Boardwalk Gangster Read Online Free
Author: Tim Newark
Manhattan—the heart of the Italian immigrant community. This was the place where Charles Luciano began his criminal career as a teenage peddler of heroin.
2
HOW TO BECOME A GANGSTER
S alvatore Lucania sat at the back of a classroom in Roman Catholic Public School 19. He was nine years old with thick black hair and a sunburned complexion. He couldn’t understand a word the teacher was saying. The other kids in the class were much younger than he, but they all spoke English. He knew nothing but his native Sicilian. He was embarrassed and stubbornly refused to enter into the lesson. He stared out the window at the decrepit tenement blocks of the Lower East Side. Outside on the streets of New York, he vowed to make himself understood and respected—and feared. By the time he reached his goal, he would have a brand-new name to go with his brand-new American character—Charles “Lucky” Luciano.
Salvatore was born in Sicily on November 11, 1897. In the spring of 1907, he left the Mediterranean island with his family to emigrate to America. Their point of entry was the Lower East Side in New York City. In just one day in May 1907, twenty thousand immigrants arrived there, breaking all previous records by
five thousand. It was a human flood of economic refugees that included Italians, Irish, Portuguese, and Jews. Salvatore Lucania and his family arrived by transatlantic steamship from Palermo on the northern coast of Sicily. In the previous year, a total of 273,000 Italian immigrants had come to America. They were just one more family added to an army of poor people looking to earn a better living.
Salvatore’s family numbered his mother, Rosalie, and father, Antonio, older brother, Giuseppe, and his older sister, Francesca. A younger brother, Bartolo, was born later in the United States When the family finally stepped ashore and wandered through the teeming streets of southern Manhattan, jostled by thousands of other immigrants, they took a deep intake of breath. The smell of poverty was different in America. Back home in Lercara Friddi, a little village in the dusty heart of sun-blasted Sicily, it had been the reek of sulfur dug out from the mine where Antonio labored. Here it was a pungent multitude of odors: rotting fish, decaying garbage, stale alcohol—the smell of the big city. It would only get worse.
The Lower East Side was paralyzed by a series of strikes in the summer of 1907. One of these was led by Italian street cleaners. Garbage piled up on the streets outside tenement blocks. In the heat, clouds of flies buzzed around and the city’s health commissioner feared an outbreak of disease. His men poured chloride of lime and bromide solution over the rotting piles, but his biggest concern was for immigrant children. “They play freely all over them,” he said, “and rummage among them to find playthings. They smear themselves with the refuse and then eat with unwashed hands. Therein lies the real risk; the smell is only unpleasant.”
The Italian street sweepers wanted to raise their $720 a year income to $800, the same as the drivers of garbage carts, and were violently supported by their wives and friends, who threw bricks and fireworks at the police escorting strikebreakers. Later, in the summer, Teamster union members who packed meat for
big wholesalers went on strike. Jewish kosher butchers had to pick up the meat themselves, but when the prices went up, they refused to buy. No meat was bought for the Jewish Sabbath and all the Lower East Side went without, Italian butchers included. Mounted police had to guard wagons of meat driven by strikebreakers from the city abattoirs. Conflict was in the air as poor immigrants fought to get their fair share of American riches. Sometimes they turned to gangsters to help them out.
Dopey Benny was a renowned thug hired by Italian union officials to attack strikebreakers. “I got my men together,” he later admitted to a district attorney, “divided them up
2
HOW TO BECOME A GANGSTER
S alvatore Lucania sat at the back of a classroom in Roman Catholic Public School 19. He was nine years old with thick black hair and a sunburned complexion. He couldn’t understand a word the teacher was saying. The other kids in the class were much younger than he, but they all spoke English. He knew nothing but his native Sicilian. He was embarrassed and stubbornly refused to enter into the lesson. He stared out the window at the decrepit tenement blocks of the Lower East Side. Outside on the streets of New York, he vowed to make himself understood and respected—and feared. By the time he reached his goal, he would have a brand-new name to go with his brand-new American character—Charles “Lucky” Luciano.
Salvatore was born in Sicily on November 11, 1897. In the spring of 1907, he left the Mediterranean island with his family to emigrate to America. Their point of entry was the Lower East Side in New York City. In just one day in May 1907, twenty thousand immigrants arrived there, breaking all previous records by
five thousand. It was a human flood of economic refugees that included Italians, Irish, Portuguese, and Jews. Salvatore Lucania and his family arrived by transatlantic steamship from Palermo on the northern coast of Sicily. In the previous year, a total of 273,000 Italian immigrants had come to America. They were just one more family added to an army of poor people looking to earn a better living.
Salvatore’s family numbered his mother, Rosalie, and father, Antonio, older brother, Giuseppe, and his older sister, Francesca. A younger brother, Bartolo, was born later in the United States When the family finally stepped ashore and wandered through the teeming streets of southern Manhattan, jostled by thousands of other immigrants, they took a deep intake of breath. The smell of poverty was different in America. Back home in Lercara Friddi, a little village in the dusty heart of sun-blasted Sicily, it had been the reek of sulfur dug out from the mine where Antonio labored. Here it was a pungent multitude of odors: rotting fish, decaying garbage, stale alcohol—the smell of the big city. It would only get worse.
The Lower East Side was paralyzed by a series of strikes in the summer of 1907. One of these was led by Italian street cleaners. Garbage piled up on the streets outside tenement blocks. In the heat, clouds of flies buzzed around and the city’s health commissioner feared an outbreak of disease. His men poured chloride of lime and bromide solution over the rotting piles, but his biggest concern was for immigrant children. “They play freely all over them,” he said, “and rummage among them to find playthings. They smear themselves with the refuse and then eat with unwashed hands. Therein lies the real risk; the smell is only unpleasant.”
The Italian street sweepers wanted to raise their $720 a year income to $800, the same as the drivers of garbage carts, and were violently supported by their wives and friends, who threw bricks and fireworks at the police escorting strikebreakers. Later, in the summer, Teamster union members who packed meat for
big wholesalers went on strike. Jewish kosher butchers had to pick up the meat themselves, but when the prices went up, they refused to buy. No meat was bought for the Jewish Sabbath and all the Lower East Side went without, Italian butchers included. Mounted police had to guard wagons of meat driven by strikebreakers from the city abattoirs. Conflict was in the air as poor immigrants fought to get their fair share of American riches. Sometimes they turned to gangsters to help them out.
Dopey Benny was a renowned thug hired by Italian union officials to attack strikebreakers. “I got my men together,” he later admitted to a district attorney, “divided them up
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