This Day in Mafia History
Hey, listen up, pal! It’s friggin’ mind-blowing, y’know? Practically every freakin’ day of the year is tied to some important “Family” shenanigan. I mean, c’mon, you got your typical hits, your busts, those unfortunate suckers who didn’t fare too well in court, or maybe they just mysteriously vanished into thin air (Hey, Tony, where the hell are ya?). But hey, it ain’t all doom and gloom, capisce? We got some of The Boys tyin’ the knot, and others gettin’ sprung from the joint. And let me tell ya, we got these huge-ass meetups goin’ on right here too. Ya know, life’s a rollercoaster in this business.
So check it out. We got this fancy calendar thingy, right? It’s got all these tiny icons, so even you can understand what the hell’s goin’ down. And it’s packin’ all the juicy details about what went down on those dates. Keep your eyes peeled, and don’t ask too many damn questions. Got it? Good.
October
So picture this: it’s October 1, 1937. Bang, bang, bang—shots ring out in the Bronx. Word on the street? Mendy Weiss, one of Murder, Inc.’s finest trigger men, is behind the trigger. Poor sap Max Rubin, a witness for D.A. Thomas E. Dewey, takes a few hot ones, but the guy ain't dead yet. Nah, Rubin pulls through, and what does he do? Starts running his mouth, spilling all kinds of dirt, including the story of how Joe Rosen got put on ice. Bad news for some folks.
October 1, 1942, the army bumps up Albert Anastasia, see? From private to private first class—just your standard promotion, nothing fancy. He’s got his chevron, a rocker stripe, all that jazz. But here’s the kicker: by October 21, they promote him again, this time to technician fifth class. Two chevrons and a big ol' "T" underneath. Folks start calling him “Corporal” or “Corporal Technician.” Why? ‘Cause the man knows his way around a dock. Stevedoring’s his game, and they recognize his talent.
October 2, 1897—mark the date, 'cause that's when the game changed. Over in Sicily, Italy, a future kingpin takes his first breath: Giuseppe "Joe" Profaci. Little did they know, this kid would grow up to be one of the biggest Mafia bosses to ever walk the streets.
October 2, 1941—Emil Camarda, big shot Vice President of the Atlantic Seaboard Branch of the International Longshoremen’s Association and close pal of Albert Anastasia, finds himself in a heated argument. Things get ugly fast, and before you know it, Salvatore Sabbatino pulls the trigger. Just like that, Camarda’s out of the game, dead over a quarrel. Another high-profile name gone in the blink of an eye, with Anastasia losing one of his own.
October 4, 1951—Willie Moretti, big-time New Jersey mobster, sits down at Joe’s Elbow Room in Cliffside Park. But this ain't just another meal. Outta nowhere, four guys with no names come in, guns blazing. Moretti doesn’t even see it coming—he’s dead before the check hits the table. Four killers, no witnesses, just another day in the life.
October 7, 1908—New York City gets a new problem when Harry "Happy" Maione is born. But don’t let the nickname fool ya; this kid grows up to be one of Murder, Inc.'s deadliest hitters. Cold as ice with a smile on his face, "Happy" Maione would soon make a name for himself with a gun in his hand and bodies in his wake.
October 8, 1931—Pittsburgh sees another body turn up, and this one’s a real mess. Salverio "Toto" Amarosa, another suspected casualty of the big Mafia purge, gets the works. Stabbed, strangled with a clothesline, and stuffed into a burlap bag like yesterday’s trash. To top it off, they set him on fire. And get this—it’s just one day after bootlegger Jack Palmere gets whacked in a Pittsburgh restaurant. Were these hits tied to Charlie Luciano’s rumored cleanup? Maybe, maybe not, but somebody was making a statement.
October 9, 1933—Chicago mobster Gus Winkler, a guy with some bloody history tied to the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, gets his own dose of lead. Machine gunned down, riddled with bullets—just like the way he dished it out. In the end, it’s curtains for Gus. As they say, "Dead men tell no tales," and Winkler ain’t talking anymore.
