Charles Luciano If Al Capone was the chief of the Neapolitans, then Charles “Lucky” Luciano was the Young Turk of the Sicilians. In one of the many wars between Mafia families, Luciano leaped to the top of New York’s gangster world. Charles Luciano was born Salvatore Lucania in a poor village in Sicily on November 24, 1897. In April 1906, Salvatore’s father Antonio Lucania brought his family to New York City, a strange place that was totally different from the quiet world of Sicily. As Luciano wrote in The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano, “All the time we was growin’ up, it seemed that all my old man ever talked about was going to America.” When they arrived in the Lower East Side of New York, there were so many people it was difficult just …show more content…
He was told to stay away from the Jewish kids with their “corrupting” influence. But he also learned something about Jews that he never forgot: they had brains. Later in life, that assessment would serve him well. Lucania, who changed his name to Charles Luciano, thought all Italians were stupid until he met Frank Castiglia, whom he judged to be as clever and perceptive as any Jew. Castiglia, who would change his name to Costello, was polished and tough, and never traveled without a pistol. The two quickly formed a friendship that lasted until the final years of Luciano’s life. Luciano’s plans for the future were realized when, after Costello’s release from prison, the two teamed up with two other kids from the Lower East Side neighborhood—two Jewish kids who wanted to make faster money. Meyer Lansky, born in 1902 in Grodno, Russia (then in the Polish Pale of Settlement), was a whiz in mathematics and, although he was just over five feet tall, he was good with his fists, and tough enough with any weapon. Benjamin Siegel was American-born, but his family had come to New York from Kiev. Tall, handsome, and graceful, Siegel was not as smart as Lansky, but he was even more