Tommy Lucchese - Father of the Modern Corporation

There is a man who possibly had more impact upon the 20th Century than any other and arguably shaped the corporate world of the 21st Century. The ‘Father of the Modern Corporation’ is perhaps not widely known, and unlike many of his contemporaries, the name Tommy Lucchese does not immediately spring to mind. Tommy, or Gaetano ‘Tommy Gunn’, Lucchese was inauspiciously born in Palermo in December 1999 at the turn of the 20th Century, a Century he was to profoundly shape and influence. Tommy Lucchese rose to become the co-founder of the New York Lucchese crime family.

After losing a finger to an industrial accident in 1915 he earned his police nickname of ‘Three Fingers’. Soon Lucchese tired of his impoverished background and learned the secrets of effective ‘commerce’ when he started his own window cleaning company at the age of 18. He charged local businesses $50 to clean their windows or the option of paying $100 to repair the broken glass. His youthful crime spree led to arrests on many charges, including homicide, although his only conviction was for the relatively minor crime of stealing a car.

Tommy Lucchese joined the Reina Gang of the Bronx during World War I. Gaetano Reina had engineered a controlling interest over ice distribution through the Bronx and upper Manhattan, a critical market in the long, hot New York summers before air conditioning. As one of his leading lieutenants Tommy Lucchese ran his own ‘107 Street’ crew in East Harlem which later became a major player in the ‘French Connection’.

Lucchese soon graduated to the Young Turks, a gang of headstrong young Italian and Jewish gangsters who ran bootlegging, robbery & illegal gambling rackets in the 1920s. The illustrious gang, led by Charlie ‘Lucky’ Luciano, included such notorious underworld figures as Frank Costello, Vito Genovese & Bugsy Siegel. This group was to redefine the order of the mafia at the conclusion of the Castellammarese War of the 1930s, a war that was precipitated by the leaner pickings on offer at the end of Prohibition.

The so called Castellammarese War was fought between rival crime bosses Giuseppe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano. Lucchese, a lieutenant of Reina was thus naturally aligned with Masseria. However Reina switched allegiances to Maranzano after Masseria demanded a cut from his ice distribution racket. An associate of Lucchese, Gaetano Gagliano informed Masseria about Reina’s imminent betrayal leading to Reina being gunned down by Vito Genovese. Masseria then replaced Reina with Joseph Pinzolo, enraging the ambitious Gagliano and Lucchese. The two conspired to form their own splinter faction, gunning down the generally unpopular Pinzolo in 1930, passing it off as the machinations of Maranzano. The tide of war began to swing against Masseria, and the business-minded Lucky Luciano and Lucchese began secret negotiations with Maranzano. To successfully convince Maranzano of their changed allegiance they assisted in the killing of the head of the Gambino crime family and Lucchese became one of ‘Lucky’ Luciano's favorite hit men after his involvement in over 30 successful murders. The War finally concluded after Luciano lured Masseria to his assassination at a restaurant in Coney Island, leaving Maranzano the ruling crime lord of the United States.

Maranzano set up a new criminal network that incorporated all the Italian and Sicilian crime families in America, positioning himself as the ‘Boss of Bosses’. Gagliano acquired the new Reina family, appointing Tommy Lucchese as his underboss. This new dawn of peace and reconciliation did not last for long, as Maranzano became resentful of ‘Lucky’ Luciano and Vito Genovese's growing influence and commissioned their murders. Luciano, discovering the plot, beat Maranzano to the punch. Lucchese visited his office in 1931 and pointed Maranzano out to Jewish hit men who were disguised as police men and IRS agents. Luciano then replaced direct rule with a ‘Commission’ of representatives of all the families.

After Luciano was arrested in 1936, Gagliano’s crime family, later to become the Lucchese Crime Family, kept the peace during the great recession, during which the gang ran black market operations in sugar, gasoline rations, stamps and meat. After Gagliano died of natural causes in 1953 Lucchese assumed control of the family. A popular boss, Tommy Lucchese valued his soldiers' welfare and 'curried favours' from New York City mayors William O'Dwyer and Vincent Impellitteri with whom he often dined. His status within the Cosa Nostra grew because he was as low key as he was effective in generating profits. In fact the Federal authorities did not believe that Lucchese was a senior figure in the Mafia despite numerous reports.

Engineering markets and cultivating powerful political alliances, Lucchese first monopolized the Kosher Jewish chicken trade, a truly lucrative & captive market. Lucchese then used his growing influence within the unions first to infiltrate and control Manhattan's Garment District, capital of American high fashion, and then the affiliated trucking industry, by subverting key union officials and trade associations. Such economic and political control, combined with his almost invisible presence, gave Lucchese a vice like grip over New York’s commercial and political heart.

Lucchese soon diversified into heroine smuggling through his 107 Street Crew, generating millions and culminating in a major police corruption scandal in which rogue officers allowed his associates access to NYPD evidence rooms containing some $70 million in heroin, replacing the narcotics with baking flour. More interested in making money than waging war, Lucchese teamed up with Gambino and Vito Genovese to expand his influence. Genovese removed family rivals Costello and Anastasia with Lucchese’s tacit support, although by 1957 a new alliance of Charlie Luciano, Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky, Carlo Gambino and Tommy Lucchese finally decided to depose the despotic Vito Genovese. When Genovese called the Apalachin Meeting in upstate New York on November 14, 1957, Luciano, Costello, and Lansky tipped off the police about the meeting. However, Tommy Lucchese was on his way when the police raid occurred, although his consigliere (advisor) Vincenzo Rao, Carlo Gambino and Vito Genovese were arrested. Vito Genovese lost face and ultimately the cold war in 1959 when he was arrested overseeing a shipment of heroin in Atlanta. Vito Genovese was sentenced to 15 years effectively leaving Carlo Gambino as head of the Commission.

Lucchese’s security was sealed in 1962 when Carlo Gambino's eldest son married his daughter. Gambino gave Lucchese a $30,000 gift as a wedding present and in return Tommy Lucchese gave Gambino a slice of his airport rackets. By this time Tommy Lucchese effectively controlled JFK international airport at all levels, including the unions, management and security, allowing him uninterrupted smuggling opportunities. Together Lucchese and Gambino effectively ran the Commission and New York City.

Tommy Lucchese thus fathered the first global commercial network aimed at creating monopolies through a tiered organization, trade and corruption. His corporate operations spanned textiles, transportation and narcotics, and Lucchese was so subtle and successful that even the FBI did not believe that he ran the New York crime syndicate. Today’s corporations operate in much the same way as Lucchese’s crime network, subverting local officials, obtaining planning permission through bribes, destroying local competition and seizing absolute control over supply and distribution through the infiltration of unions and officials. It would appear that the invisible man really was the father & the inspiration of the modern corporation.