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| Charles Lucky Luciano |
Written by Scott Williams-Collier and Jeff Canarsie.
Final footnote written by Christian Cipollini.
Happy Birthday Charles Lucky Luciano
On this day the father of modern organised crime in the
United States of America was born. Charles Lucky Luciano considered by many to be
the most powerful mob boss of all time, is born Salvatore Lucania November 24th
1897 in Lercara Friddi, Sicily, Italy.
Young
Salvatore Lucania’s life started from very humble beginnings. His father worked a very hard backbreaking and
dangerous job in the sulphur mines to support his wife and 5 children. This
dangerous and tough environment was likely a key factor (as it was for many Sicilians
of that time) in motivating Antonio Lucania to seek out a better life for
himself and his young family in the United States.
So in 1907 the nine year Salvatore along with his mother,
father and 4 siblings immigrated to the States to seek out a part of the American
dream and a chance of a better existence! The Lucania family settled in New
York City in the borough of Manhattan on its Lower East Side, a destination popular
with many Italian immigrants.
It wasn’t too long after arriving in America that the young
Salvatore started to hang around in gangs. By the age of 14 he had dropped out
of school and had a job delivering hats for $7 a week, chump change compared to
what the local hoods were earning fencing stolen goods, dealing drugs and
extorting money from business owners for protection.
The life that many Sicilians found in New York was a very
tough one. The streets certainly weren’t paved with gold if you wanted to live
a normal law abiding existence earning an honest buck! Jobs at the time involved
long hard days for little money almost akin to working yourself into an early grave,
long hard days for little reward. The young Lucania had no intentions of
following in his father’s footsteps and was determined to make lots of money illegitimately!
Eventually Luciano quit the job for a life of crime.
The Lucania family were deeply ashamed of their son’s
criminal activity so much so that they refused to visit the young man in prison.
This prompted Salvatore to eventually change his name to Charles Luciano.
Charles Lucky Luciano was very fortunate to have been present
in his prime in the perfect era to the achieve his dreams. Prohibition gave the
mob a perfect opportunity to make millions of dollars bootlegging and Luciano
learned from one of the best business men and racketeers around, Arnold
Rothstein. Rothstein quickly saw the potential to make huge profits from prohibition.
He tutored Luciano and his associates who included Meyer Lansky, Frank
Costello, Vito Genovese and Benjamin Siegel among others. Soon Luciano and his
gang had their own bootlegging operation with the backing from Rothstein and
raked in the dough!
In 1923 Charles Lucky Luciano’s reputation was in tatters as result
of a botched drug deal. This prompted him to buy 200 expensive seats to the highly
sought after boxing bout between Jack Dempsey and Luis Firpo. He gave these out
to his Mob Cohorts and politicians alike. Arnold Rothstein then took Charlie
for a ride to the Wanamakers Department store to buy expensive clothes for the
bout. This tactic worked a treat and helped to restore Lucky Luciano’s once damaged
reputation and put him back track to eventually dominate the criminal underworld
in America.
During in the 1920’s Lucky aligned himself with Joe "The Boss" Masseria and soon
became a trusted top aide for the mafia boss. Masseria was in sharp contrast to
the cultured and intelligent Rothstein. Masseria was greedy and uneducated, a part
of the Mustache Pete era who didn’t like to do business with none Italians, something
that riled the new generation like Lucky. The way Charlie saw things it didn’t matter
what your religion or place of birth was, if he could trust you and you knew
how to make money that’s all that mattered.
There was
another big mob boss in town in the prohibition era, a rival to Masseria’s outfit.
Salvatore Maranzano was from the notorious mafia town of Castellammare
del Golfo. Maranzano wanted to control all the rackets in New York and be the
Boss of Bosses (capo di tutti capi). This would eventually
cause and all-out war with the Masseria faction. This was known as the Castellammarese
War.
During the 1920’s before war broke out between the Masseria
and Maranzano factions, Maranzano tried to recruit Luciano. Luciano refused and
as a result was picked up by Maranzano’s henchmen. Badly beaten, sliced with a
blade and left for dead, Luciano was lucky to be alive. Some say this is where
the Lucky nickname originated from.
In 1930 Maranzano declared war with Masseria and so the Castellammarese
War began. After over a year of fighting and dozens of mob killings, Luciano
and his associates knew that this war was not good for business. Luciano
started to communicate with Maranzano and brokered a deal. Luciano would agree
to kill his boss Masseria and end the war and in return he would be allowed to
take over the Masseria’s Cosa Nostra family and his rackets. Maranzano agreed
and the deal was done.
