crosses, so outsiders would assume it was affiliated with some type of holy organization. Maranzano claimed that things would be different now, after the death of the Masserias. He then named himself capo de tutti capi, or boss of bosses. He became the first and only “Boss of Bosses,” and the most powerful man in New York. He explained that each family would have a boss and an underboss, and beneath them, would be the lieutenants. All the other members would be considered soldiers. These family units would each be supreme in its own particular area. These areas included; Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Newark, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, San Francisco, Miami, and Las Vegas. This meeting decreed that New York would have five main families: Vincent Mangano, Joe Bonanno, Joe Profaci, Tom Gagliano, and Frank Costello/Lucky Luciano.

Maranzano, thought himself to be much like Julius Caesar, with his legions underneath him. He often mentioned the Commission, otherwise known as, “La Cosa Nostra,” or this thing of ours. This terminology would remain a carefully kept secret until some thirty years later when Joe Valachi would expose its true meaning. There were rules. Some of these rules consisted of refraing from hanky-panky or discussing business with another member’s wife. Maranzano also laid down some rules for a commission, among other things, he outlawed random killings, and he prohibited anyone in this commission from talking about the Mafia or its activities to anyone outside, even if the outsider was just the gangster's wife. These Cardinal rules, if broken, were punishable by death. Maranzano reminded everyone that the war was over and he wasn’t tolerating any more vengeance. Furthermore, any hostility of another would result in death. He said, “If your brother was killed, don’t try and find out who did it or get even. If you do, you pay with your life.”

(Nash, Jay R. (K-R) (1990). Encyclopedia of World Crime. Penn State University Libraries: Crime Books, Inc.)

Genovese and Luciano were bothered by the fact that they

assassinated the Masserians, only to find someone more alarming had taken his place. They had the initiative to kill Salvatore Maranzano now. Being that Maranzano, knew this, he generated his own list of people to be assassinated. This list included Frank Costello, Dutch Schultz, Joe Adonis, Willie Moretti, and Al Capone. The designated assassin was Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll.

On September 10, 1931, there were four men dressed as police officers that entered Maranzano’s offices on Park Avenue. Upon Maranzano coming out of the office to speak with the officers, the officers drew their guns, but before they could fire, a man named Samuel “Red” Levine stabbed Maranzano six times with a knife. As Maranzano dove for the gunmen, they emptied their bullets into him. When the police arrived later, there were no witnesses as to what transpired, although there were other reports that forty other members of Salvatore Maranzano’s men, of the old order mafiosa, were killed in the same fashion, suggesting Luciano was behind it. Because of this, many of Maranzano’s men went into hiding.

Maranzano was dead, but his reputation would forever succeed him, especially for the unique structure outlined by the Brooklyn social hall in 1931. This would later be adopted by members of the National Mafia. These “untouchable” men coming back to their island rich and respected, were enough to make anyone dream of coming to America.

Succeeding the death of Salvatore Maranzano, his killers reorganized the five families. They completely abolished the position of "capo di tutti capi." The portion of the Maranzano's empire that remained was given to Bonanno from Lucky Luciano and then became known as the Bonanno family.

New York City was to be run now by Luciano. He established more of a federal system than Maranzano, where neither he nor any other person could hold the title of Boss of Bosses.

In 1964, Maranzano's wife Elisabetta died. Both she and Salvatore Maranzano are now buried in Saint John's Cemetery, located in Queens, New York. Not far from them are the graves of Luciano and Genovese.

Works Cited

Schulte-Bockholt, Alfredo. (2006). The Politics of Organized Crime and the Organized

Crime of Politics. Penn State University Library. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,

Inc.

Servadio, Gaia. (1976). Mafioso. Penn State University Library.

Martin Secker & Warburg Limited

Nash, Jay R. (K-R) (1990). Encyclopedia of World Crime. Penn State University

Libraries: Crime Books, Inc.

Sifakis, Carl. (1987). The Mafia Encyclopedia. Penn State University Library. Facts On

File Publications, Inc.

Mahan, Sue. (1998). Beyond the Mafia. Penn State University Library. Sage Publications.

Duggan, Christopher. (1989). Fascism and the Mafia. Penn State University Library.

Yale University Press.

Arlacchi, Pino. (1993). Men of Dishonor. Penn State University Library. William

Morrow and Company, Inc.