Who is your favorite american ganster?

[backbreaker]

For me I have to go with the prime minister, Frank Costello. First of all despite being a career criminal, he was one of the smarter mafisio there was. His entire life he was behind bars less than 2 years, despite rising to be the boss of the Genovese crime family. He ran NY at a time. Also, he freaking retired lol. Just.. just stopped lol. it got old and he decided he was just going to chill at the Waldorf the rest of his life and kick it. Probaly the most respected of all the major bosses, the only person who really had any beef with him was Genovese himself and that was because he wanted to be boss.

 

[Bible_Belt]

I never realized it, but there were also Jewish gangsters and mafia. What made them different is that when they made some money off organized crime, they would go invest it wisely in a legitimate business and then eventually leave the life of crime behind.

By contrast, when Italian gangsters made money, they bought new suits, expensive jewelry and nice cars. They didn't try to leave the mafia life behind, which is why we associate Italians with organized crime much more so than Jewish people.

 

[backbreaker]

I never realized it, but there were also Jewish gangsters and mafia. What made them different is that when they made some money off organized crime, they would go invest it wisely in a legitimate business and then eventually leave the life of crime behind.

By contrast, when Italian gangsters made money, they bought new suits, expensive jewelry and nice cars. They didn't try to leave the mafia life behind, which is why we associate Italians with organized crime much more so than Jewish people.

Murder Inc was mostly Jewish hit men.


It's not quite that simple. in the early 20th century the jewish mob was the mob.

well, to better explain, the American mob really has 4 distinct stages.

the first stage is pre 1920. AT this time, there really wasn't a mob there was just a bunch of people committing crimes and doing freelance work for the most part. Prohibition changed everything.

Which brings you to the next stage. At prohibition, a few smart individuals figured out a way to smuggle alcohol, i.e rumrunning. Arnold Rothstien (the black sox scandal and the dude on boardwalk empire lol)and Myer Lansky were probably the 2 most prominent gangsters at this time, both jewish.

rothstien is probably what you would call the Abraham of the american mob. The people who were able to put their difference in ethnetices behind (Italians and jews worked together at this time, there were no real crime families at this time, you either worked for someone or you worked for someone else) made a killing.

Then you have the third stage. After prohibition, you had these mafiosos who had money and wanted more power. Carlo Gambino, Lucky Luciano, Frank Castello. They killed off some of the more prominent gangsters of the time (castellammarese war) like rothestien who did not have the same vision as they had. Once this was done, it was Luciano who came up with the idea of the commission/five families of NY idea, ironically enough to stop from what had just happened, happening again. This was the birth of the golden age of the mafia.

AT this time, you still had Jewish mafia, i.e murder inc, Lanksy and bugsy siegel all who worked with the mob very closet but because of their entheiticy were not allowed to be fully fledged mob members, just associates of the mob.

This lasted for about 35 years, until Costello became the boss of the Genovese crime family and Genevese tried to have him killed (the genovese crime family is really the luciasno crime family just renamed). at that point costello who was loaded, said it's about time for me to hang this up and passed the reigns to genovese, who in very short order fvcked up the entire gig for everyone lol. he is the cause of the Appalachian conference, and once he was in jail on something i forgot what, he made a threat to Joe Valachi becuase he thought he was snitching on him and he thought he was the reason he was in jail (he wasn't) and valachi, knowing he was about to get clipped, turned to the fed's and gave up the entire crime syndicate, made j. edgar hoover reconize the mob (he deinded that existed until then) and it then became the FBI's main target. that was the end of the golden era for the mob.

jewish mobsters were always around but after the castellammarese war you had to be Italian to really raise in rank.

 

[FairShake]

"Favorite" is a bad word. I don't LIKE gangsters. They're scum and they fvck the working man. BUT I am interested in them from a historical standpoint.

Here are some Philadelphia/Pennsylvania gangsters that are interesting.

Angelo Bruno: The Docile Don. Headed the Philadelphia family for 25 years by being quiet and low-key and non-violent. Possibly the closest I come to respect for one of these guys. Was able to wrangle a seat on the National Commission. Had a deal with Frank Rizzo to keep the streets of Philadelphia free from drugs and violent crime in return for being left alone.

Nicodemo Scarfo: The exact opposite of Bruno. A violent paranoid man who ruined his organization in the end. But before that took control of Atlantic City almost like other mobsters did Vegas.

