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Birth: Early 1900's
After dethroning Scalise the heads of the New York families decided to appoint Vincent Mangano as the new boss. Mineo's death had also led to Mangano's dominance on the Brooklyn waterfront. Mangano also had close ties with Emil Camarda, vice-president
of the International Longshoremen's Association. Through the association, the
family controlled the Brooklyn waterfront with activities ranging from extortion
to union racketeering, as well as illegal gambling operations including horse betting,
running numbers and lotteries. Mangano and Camarda also established the City
Democratic Club, ostensibly to promote bedrock American values but in reality as a
cover for Murder, Inc., the notorious band of mainly-Jewish hitmen who would do the
bidding of the Italian-American run families, for a price. Vince's brother Phillip was a member,
as was Albert Anastasia, known as the "Lord High Executioner". Anastasia and Mangano worked closely together for about 20 peacefull years before that was eventually brought to a stop. The ambitious Anastasia had enough of his leader and his ideas didn't match no longer with the elder Mangano. In April 1951, Phillip Mangano was found murdered, while his brother disappeared
without a trace that same day. Backed by Frank Costello and other leaders of the New York families the commission agreed upon promoting Anastasia as boss of the Mangano family.
Vito Genovese, the power-hungry underboss of the Luciano family, disliked the close ties between Costello and Anastasia, which provided solidarity in the
National Crime Syndicate for the two bosses.
Genovese thus jumped on the 1952 killing of a Brooklyn man named Arnold Schuster,
who Anastasia had killed for the most minor of indiscretions
(acting as a prosecution witness against a bank robber Anastasia didn't even know),
as evidence that Anastasia was unbalanced and a threat to the syndicate. With Anastasia underboss Carlo Gambino
secretly siding with Genovese against his own boss, the wheels were in motion for the
removal of Anastasia.
up in a drug deal which, intentionally, went wrong. Genovese was sent to prison for 15
years, where he would eventually die in 1969. The Gambino family soon became one of
the most powerful families in the National Crime Syndicate, with close ties to
Meyer Lansky's offshore gaming
houses in Cuba and the Bahamas, a lucrative business
for the Mafia. The failure of Joe Bonanno to
kill off Gambino and the heads of other New York crime families in the aftermath of
the Banana War saw Gambino become the most powerful leader of the five families.
capo Frank DeCicco at the Sparks Steak House on East 46th Street,
when they were gunned down by four unidentified men in the middle of rush hour.
Gotti had organized the hit, and duly took over as the head of the Gambino family.
Known as the "Dapper Don", Gotti was well-known for his hand-tailored suits and
silk ties, and his willingness to throw out soundbites to the media in a way unlike any
Mafia boss before him. He appointed DeCicco as his underboss and promoted Ruggiero
to capo in charge of his old crew. He favored holding meetings while walking in public
places, so that surveillance equipment could pick up visual images but not the matters
being discussed. His home in Howard Beach, Queens, was frequently seen on television,
and he was often spotted dining at fancy restaurants in town.