Giuseppe "Joe the Baker" Catania was a Sicilian-born American mobster murdered during the Castellammarese War of 1931 in New York City.
Giuseppe "Joe the Baker" Catania was a Sicilian-born American mobster murdered during the Castellammarese War of 1931 in New York City.
Giuseppe was born October 1, 1902, in Palermo, Sicily to Antonio Catania and Francesca La Scala. [1] He emigrated to New York City with his parents and older brother in 1903. [2] By 1905 the family consisted of his parents, older brother Calogero (aka "James"), younger brother Andrew, grandparents Calogero Catania and Anna Montala' Catania, and aunts Antonette Catania and Josephine Catania. [3] His father ran a Manhattan bakery, and Giuseppe became known as "Joseph" and "Joe the Baker" in later years. [4]
| External videos | |
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 Organized Crime in America. Synopsis of the criminal life of Joe "the Baker" Catania, Nov 3, 2022, YouTube |
Giuseppe and Calogero became followers of their uncle Ciro Terranova and the Morello crime family. [4] During Prohibition he took control of the Italian bread industry in the Bronx [5] and achieved some level of notoriety when it was revealed a judicial officer "had been friendly with Terranova and Joseph Catania for years and socialized with them...through the Tepecano Club" [6] and may have been a middleman in judicial corruption. [7]
In 1930 two separate organized crime factions began attacking each other. Known as the Castellammarese War, it pitted mobsters allied to Salvatore Maranzano against those allied with Joe Masseria. [8] Catania was allied with the latter, [9] had been hijacking Maranano's liquor trucks [10] and ultimately was shot by Maranzano loyalists in front of a candy store in the Bronx on Feb. 3, 1931. [11] His death may have been engineered to bring a speedy conclusion to the Castellammarese War, [12] and he died two days later at Fordham Hospital in New York City. [13] Terranova funded an elaborate funeral, with forty cars to carry the floral displays. [14] [15] He is buried at old St. Raymond's cemetery in the Bronx. [16]
Salvatore Maranzano, nicknamed Little Caesar, was an Italian-American mobster from the town of Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, and an early Cosa Nostra boss who led what later would become the Bonanno crime family in New York City. He instigated the Castellammarese War in 1930 to seize control of the American Mafia, winning the war after the murder of rival faction head Joe Masseria in April 1931. He then briefly became the Mafia's capo di tutti capi and formed the Five Families in New York City but was murdered on September 10, 1931, on the orders of Charles "Lucky" Luciano, who established The Commission, in which families shared power to prevent future turf wars.
Joseph Michael Valachi was an American mobster in the Genovese crime family who was the first member of the Italian-American Mafia to acknowledge its existence publicly in 1963. He is credited with the popularization of the term cosa nostra.
Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria was an early Italian-American Mafia boss in New York City. He was boss of what is now called the Genovese crime family, one of the New York City Mafia's Five Families, from 1922 to 1931. In 1930, he battled in the Castellammarese War to take over the criminal activities in New York City. The war ended with his murder on April 15, 1931, in a hit ordered by his own lieutenant, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, in an agreement with rival faction head Salvatore Maranzano.
Vito Genovese was an Italian-born American mobster of the American Mafia. A childhood friend and criminal associate of the legendary Lucky Luciano, Genovese took part in the Castellammarese War and helped Luciano shape the new American Mafia's rise as a major force in organized crime in the United States. He would later lead Luciano's crime family, which would in 1957 be renamed by the FBI as the Genovese Crime Family after its then boss Vito.
The Castellammarese War was a bloody power struggle for control of the American Mafia between partisans of Joe "The Boss" Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano that took place in New York City from February 1930, until April 15, 1931. The feud was named after the Sicilian town of Castellammare del Golfo, Maranzano's birthplace.
Manfredi "Al" or "Alfred" Mineo was an Italian American mobster, who headed a strong American Mafia crime family during the Castellammarese War. Mineo's organization would eventually become the present-day Gambino crime family.