Russell Bufalino: An incredibly low-key guy out of Scranton. Had a tiny family but vast interests all over Pennsylvania and New York. He had enough juice to host the ill-fated Appalachian meeting. Probably killed Hoffa and might've killed Crazy Joey Gallo.

Frank Sheeran: Russell Bufalino AND Jimmy Hoffa's number one hitman. If he killed Hoffa and Gallo was probably the number one hitman in OC history. My stepfather knew him because they had union business together. A drunken lout and psychopath but killed alot of people and never came close to getting caught.

Ronald Raiton: Can't really explain him easily. If you're interested look him up. The biggest meth dealer in America during the 80s. Sold to the mafia, Irish K&A gang, Junior Black Mafia in Philly. Yet when he ratted THEY went to jail and he went scot free (keeping his money) despite being bigger and richer than them.

 

[backbreaker]

scarfo along with albert anastasia are probably the 2 most ruthless mafia people in american history. Scarfo played no games. if he thought you were thinking about thinking about rating on him he'd kill you. anastaisa killed so many people the mob even thought he was bat**** crazy and killed him so he would stop killing people. the mob knew as long as the crimes that were being committed were out of the public eye they coudl bribe the police force and did for quite a while. but when you have bodies in the street every week you can't bribe that.

 

[Who Dares Win]

Barack Obama, George W Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, in that order

^^^THIS^^^

And lets add Rockfellers and the goldman sachs crew as well.

 

[backbreaker]

save the political bull**** for another thread. if you can't contribute don't derail my thread to **** beucase you don't know **** about mafioso history

the guy who you go out with a group of people with and you try to talk about something half ass interesting and beucase he doesn't know anything about the subject blanket gotcha statement

 

[Who Dares Win]

save the political bull**** for another thread. if you can't contribute don't derail my thread to **** beucase you don't know **** about mafioso history

the guy who you go out with a group of people with and you try to talk about something half ass interesting and beucase he doesn't know anything about the subject blanket gotcha statement

You should know yourself than most of the rich men nowadays comes straight from families who got their fortune from the doubts activities in the first half of the 20th century, they were called robber barons for a reason.

Im sorry that you consider gangsters only those few guys you watched on tv or read about cause they had no power over media or literature, but if you really love to brag about your "knowledge" you should bother at least to see how other people can contribute, of course before getting emotional.

You will find out that most of those in power now got big through illegal activities and then moved to the legal field as many proper gangsters which you know.
They simply have no problem with law now cause they are among the big lawmakers.

If you're concept of gangster is some italian fat guy driving on a new jersey highway while listening "get yourself a gun" till reaching his mansion, you're not that competant as you tought.

ps. theres nothing cool about gangsters,they make the world crappy for us good folks and its childish to consider them close to heroes.

 

[carrot]

backbreaker
if your secret desire is to be well known gangster ?

For me I have to go with the prime minister, Frank Costello. First of all despite being a career criminal, he was one of the smarter mafisio there was. His entire life he was behind bars less than 2 years, despite rising to be the boss of the Genovese crime family. He ran NY at a time. Also, he freaking retired lol. Just.. just stopped lol. it got old and he decided he was just going to chill at the Waldorf the rest of his life and kick it. Probaly the most respected of all the major bosses, the only person who really had any beef with him was Genovese himself and that was because he wanted to be boss.

 

[backbreaker]

backbreaker
if your secret desire is to be well known gangster ?

no. just a subject i find interesting. i don't have to explain myself or my interests to anyone here no more than i have to explain my hobbies to girls i dated. if you don't find it interesting don't post but i don't need to be lectured on what i should or should not find interesting and for what.


some of the more inteesting hard luck/ rags to riches stories that you will find from the 20th' century is from the mafia. **** if you were Italian and could not cook your ass off or could play a musical instrument really what choice did you really have to every make it to the very top or precieved very top? **** you are illegal, the best you can hope for is a 50 cent a day job somewhere in the town working 6 days a week.



an immigrant who didn't even finish high school who is able to control a mulit million dollar a year enterprise by the time he was in his 50's I find that interesting, rather it's mafia related or not, and that's exalty what Frank Costello did. In the late 30's/early 40's you couldn't get a judge appointed, a politician elected anywhere in the city without his approval and he did all of it without drawing attention to himself or by kllling anyone. That , my friends, is impressive. And if you know anything about mafia history you know that he got his nickname beucase he rarely resorted to violence only when absolutely necessary, hence the name the prime minister. Myer Lansky, the jewish mobster was born in russia, grew up dirt poor, his family was beaten by the russians for no other reason than being jewish, and when he died he died with over 300 million dollars hidden away that the feds never could find. Does the fact that Bugsy Siegal killed people neglect the fact that he had a vision for las vegas that was decades ahead of anyone else in business there at the time? I don't have to agree with his line of work or his morality to find his story intriguing and still learn something from it.

