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| 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
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| 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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