By the mid-1920s Joe the Boss Masseria was the undisputed boss of the New York Mafia, a tribute to treachery, extreme good luck and a willingness, even an eagerness, to kill. A stocky, 5-feet-2-inch gunman with cold, beady eyes, Masseria had fled a murder charge in Sicily in 1903. Within a few years in New York he was arrested for extortion and burglary and became a member of the notorious Morello Gang, the city’s first important Mafia crime family.
While the Morellos’ top killers, Lupo the Wolf and Ciro Terranova, dominated the gang, Masseria considered himself more than their equal. In 1913, with Morello and Lupo the Wolf in prison, he led a faction seeking to take over much of the Morello rackets. Masseria brazenly led attacks directly on the Morello headquarters at 116th Street, once killing a cousin, Charles Lamonti, right on the doorstep. Six months later he knocked off Lamonti’s brother on the same spot.
Then Masseria hit a run of luck. Nick Morello, the acting head and the most far-sighted of the family, was killed by rival Camorristas in Brooklyn. The Camorra leaders themselves went to prison for the murder, leaving Masseria an open field. And, by the time Joe Morello and Lupo the Wolf came out of prison in the early 1920s, the rotund but deadly Masseria had locked up much of the bootlegging racket in the Italian sections of New York.
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After his release, Lupo retired from the crime scene, but the Morellos tried to rally under Peter Morello. Peter allied himself with another rising mafioso, Rocco Valenti, who was regarded by Masseria as a major threat. Once Valenti caught up with Masseria and a couple of bodyguards on Second Avenue. He cut down the unarmed Masseria’s protectors, and then calmly reloaded and followed the fleeing Masseria into a millinery shop.
Valenti fired several times at Masseria at fairly close range and in what must have looked like a grim Keystone Kops comedy sequence, his rotund target ducked and weaved and all the bullets whizzed by him. It was amazing since Valenti had committed at least 20 murders and was regarded as a cool, accurate shooter. Frustrated and fearing the arrival of the police, Valenti retreated, and thereafter Masseria gained a reputation as “the man who could dodge bullets.”
Finally, Joe the Boss let Valenti know he was willing to make peace and a meeting was arranged in a restaurant on East 12th Street. When Valenti showed up with three cohorts, Masseria was not present, but three of his men were. Suspecting a doublecross, he raced for the street. The Masseria gunmen wounded two of Valenti’s men and chased after Valenti, who hopped on the running board of a passing taxi and was shooting back, when he was shot dead by one of the gunmen. Valenti’s assailant: Charles Luciano, a man destined for big things.
The Morellos shortly thereafter sued for peace. Some were retired while others were absorbed into Masseria’s operations. Masseria was now the top Mafia power, and five crime families in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx were subservient to him. For a time his only problem was the rising Luciano, a valuable crime organizer, but an upstart who was too chummy with Jewish gangsters like Meyer Lansky and the young and homicidal Bugsy Siegel.
Masseria hated Jews and told Luciano to break off with them and to put his operations with them in the Masseria pot. He was wasting his breath. Luciano wasn’t the only headstrong lieutenant. Frank Costello bridled under Masseria’s criticism for paying off the politicians. Joe the Boss allowed it was all right to bribe an official once in a while when necessary but his boys should not “sleep with them” all the time because the politicians would eventually corrupt them. Costello marveled at anyone so stupid as not to understand it was the other way around.
By 1927, Masseria faced a new threat. A newly arrived Sicilian mafioso named Salvatore Maranzano sought to push him aside. It was generally believed that Maranzano was the advance representative of Don Vito Cascio Ferro, the most important Mafia leader in Sicily, who was looking to move into American crime. But Don Vito would never come; Mussolini’s fascists imprisoned him. Nevertheless, Maranzano decided to advance on Masseria and become the American boss of bosses on his own.
Masseria at first was not worried by the Maranzano threat. He had more gunners and better men. One was his old foe, Peter “the Clutching Hand” Morello. And he had brilliant youngsters headed by Luciano, and including such stalwarts as Joe Adonis, Frank Costello, Willie Moretti, Albert Anastasia and Carlo Gambino. However, these Young Turks were not as loyal as he thought. All of them were working with Lansky and Siegel and with Dutch Schultz whom Masseria particularly disliked.
However, the Young Turks stayed in line for a time. They couldn’t switch gangs; they hated Maranzano as much as they hated Masseria. They were waiting instead for a time when they would be able to operate without any of the so-called Mustache Petes and their outmoded, old-country, Mafia-style codes. The only code these young gangsters were interested in was making money. Fighting Mafia wars was a hindrance to that goal, and the Castellammarese War between Maranzano and Masseria was just such a hindrance.
Luciano organized the Young Turks. Their plan: bide their time until Masseria killed Maranzano or vice versa. But by 1931 both were still around and the Castellammarese War was taking a bloody toll. Luciano decided it was time to act. He had thought Maranzano would perish first, but, as the war continued, Maranzano got stronger and Masseria weaker. Since it was easier to murder someone who trusted you than someone who did not, Luciano and his supporters—including outsiders like Lansky and Siegel—decided to take out Masseria.
On April 15, 1931, Luciano suggested to Masseria that they drive out to Coney Island for lunch. They dined at Nuova Villa Tammaro, owned by Gerardo Scarpato, a friend of a number of mobsters. Joe the Boss stuffed himself and after all the other diners left, he and Luciano played cards while Scarpato went down to the beach for a walk.
About 3:30 P.M. four men came charging through the door to Masseria’s table. They were Bugsy Siegel, Joe Adonis, Vito Genovese and Albert Anastasia. All produced guns and blazed away at Masseria. Six bullets struck Joe the Boss and the Castellammarese War was over.
Newspaper accounts of the sensational murder focused on Luciano’s statement to the police that he had gone to the bathroom and when he heard the shooting, he dried his hands and came out to see what was happening. It was a bit of self-censorship by the press. Actually Luciano told the police, “I was in the can taking a leak. I always take a long leak.”
After the assassination Luciano negotiated a peace with Maranzano and pledged support to him. However, both Maranzano and Luciano were aware that sooner or later one or the other would have to go.