If you were an adult minority male and you needed a loan to do anything and you weren't a business or you did not have perfect credit you know where you had to get the money from? the mob. the mob was the original pay day cash services, they loaned to people that no one else would, they provided seed money for startup companies, they provided operating cash flow for struggling businesses through the depression. Do you undestand that it was the mob(s) in the early 1900's that protected their own from the irish and african americans of the time, all of them hated each other. if you had a compnay or business you paid the mob protection money to protect from being jacked or robbed or whatever and yea hits a racket but it served a legit purpose and a legit need at the time. I'm not saying that everything the mob did was great nor am I glorifying the mob, but don';t come here and tell me how i should feel about anything. if you don't like the subject matter dont' post. simple as that. don't derail my thread telling me what i shoudl and should not be posting about. all this **** on this forum I don't agree with I hate fvcking rap music I'm a jazzhead but you don't see me going in the frank ocean thread telling people to listen to real music. If you must know I despise neoconservatives but you don't see me all in the obamacare lives thread damning people to hell. different **** interests different people. a valuable skill set as a likeable adult is to learn to let people do their thing, even if you don't agree with it. No one wants to be around nor date the altruistic ******* who tries to impose his will on everyone else.

 

[elite7]

al capone, meyer,and trafficante not as famous as other gangstas like gambino but I cant stand the gambinos!!!

 

[backbreaker]

capone is vastly overrated. benefactor of good timing and being in a city where he was teh most ruthless person around. not very intelligent not very enterprising. would have gotten handled at a very early age had he stayed in NY.

 

[elite7]

True but that can be said for the gambinos the daughters almost lost the house they now live in and the dad was not open to work with other famlies.Al was ruthless true trafficante was more of a mini mogul who hated fame .

 

[ArcBound]

What do you think about Frank Lucas?

 

[backbreaker]

True but that can be said for the gambinos the daughters almost lost the house they now live in and the dad was not open to work with other famlies.Al was ruthless true trafficante was more of a mini mogul who hated fame .

the only fault gambino had was to name his ***** ass step son his successor.

the gambino family would still be, well id ont' know abou tstill but things would have turned out much differently if dellacroce were named boss iusntead of Paul Castelleno. For one there would have been no need for gotti to ever take the reigns over and believe it or not and gotti despite being flashy was a horrible boss.

I mean, in the mafia, there is always going to be an element of violence but i dont' care for overly violent mafias like Capone or Genevese who are just violent for no reason violent. I mean just the way the business is sometimes you got to do what you got to do, but like the st valentines day masscure, you can't run an underground business when all your **** is in the main stream news across the country

What do you think about Frank Lucas?

meh. I mean, the only reason he was even able to think about doing what he did is beucase at least offically the mob wanted nothing to do with drugs. if the mob wanted to do with drugs they had all the connets and the manpower to muscle anyone out. the mob used their connections and cut out having to deal with the street level **** and just sold to him and a few others in bulk. i'm not all that impressed by that.

i am more impressed, i mean, impressed is not the word especially considering i was at once addicted to crack myself, but freeway rick ross.. i mean he pretty much invented crack when he saw the need for a low cost but high impact drug to sale in the hood. he was slanging coke in clubs and wanted to figure out a way to get the high priced drug to people who could not afford it. Lucas made about what, 30-40 mil, ross made over half a billion dollars. and while he had guns and a crew anda ll that, really was not violent. went out of his way not to be violent. If i am not mistaken he got let out of jail not that long ago.

I mean i am not imprssed that much with people who used drugs because that's a given. i am more impressed by creative people. I mean siegal knew back in the 30's that people from all over the world would want to stop and visit a desert town in the least most populated state in America. decades before his time gangster or not. Frank Costello was based in NY and was making millions off slot machines he had based in louisiana.