Giuseppe "the Clutch Hand" Morello, also known as "The Old Fox", was the first boss of the Morello crime family and later top adviser to Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria. He was known as Piddu and his rivals the Castellammarese knew him as Peter Morello. He was famous for having a one-fingered deformed right hand that resembled a claw.
The Morello crime family was one of the earliest crime families to be established in the United States and New York City. The Morellos were based in Manhattan's Italian Harlem and eventually gained dominance in the Italian underworld by defeating the rival Neapolitan Camorra of Brooklyn. They were the predecessors of what eventually became known as the Genovese crime family.
The Five Families refer to five Italian American Mafia crime families that operate in New York City. In 1931, the five families were organized by Salvatore Maranzano following his victory in the Castellammarese War. Maranzano reorganized the Italian American gangs in New York City into the Maranzano, Profaci, Mangano, Luciano, and Gagliano families, which are now known as the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese families, respectively. Each family had a demarcated territory and an organizationally structured hierarchy and reported to the same overarching governing entity.
Ignazio Lupo, also known as Ignazio Saietta and Lupo the Wolf, was a Sicilian American Black Hand leader in New York City during the early 1900s. His business was centered in Little Italy, Manhattan, where he ran large extortion operations and committed other crimes including robberies, loan-sharking, and murder. By the start of the 20th century, Lupo merged his crew with others in the South Bronx and East Harlem to form the Morello crime family, which became the leading Mafia family in New York City.
Thomas Gaetano Lucchese, sometimes known by the nicknames "Tommy", "Thomas Luckese", "Tommy Brown" or "Tommy Three-Finger Brown", was an Italian-American gangster and founding member of the Mafia in the United States, an offshoot of the Cosa Nostra in Sicily. From 1951 until 1967, he was the boss of the Lucchese crime family, one of the Five Families that dominate organized crime in New York City.
Thomas Gagliano was an Italian-born American mobster and boss of what U.S. federal authorities would later designate as the Lucchese crime family, one of the "Five Families" of New York City. He was a low-profile boss for over two decades. His successor was his longtime loyalist and underboss, Tommy Lucchese.
Stefano Ferrigno was an American mobster of Sicilian origin who led an important Italian criminal gang in the 1920s. Ferrigno was murdered along with Alfred Mineo during the so-called Castellammarese War.
Ciro Terranova was an Italian-born American gangster in New York City, and one time underboss of the Morello crime family.
Buster from Chicago was a pseudonym used for a mobster and freelance hitman of the 1930s. He is alleged to have played a key role in the Castellammarese War (1929–1931) as the assassin of Giuseppe Morello and others. Some claim that Buster was gangster Sebastiano Domingo (1910–1933), notably Bill Bonanno, the son of Bonanno crime family leader Joseph Bonanno, who participated in the War. Others charge that Buster is a character created by Joe Valachi to evade his responsibility for various killings.
Frank Scalice, also known as "Don Ciccio" and "Wacky", was an Italian-American mobster active in New York City, who led the future Gambino crime family from 1930 to 1931. He was consigliere from 1931 until his murder on June 17, 1957.
Gaetano Reina was an Italian-American gangster. He was an early American Mafia boss who was the founder of what has for many years been called the Lucchese crime family in New York City. He led the family until his murder on February 26, 1930, on the orders of Joe Masseria.
Nicola Gentile, also known as Nick Gentile, was a Sicilian mafioso and an organized crime figure in New York City during the 1920s and 1930s. He was also known for publishing his memoirs which, violating the mafiosi code known as omerta, revealed many details of the Sicilian and American underworld. Gentile was born in Siculiana, a small village on the south coast of Sicily in the province of Agrigento. He immigrated to the United States arriving in New York at age 18, in 1903. Gentile fled the country in 1937 while out on $15,000 bail after an arrest for heroin trafficking and returned to Sicily to become a boss in the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. In the US, he was known as "Nick" and in Sicily as "Zu Cola".
Salvatore Sabella was an Italian-born crime boss of the Philadelphia crime family in the 1920s.
This is a list of organized crime in the 1930s, arranged chronologically.
