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Castellammarese War to the Commission: Luciano's Architecture of Power
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Before 1931, New York's criminal underworld was a street brawl. Lucky Luciano ended two wars with two murders — then built the Commission that governed American organized crime for generations.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Most people picture the American Mafia as something that always existed. A permanent underworld, passed down through blood and tradition, running itself on instinct and fear.
The conflict that reshaped everything started in nineteen thirty. Two factions.
April of nineteen thirty-one. Joe Masseria is having dinner at a restaurant in Coney Island.
What Luciano built in the wake of those two killings became known as the Commission. It was a governing body for organized crime.
For most of the nineteen thirties, Luciano managed his empire from a distance. He was sophisticated enough to keep layers between himself and day-to-day operations.
After Pearl Harbor, the threat of German sabotage along the East Coast became a genuine military concern. Naval Intelligence was worried about the docks.
Governor Thomas Dewey, the same man who had prosecuted Luciano a decade earlier, commuted his sentence in nineteen forty-six. The condition was immediate deportation to Italy.
Luciano's deportation was supposed to end his power. It didn't.
Luciano was forced out of Cuba and spent the rest of his life in Italy. He continued to maintain influence over American operations through intermediaries.
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