October 9, 1934—Ferdinand "The Shadow" Boccia makes the wrong move, crossing Vito Genovese over a rigged card game. Next thing you know, Willie Gallo and Ernest "The Hawk" Rupolo snatch him up. Abducted, just like that. The Shadow never stood a chance—he's taken out for good, leaving behind nothing but whispers of what went down. Disputes with Genovese don’t end well, and Boccia found out the hard way.
October 11, 1940—Boston cops collar Eddie McGrath for the September rub-out of Leo Tocci, whose body got fished out of Card Sound down in Miami. Florida law was already after Eddie, slapping a fugitive warrant on him. But McGrath thought he was in the clear, hitting up a racetrack in New Hampshire before heading back to New York. Wrong move. They grab him, and what does Eddie say? “I never murdered anyone.” True or not, those Tocci charges didn’t stick. Eddie walked, leaving the questions hanging in the air.
October 12th–16th, 1957—Palermo’s Grand Hotel des Palmes turns into a mobster’s clubhouse. Joseph Bonanno, fresh off the boat from America, sits down with the top Sicilian and American wiseguys. Leading the charge? None other than Charlie "Lucky" Luciano, still calling the shots from exile. During the meet, the Sicilians set up their first Commission, making Salvatore Greco the man in charge. Word on the street is they talked about pushing the heroin game worldwide. The feds think this was the moment the Bonanno crew locked down their piece of the drug trade—and they weren’t wrong.
October 14, 1934—New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia makes his move, ordering a massive police raid on gambling parlors across the city. Over 1,000 slot machines, all owned by mob boss Frank Costello, get smashed up. And to make sure Costello feels it, Police Commissioner Valentine personally oversees 2,000 of those machines getting dumped into the ocean. La Guardia was sending a clear message: the mob wasn’t running his city, at least not without a fight.
October 15, 1931—Joe Ardizonna, the top dog of the Los Angeles crime family, vanishes into thin air, never to be seen again. Word on the street? He’s presumed murdered, another casualty of the infamous "Night of the Sicilian Vespers." A power shift was in play, and Ardizonna's disappearance sealed the deal. One day you're in charge, the next, you're just a ghost.
October 16, 1912—young Frank Costello’s already making a name for himself. This time, he’s busted for assault and robbery, just another day in the life for the future mob boss. But like clockwork, he slips out of the jam and gets released. A little trouble with the law wasn’t gonna stop Costello—this was just the beginning.
October 16, 1927—New York labor racketeer Jacob Orgen gets taken out in a bloody hit by Louis Buchalter and Jacob Shapiro. Orgen doesn’t stand a chance, gunned down in the streets. His bodyguard, Jack Diamond, catches a few bullets himself but manages to survive the attack. Orgen’s reign ends in a hail of gunfire, and Buchalter and Shapiro move one step closer to the top.
October 17, 1929—Charlie "Lucky" Luciano gets the kinda welcome you don’t walk away from, but this guy? He’s different. Three mugs grab him at gunpoint, throw him into a limousine, and take him for a ride. Beaten, stabbed, tossed like yesterday’s garbage in the woods of Staten Island—left for dead. But here’s the kicker: Luciano don’t stay down. He crawls outta there, alive. But the scars? Oh, they stick around—left him with a droopy eye and a mark on his face that’ll remind everyone he ain’t someone to mess with.
October 17, 1931—listen up, ‘cause this is one for the books: Big Al, the boss himself, Al Capone, gets slapped with 11 years in the big house. Yeah, you heard right. Tax evasion, they say—ain’t that a kick in the teeth? The Feds couldn’t touch him for the blood on his hands, but they got him for skippin' on Uncle Sam’s cut. And if that ain’t enough, the judge hit him with an $80,000 fine. That’s a whole lotta dough, even for a guy like Capone. The empire’s about to feel the heat.