On April
15, 1931 Joe the Boss was invited by Charles Lucky Luciano to the Nuova Villa Tammaro restaurant at Coney
Island. After eating Masseria and Luciano played cards. During the card game
Luciano excused himself from the table to use the bathroom. While in the
bathroom the assassins thought to be Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia, Joe
Adonis and Benjamin Bugsy Siegel entered the restaurant shot and killed the mob
boss. This ended the war and Maranzano was victorious.
After the war had finished
Salvatore Maranzano organised the Mafia clans into five families, something
that is still in effect today. Each family would have control over 1 of the 5 boroughs
of New York. However, Maranzano went against the original agreement he had made
with Lucky. Instead of equality he named himself capo di tutti capi (Boss of Bosses). This move
angered Luciano and set in motion events that would catapult Lucky to the top
of the underworld. Maranzano’s capo di tutti capi title would be short lived!
Maranzano sensed that Luciano was displeased and saw him as
a threat to his overall leadership of the Cosa Nostra families New York. Irish
mobster and hitman Mad Dog Coll was employed by Maranzano to kill Luciano. The
plan was to call Lucky to a meeting where Coll would kill him. Unfortunately for Maranzano, Luciano found out
and never attended the meeting. Instead Luciano sent over a squad of Jewish hitmen
posing as taxmen. Once inside Maranzano’s office the assassins stabbed the mob
boss repeatedly and finished him off with the gun.
Charles Lucky Luciano’s vision, intelligence and ruthlessness
had paid off and he was now the number one gangster in the United States of America.
From this day on the Mafia would go from warring street gangs to the most powerful
criminal organisation in America.
Historically looking back on Lucky Luciano, he will always have
been known for essentially organizing organized crime. He was never one to
believe in that in order for a criminal to be organized he had to be Sicilian.
Lucky had never believed that a man’s heritage was proxy for admittance.
Legitimacy came in the order of loyalty not birth right or ethnicity.
Jewish, Irish and other criminals were allowed to function and prosper
under allowances made by Luciano because he felt that as long as everyone was
making money together everything else was null in void. As long as Maranzano
and Masseria were around other criminal organizations would struggle.
Another facet of Luciano was that he was the first boss to truly put his
arms into the garment district, construction and legal enterprises.
What else should be noted when speaking about Luciano's legacy is that
he formed the commission. It was made so that all mafia clans had an
opportunity to prosper and make decisions and settle beefs, but as we have seen
before Luciano truly wanted it all for himself and attained that. His downfall
was believing that it would last and that other Mafia bosses would allow him to
rake it in.
Speculation for a long time, while unconfirmed was that Carlo Gambino
was truly behind the deportation of Luciano. Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino knew
as long as Luciano was free and in the United States they couldn't divide and
purge the rackets as far as they wanted. The way it went down was that
Gambino approached high Government officials in the short order of a bribe to
remove Luciano from the states. Then they would hit Frank Costello (front man
for Luciano) in fact rendering Luciano no longer the power of American La Cosa
Nostra. Once Costello was shot by Vincent Gigante, he retired. He knew
the power Luciano had once wielded was gone.
As a result, Genovese took over Gambino took over and Luciano was given
a monetary reward for settling down quietly and was made a consigliere of all
families. Luciano would not forget that Genovese was greedy and over the
decades it's been said that Lucky was 100% responsible for Vito Genovese
getting busted for his drug trafficking (a life sentence) and in turn Luciano
was allowed to be buried in St. John Cemetary in Queens,Ny.
Luciano is the father of organized crime from the perspective of
organizing, and putting the mafia in the absolute position to control the
entire city of New York, but history will also say that he was flashy and out
in public like so many others way too often. He was a man’s man, no
doubt, and he was superior to those many before him and after him, and he will
always be remembered as the guy who brought Cosa Nostra to its heights.
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Christian Cipollini: Through all the mythology and misconstrued historical record
surrounding the life and impact of Charlie "Lucky" Luciano, there are
a few indisputable truths. Among the facts - Lucky Luciano and his ensemble
cast of allies literally reshaped the entire structure of the American
Underworld, and 1931 was the year. Lucky eventually became the 'poster boy' for
the American mob, but in reality his impact was the innate charisma and
respectability that drew in so many other Italian and Jewish gangsters; perhaps
the one moment in history where 'Honor Among Thieves' did in fact exist, albeit
briefly and not in a pure form.
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