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" Final Resting Place of Joe Masseria"

 

Joe Masseria (Joe the Boss)
1879 - 15th April 1931
 Mafia Boss.
Head of the Masseria crime family until his death in a Brooklyn restaurant, ordered by Lucky Luciano & carried out by Bugsy Segal. The Masseria family were then taken over by the Maranzano family who became all powerful. In September Lucky Luciano ordered the death of Salvatore Maranzano and took control of the New York families to become Boss of Bosses. Together with Meyer Lansky, Lucky organized the New York mafia into 5 families with their own territories, which became the syndicate headed of cause by Luciano.
Calvary Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.

Giuseppe "Joe The Boss" Masseria (1879–April 15, 1931) was an early Mafia don in the United States. Masseria controlled all organized crime in New York City from 1920 until his assassination by Lucky Luciano in 1931 during the Castellammarese War.

After emigrating to the United States in 1903 to avoid murder charges in Sicily, Masseria became an enforcer for the Morello Gang in the Lower East Side of New York City. By 1920, he had assumed command of the gang through a series of assassinations.

Salvatore Maranzano was sent with several other men from Sicily in 1927 to gain control of the American Mafia for Don Vito Cascio Ferro. Maranzano gained the support of a faction and declared war on Masseria, in what became known as the Castellemmarese War.

On April 15, 1931 Joe Masseria was assassinated at the Nuova Villa Tammaro restaurant in Coney Island. Gangland legend has it that Masseria dined with Charles "Lucky" Luciano before his death. While they played cards, Luciano excused himself to the bathroom, when Vito Genovese, Bugsy Siegel, and others rushed in and shot Joe the Boss to death.

According to a recently discovered NYPD report, Masseria actually had lunch with his underboss, Sam Pollaccia, that day. While in the bathroom, Johnny "Silk Stocking" Giustra entered the restaurant. Both Pollaccia and Giustra then shot Masseria to death. The famous picture of Masseria holding the ace of diamonds, was intentionally arranged by a news photographer. Pollaccia and Giustra had formerly worked under Masseria's late Brooklyn underling Frankie Yale. After Masseria's murder, Sam Pollaccia disappeared permanantly, most certainly murdered, while Johnny Giustra was shotgunned to death in East Harlem in the summer of 1931.

The survivors of the Castellammarese War of 1930-31 were smart enough to take credit for Masseria's murder, which is probably how Luciano ended up getting put in Pollaccia's role that day. In a footnote to Masseria's murder, Gerardo Scarpato, owner of the restaurant where Joe the Boss was killed, was murdered himself in September 1931, within days of the killing of Salvatore Maranzano.