September 13, 1931. The bodies of Samuel Monaco and Louis Russo, loyal to Maranzano, were dragged out of Newark Bay by the cops. Their corpses were marked with the brutal signs of torture. This was no ordinary hit—it was a message, loud and clear, in the bloody aftermath of Maranzano’s fall.
October 17, 1939—Abe Reles, Max Golub, and Alex Strauss, Pittsburgh Phil’s own brother, got a little business to settle. See, this garage owner, Joseph Litvin, borrowed five grand from Reles at 20% interest, weekly. You do the math. But Litvin? He ain't been payin' up and even had the nerve to ask Pittsburgh Phil for more dough. So Reles and his crew go lookin’ for him at his garage, but Litvin’s nowhere to be found. What do they do? Start tearin’ up the place, trashing the customers’ cars. Then this guy, Ruben Smith, one of the employees, tries playin' hero, gets into it with Reles, but Golub? He ain’t messin’ around. Ends the fight quick with a fatal stab. Business handled—Brooklyn style.
October 18, 1936—two of Murder, Inc.’s finest, Harry "Happy" Maione and Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss, take care of a little problem named August Justriano. Brooklyn’s Avenue J is where it all goes down. Justriano gets his lights turned out, courtesy of a couple bullets. Four days later, the law tries to make a move—cuffs Albert Anastasia and Tommy Romanello, hittin’ ‘em with vagrancy, consortin’ with known criminals, or whatever excuse they could drum up. But the boys? They don’t stick. They walk outta the joint like it’s just another day in the neighborhood.
October 21, 1964—Joseph Bonanno, the big boss himself, is supposed to show his face in front of a federal grand jury. But before he can even button up his suit, poof—he vanishes. Snatched right outta his Park Avenue apartment by some mystery goons. No one saw nothin’, no one knows nothin’. Just like that, Bonanno’s off the grid, and the Feds are left scratchin’ their heads. Classic mob move.
September 18, 1932. Gangster Joe Valachi tied the knot, swapping bullets for vows. Even in the underworld, love finds a way.
October 23, 1935—Dutch Schultz gets his ticket punched. Bullets fly at the Palace Chophouse in Newark, New Jersey, and Schultz takes a hit. He’s tough, but not that tough. A day later, he's pushing up daisies. And it ain't just Dutch—they got Otto "Abbadabba" Berman, Lulu Rosencrantz, and Abe Landau too. All of 'em wiped out by Murder, Inc., the deadliest crew around, under orders straight from Charlie Lucky Luciano himself. With Dutch outta the way, Vito Genovese steps in, ready to scoop up the scraps of Schultz's empire and make 'em his own.
October 23, 1971—Meyer Lansky, the mastermind behind the casino underworld, finds himself in hot water as a federal grand jury slaps him with an indictment. They’re coming down hard, charging him with skimming from the Flamingo Hotel, one of the syndicate's crown jewels. Lansky and three accomplices are accused of plotting to hide and distribute a staggering $36 million in unreported income. The feds are closing in, and the stakes couldn’t be higher for the kingpin of organized crime.
October 25, 1957—Albert Anastasia, the so-called "Lord High Executioner," meets his own violent end. Gunned down in a barbershop, his murder was the result of a power struggle between the Genovese and Anastasia crime families. With Anastasia out of the way, the door swung wide open for Carlo Gambino to step up and take control—leading to the family eventually bearing his name. Suspects? Take your pick. Plenty of people wanted Anastasia dead, and someone finally made the move.
October 27, 1940—New York City welcomes a future kingpin as John Joseph Gotti Jr. is born. Little did anyone know, this kid would grow up to rule the streets as one of the most notorious mob bosses in history. Gotti, the "Teflon Don," was just getting started, but the streets of New York would one day know his name all too well.
