The Genovese Family
The beginnings of what would be known as the Genovese Family started in the late 1800's as the Morello Crime Family. The Morello brothers came to America from Corleone, Sicily in 1892. The brothers were made up of Antonio, Nicolo (Nick), and Guiseppe, as well as half brothers Vincent and Ciro Terranova, with Antonio being the head of the family. The brothers alleyed themselves with other organizations to consolidate their power and gain control of many of New York's waterfront activities. Following Antionio's death in 1898, the position of boss of the family fell to Guiseppe. In 1909, police raided a building that the Morello Family was using for a big counterfeiting operation. Guiseppe was arrested and sent to prison, along with fellow mafioso Ignazio Saiette, in Atlanta. With those two in prison, the control of the family now rested with Nick and his half brothers.
When Pellgrino Morano began moving in on Morello territory a war ensued that took the lives of members from both gangs. The war lasted for about 2 years until Nick Morello was killed on September 7, 1916. Vincent Terranova, Nick's half brother, then took over as the head of the family. Not long after a man by the name of Joe Masseria would soon be making his bones in the gang, with aspirations of becomming Boss of Bosses. In 1920, he killed Salvatore Muaro, a powerful ganster and bootlegger, which only helped his cause.
The Masseria Era
In 1922, after a 6 year reign at the helm, Vincent Terranova was shot to death outside his home by a passerby. This is the turning point that left Masseria with the top spot in the family, and close to the title he really wanted, Capo di Tutti Capi. Peter Morello and Ciro Terranova, of the orginal Morello Gang, were now high ranking members in the Masseria Family. The newly named family enjoyed success in typical mob fashion; bootlegging, extortion, rackets, and loansharking among others. The only other family that could compare to Masseria's, and that was his main rival, was one led by Salvatore D'Aquilla (now known as the Gambino Family), who was regarded as Boss of Bosses. In October of 1928, some of Masseria's men shot D'Aquilla to death of Joe's orders. The top spot was now his, and with passing of D'Aquilla, Masseria's main rival was that of Salvatore Maranzano (boss of the future Bonanno Family), who immigrated from Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily and quicly rose through the ranks of the criminal underworld.
Maranzano and Masseria would start battling each other over bootlegging operations in the New York area. The two would battle each other for control and political power that would eventually lead them to blows in the Castellammarese War. The point that some people officially started the war is when Masseria had fellow gangster Gaetano Reina assassinated. Reina was the boss of one of the five family's headed in the Bronx area, what would later become the Lucchese's. In 1930 Masseria's main cheif, Morello, was killed, leaving the spot to Salvatore Luciano. Luciano was even in this early time a powerful influence in the underworld, allying himself with Maranzano, befriending Meyer Lansky, his buddy Bugsy Seigal, and many other Jewish gangsters.
Reorganization
Lucky Luciano, along with many other gangsters, was sick of the old style mafia Don's who enriched their pockets at the expense of everyone else, often comming with a short life span. He envisioned, although some think the idea was orginally Marazano's, a more organized mafia with a so called board of directors who would call the shots, known as the National Crime Syndicate. With that vision in mind, he knew he had a few people that needed be out of the way. First came Masseria. Luciano invited Joe the Boss for dinner at a resturant in Coney Island. While Lucky excused himself to go use the restroom (remember Michael Corleone in The Godfather), four gunmen walked in and rittled Joe with bullets. Now the two most powerful men in New York were Luciano and Maranzano, with Marazano gaining the title of Boss of Bosses, although he was fully aware of Lucky's intentions to gain full control.
Lucinao was now in control of what would be known as the Genovese Family, but Maranzano knew he wanted the top title, which Maranzano now held. He ordered a hit on Luciano, as well as Vito Genovese. Unfortunetly for Maranzano, Lucky had many connections in other organizations bringing him informaiton, so he was fully aware of the plans for him to be rubbed out. Maranzano ordered a sit down betwen him, Lucky, and Genovese in September of 1931. Before the scheduled time, Luciano's hit men showed up, disarmed Maranzano's guards, and killed him. According to Jerry Capeci, five other mobsters tied to Maranzano died that day. Luciano was now Boss of Bosses, and with Maranzano out of the way, young Joe Bonanno now held the top spot in the family that now beared his name.
