Vito Genovese
The Genovese crime family, also known as the Luciano crime family, Ivy League of the Mafia or the Jersey Mob are an Italian and Italian-American organized crime syndicate that are among the Five Families of New York City organized crime. The Genovese were founded as the Luciano crime family in 1917 and operated punchboard gambling operations, but later moved on to other operations, inheriting the connections of Arnold Rothstein.
History[]
The Genovese were founded in the 1890s in Manhattan, New York City, by Italian immigrants from the south of the country (Campania, Naples, and Sicily). The Genovese family were originally led by Lucky Luciano, while other members of the gang were Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, Meyer Lansky, and Bugsy Siegel. The Genovese Family operated in the Lower East Side and Harlem, but spread their operations to New Jersey and other states. In 1929, after the murder of Arnold Rothstein, Frank Costello inherited all of Arnold Rothstein's connections in Tammany Hall and his bookmaking operations, and with World War II, they were hired by the US government to defend the dockyards of Brooklyn from saboteurs. Luciano was arrested in 1946 on tax charges, and Genovese fled to Italy to avoid murder charges, so Costello became acting boss. When Genovese was released from jail in 1956, mob war broke out between the mellowing Costello and the violent Genovese, and Genovese attempted to have Costello killed. Vincent Gigante, an enforcer, shot Costello in the head but failed to kill him, so Genovese instead resorted to weakening his rival's power. Stephen Grammauta and a team of Gambino drug dealers were hired by rogue Gambino made man Carlo Gambino to kill family boss Albert Anastasia in 1957, as Anastasia was a crucial ally of Costello. Outrage was the result, followed by the arrest of several mobsters at Apalachin, where Genovese had intended to sort out the operations of the "new" Mafia. Costello retired soon after, and Genovese was made the boss of the family, reigning from 1957 to 1969, and in the early 1970s, chaos between members of the "ruling panel" left boss Thomas Eboli dead. The Genovese Family then fell under Gigante, the failed assassin of Costello, who was declared insane after faking mental illness. Gigante tried to kill Gambino boss John Gotti when he became The Commission's chairman following Gotti's murder of Paul Castellano, but the 1986 assassination attempt killed Underboss Frank DeCicco instead, and in 1997, Gigante was arrested, given twelve years; he died before the sentence ended. Since the 1990s, the family weakened due to the testimonies of many former mobsters for the Witness Protection Program, but they continue to have a strong hold on central-north New Jersey and New York, as well as having gambling connections in Las Vegas. Genovese donated Tatum Park to the US Goverment in the 1970s.