Joe Masseria

He was born on January 17, 1886, in Menfi, Sicily, Italy as the only child of a tailor. He spent most of his childhood in the town of Marsala in westernmost part of Sicily where his family relocated when he was a child.

In 1902 Masseria reached the US so as to evade a murder indictment in Italy as during that time there was no extradition treaty between the US and Italy and therefore he had scope of living freely in the US.

Once a small time hoodlum in Italy, Masseria had no difficulty in getting work of an enforcer in the Morello crime family that conducted its activities from Harlem and also parts of Little Italy located in southern Manhattan. He received a suspended sentence in 1909 after being convicted of burglary.

After the Morello family fell into chaos starting with imprisonment of the boss of bosses Giuseppe "the Clutch Hand" Morello in 1910, Masseria, Gaetano Reina and Salvatore D'Aquila separated from the Morello family and formed their own crime families. Each group strived to gain control of the Morello territory.

Eventually D'Aquila whose crime family conducted activities from East Harlem and the Bronx became rivals of the Morellos. D'Aquila was appointed the new Capo di tutti capi that is "boss of all bosses".

The aggressive and fearless Masseria got into a bloody power struggle with D'Aquila with the two rivals striving to gain control of the Italian-American Mafia in New York. The two waged war against each other by the early 1920s.

In an attempt to end the power struggle D'Aquila assigned Umberto Valenti, a prominent member of his crime family to kill Masseria. While Masseria came out of his 80 2nd Avenue apartment on August 9, 1922, he was chased by two gunmen with gunshots. As Masseria took refuge in an 82 2nd Avenue store, they fired gunshots at the store. Thereafter they fled across 2nd Avenue to a getaway car, a Hudson Cruiser, jumping on its running board, and as the car headed towards Bowery, they continued blazing the guns.

Dozens of labourers who just came out to the streets following a Ladies Garment Industry Union meeting heard gun shots and attempted to stop the speeding car. The armed men however shot randomly at the crowd injuring six and killing two in addition to a horse.

The death of Frankie Yale, one of New York's leading gangsters of the 1920s in July 1928 seemingly fuelled the fire in Masseria to consolidate all Mafia families of New York under his control and become the overall boss of Mafia gangs of New York.

Few months later on October 10, 1928, D'Aquila, the "Boss of Bosses", was shot dead on Avenue A in Manhattan, a murder that was orchestrated by Masseria. D'Aquila's family was then taken over by Manfredi Mineo and his enforcer Steve Ferrigno who secretly became allies of Masseria.

Power and terror of “Joe the Boss" heading the biggest Mafia grouping in New York became such that other Sicilian gangsters including Bronx Mafia boss Gaetano "Tom" Reina and Ice racketeer who were still not part of the Masseria empire started paying him homage.