Giuseppe Masseria (1879 - 1931) "Joe the Boss"

From 1920 to 1931 Giuseppe Masseria was the top Mafia don in New York City, maintaining absolute power over the Lower East Side. He had come to the U.S. in 1903 from Sicily, where he was a Mafia enforcer. He had left Sicily, like so many other Mafiosi, to avoid a murder charge. When he got to the U.S., he became involved in racketeering and enforcing for the Morello Gang of the Lower East Side, a gang let by Iganzio Saietta and Ciro Terranova.

It wasn't long before Masseria wanted to own all the rackets for himself though. The leadership of the Morello gang was on shakey ground, Saietta had gone to prison along with a few other top officials and Terranova had struck it rich by cornering the market on all artichokes that came into the U.S. Masseria saw his chance to take over. He stormed the Morello Gang headquarters with several other men, personally killing several of the Morello-loyal faction. Masseria would continue this killing spree until all of the Lower East Side aligned themselves with him. When that happened in1920, Masseria controlled all of the illegal rackets that took place in the entire city of New York.

Masseria was not only know for his ability to muscle his way around the underworld. He was also known as the man who could "dodge bullets" -- literally! There were several attempts on Masseria's life, including an assassination attempt on him by Peter Morello, the former leader of the Morello Gang in an attempt to regain power. He sent Umberto Valenti, a hired gunman, to kill Masseria. Valenti found Masseria walking along the street with two of his body guards and opened fire on all three of them. The two bodyguards were killed as Valenti emptied his gun, but no shots had hit Masseria, instead he fled the scene and headed into a millinery shop. Valenti continued to pursue his prey into the shop, figuring Masseria for a sitting duck since he had no way to get out. Valenti was wrong. He fired more than ten shots at Masseria who dodged every one of them. Valenti then fled because he heard the sirens of police, leaving his job unfinished. Valenti would later be killed by Charlie Luciano and Joe Adonis on orders from Masseria.

The Morellos soon sought peace shortly there after and Masseria accepted. He even made Peter Morello one of his top aides.

Masseria was a very strict and difficult boss to work for, and many of his young lieutenants would soon understand this. Luciano, who was Masseria's number one man, was ordered to stop associating with Jewish mobsters, Masseria thought it unwise to have relationships outside the Sicilian organization. When asked to form an allegiance with the Jewish and Irish mobs that were encroaching into his rackets, Masseria flatly refused. He believed that all the other mobs were below the Sicilian mob and would rather have them killed than share his wealth with them.

Masseria faced no serious threats to his power for almost a decade until 1927, when Salvatore Maranzano, a native of Castellemmarese del Gulfo came to the U.S. on orders from the top Mafia Chieftain, Don Vito Cascio Ferro, to organize and take over the U.S. Mafia and to prepare the way for Cascio Ferro to eventually take over. But Cascio Ferro would never make, having been arrested by the Mussolini's fascists and imprisoned for life. Maranzano saw no reason not to continue his rise to power though, and proceeded to hijack Masseria's bootlegging trucks and start infringing upon other Masseria-rackets. This started the Castellemmarese War, and as time went on Maranzano became more and more powerful, depleting Masseria's resources. At first, Masseria figured it would be easy to squash the younger Maranzano, filling the streets with gunmen out to find and kill all those who associated themselves with the Castellemmarese native. He was wrong.

During the fighting, most of the young turks that fought on the side of Masseria began to hate working for him and decided that they didn't want to work for Maranzano either. Under the direction of Charlie Luciano, the young turks organized themselves, waiting for either one side of the war or the other to eventually win, but this took to long. After the near-death beating at the hands of Maranzano's men for refusing to join forces with him, Luciano decided to kill both Masseria and Maranzano. His plan was to end the war and rid Organized Crime of the old world mentality of the Mustache Petes who spent too much time thinking of old vendettas rather than new ways to succeed in crime and bring in what would soon become the National Crime Syndicate, or "The Commission."

Luciano first sided with Maranzano, agreeing to kill Masseria, but only if Luciano would be given all of Masseria's rackets after the job was completed. Maranzano was pleased to agree to this, figuring that only after Masseria was dead would this bloody war be over.

On April 15, 1931, Luciano invited Masseria to eat at his favorite restaurant, Nuova Villa Tammaro in Coney Island. The owner of the restaurant was an old friend of Masseria's, who knew of the ravenous appetite of Joe the Boss, so he prepared a large meal for the two men. By the time they were done eating, all the other customers had left and the owner of the restaurant had also left for a walk along the beach conveniently leaving only Luciano and Masseria there to play cards. Luciano then excused himself and went to the bathroom. As he did this, four gunmen entered the restaurant and opened fire on the old Don. This time he could not dodge the bullets. Six bullets landed in him and also one to the back of the head, reportedly shot by Albert Anastasia who would later become the main executioner for Murder Inc., the National Crime Syndicates Enforcement branch.

After Masseria's death, the police questioned Luciano who had been in the bathroom if he had seen anything, and he said no, but that he had heard shots as he was drying his hands and then rushed out to see what was happening. When he came out he found his old sponsor and friend dead at the table, by himself, face down over the cards that he was playing with. With the death of Masseria the Castellemmarese War was reported finished, but it would be another few months with the death of Maranzano that would mark the overthrow of all the Mustache Petes and begin the dawning of the new age in Organized Crime.