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The Death of Joe Masseria






April 15, 1931, Coney Island, Queens, New York, Italian Restaurant: Nuova Villa Tammarro.   Masseria had set up a meeting with some of the soldiers in his crew.  The Nuova Villa was Masseria’s favorite restaurant.  One notable soldier at the sit down was Charles “Lucky” Luciano.  At one-point during the meal, Luciano heads to the washroom.  Masseria is now sitting in the restaurant with two bodyguards.  Four hitmen enter the room and spray bullets at Masseria.  Masseria is fatally wounded and he is shot once in the head, and five shots in the back.  The hit team that assassinated the boss included Vito Genovese, Joe Adonis, Albert Anastasia, and Bugsy Siegel.  Why was Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria assassinated? Who ordered the hit on Masseria? To understand what happened to Masseria, we must learn about his history in the mafia. 
Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria

Rise in the Mafia

Joe Masseria was born on January 17, 1886 in Sicily.  February 1, 1907, Masseria is arrested for breaking into a woman’s apartment.  The door to the apartment had been smashed in, Masseria received suspended sentence.   In April 1907, Masseria received a suspended sentence for extortion.  On April 13, 1913, Masseria is arrested when tools that where left behind in a botched robbery were dusted for fingerprints.  Masseria and a crew of three others are linked to a group of robberies.  By the early 1920s Masseria and Salvatore D’Aquila had become rival mob bosses.  Masseria was running the Morello family because the boss Guiseppe Morello had been in prison. 
August 9, 1922, Apartment building in the East Village, Manhattan New York.  Masseria is walking out of his apartment building when two men start shooting at him.  Masseria manage to duck into a store and the straw hat that he was wearing had two bullet holes in it.  On top of his head and under the hat lay two bullets that missed Masseria’s head.  The assassination attempt began the rise in Masseria’s lore as a mob boss, and D’Aquila’s downfall.  One of the assassins was D’Aquilas chief enforcer Umberto Valenti. 
September 1922, Maseria and Valenti arranged for a peace meeting along with the recently released mob boss Guiseppe Morello.  After Morello’s stint in prison he had hinted at giving up the life.  Valenti laong with three soldiers showed up for the meeting.  Valenti realized he was set-up because Masseria did not show up.  A shootout ensues in the restaurant, Valenti makes his way out and jumps on a running board of a car that was driving by.  Lucky Luciano comes out of the restaurant, takes an aim, and shoots Valenti dead.  Masseria becomes the boss, and Morello becomes a consigliere.

The Boss of the Family

October 1928, the wealth of the Morello/Masseria family had been declining.  The reason for this was that D’Aquila’s family power had risen and grew stronger than the Masseria family.  D’Aquilla is shot dead in the streets after an argument with three hoods.  Soon after local gangs started to pay tribute to Masseria and where absorbed into the family, thus making it larger, powerful, and hungrier.
The Masseria family started to put pressure on a mafia family from Castellamarese from Sicily.  The boss of that family was Nicolo Shiro.  Shiro was a weak leader and started to pay tribute to Masseria.  Shiro disappeared and Masseria put a new leader in place, Joe Parrino.  Parrino was subsequently shot to death.  Mobster Salvatore Maranzano took over the leadership of the Castellamarese from Sicily, Masseria ordered his death.  This order would go on to provoke the Castellamarese War.
A meeting was held in Boston and Masseria was stripped of his boss of bosses’ title.  The new boss of bosses, Gaspare Messina from Boston attempted to make peace between the Maranzano and Masseria families.  Maranzano had no interest in creating a peace treaty.

Masseria Reign Comes to an End

Masseria's Assasination sight, Coney Island

April 15, 1931 Joe Masseria is shot dead when a team of hitmen enter the restaurant that he was dining in and assassinate him.  Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky were upset because the Castellamarese War was bringing too much interest from police, public, and the media.  Luciano set up the hit on Masseria because he believed that there is no need to be fighting each other.  Luciano believed that the families should be at peace and make more money together rather than be at war and have profits suffer.  The death of Masseria brought an end to the Castellamarese war.

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