With Luciano's main enemies now gone, he started his revolution of the American Mafia. Along with Meyer Lansky, he set up a National Crime Syndicate, also called the commission, to oversee some of the mob's major decisions, such as whacking a boss, or someone outside the family. The mafia was also now more acceptable of working with Jewish gansters, although they still could not be "made", people like Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Seigal, and Dutch Shultz, were a powerful influence.
Lucky held stayed on top until 1936 when Thomas Dewey charged him with heading a prostitution ring, after raiding some 80 brothels. Luciano was sentenced to a 30-50 year prison term. If only Thomas Dewer knew that Luciano had actually saved his life when Dutch Schultz wanted to kill Dewey, Luciano ordered Dutch killed first, not wanting the bad press that came with cop killing. Luckily for Lucky, parodon the pun, he didn't have to spend much time behind bars. During WWII, with Thomas Dewey now as Governor, he was asked to help use his influence on the waterfront to help protect the New York docks from an attack, and as a reward he was let out of prison, although deported to Italy.
When Luciano was sent to prison, the man he picked to head the family while he was gone was Frank Costello, The Prime Minister, as he was known, for his many connections and way with solving problems without using a gun. This angered Vito Genovese as he thought he was the one who should gain the spot, but he was in exile in Italy on a murder charge at the time.
Already being the head of a powerful mafia fraction, Costello used his connections to make the family even more powerful. With help from other mobsters, such as Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, set up gambling rackets, bookmaking businesses, and other operations in Florida, Vegas, and Cuba.
In 1946, Luciano ordered a conference in Cuba with serveral top mobsters, some of which included Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, Joe Bonanno, Meyer Lansky among others. Frank Sinatra was also there, giving the mobsters a reason to be there, "....to see Frank", they said. While there Genovese made no bones about his ambition to be the leader of the National Crime Syndicate. He called an order to put a hit on Albert Anastasia, which Luciano shot down. Drugs was another thing heavily discussed at the conference, something Luciano did not like dealing in, because of the possibility for long prison sentences and heavy violence. Many disagreed, inclulding Genovese, arguing it was to much of a money maker to pass up.
Genovese
Although Costello's reign of Boss the of the family lasted for about 20 years, Genovese always asseted he was the one of should have received the spot. In May of 1957, as Costello was walking in to his apartment building, pulling up was a young Vincent Gigante. Gigante pulled out a gun and yelled, "This is for you Frank!", and shot him in the head. Luckily for Frank, the bullet only grazed the side of his head and he survived, but he got the messege. He went before the commission and was allowed to retire from his duties, although one has to wonder wether he still had any influence even in retirement. Costello lived his life after the mafia peacefully and died in 1974 at the age of 82. Vincent Gigante was aquitted of the attempted murder when Costello failed to identify him in court, and no other witnesses came forward.
Vito Genovese was now boss of the family, although short lived. He still wanted more power and was known to be violent. This is something that Luciano, Lansky, and Costello knew very well. Knowing that sooner or later he would come after them, they set up a drug deal purposly to get Genovese caught. It worked. Luciano, Lansky, and Costello paid a drug dealer to turn into an informant and implicate Don Vito, law enforcement ate it up and gave Genovese a 15 year sentence in an Atlanta Prison, where he continued to run the family behind bars, until his death in 1969.
The man that would be boss of the family after Vito's death was Tommy Eboli. He served as acting boss while Vito was in prison, was a loyal member of the family, and also drove the getaway car from Vincent Gigante's failed hit on Frank Costello. He was seen as a hot head and many members of the family didn't like him, even members of other families. He would often do the dirty work himself and was known to be pretty hard to work with. Carlo Gambino, one of the most powerful Godfather's, and probably the most powerful at the time, especially didn't like Tommy. Gambino ordered a hit on Eboli in 1972, and on July 1st he was shot to death in Brooklyn. Even from a different family, Carlo had influence on who would be the new leader of the Genovese Family, and his choice was Frank Tieri.
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