Consider that Maranzano organized and established the Five Families, recognized who was Boss of each Family and basically cobbled together the first draft idea of "The Commission". He modeled the Mafia's modern day chain of command after the Roman military's.

Luciano only did away with the formality of the "Boss of Bosses" position and the trouble it had caused, kept the general structure that Maranzano had put in place of the Five Families, and simply refined on what was already built...Yet he is commonly considered the father of American La Cosa Nostra...

But I pose it to you, who is the real father of American LCN?

Everything was in place when Lucky kill him so the real Father of the American LCN Is Salvatore Maranzano a man who never get the credit.

Maranzano organized the five families but luciano brought all the bosses together to form the commision which was replacing the boss of bosses position which was seen as americaizing the mafia and pulling it away from the mustache pete ways.

Vito Corleone.

None of them were the real fathers of American LCN. Mafia Families were established long before Maranzano became boss of bosses.

Maranzano if anyone. Luciano wasn't the smartest of guys.

agreed

I agree, and think that's the most accepted version !!!

A lot of mob guys from back in the days,when Luciano got deported, were caught sayin ''If only Lucky was here''.Im not sayin he was the smartest,but some guys wanted him back

They both made their contributions.

Maranzano's are noted above. There were problems with the structure that Maranzano created:
(1) boss of bosses led to his own death
(2) poor distribution of rackets among the 5 families creating stronger and weaker families that led to later conflict
(3) moving guys around from one family to another. Valachi was made into the Bonnano family but was moved into the Genovese. Would he have had the same problems had he remained a Bonnano?

Luciano brought the families from outside NY into the Commission and opened communications to create a nation wide syndicate. He also was one of the early guys involved in drug dealing, which has led to a decimation of LCN.

I don't really think either did more or less than the other. Both made significant contributions to LCN. I suppose I would consider Maranzano the Grandfather and Lucky the Father, if we have to apply credited names.

Maranzano.

We don't even know what Maranzano looked like. That photo that everyone thinks is Maranzano isn't really him. It's a photo of a gangster from London. Only known photos of Maranzano are the crime scene shots when he was killed but you still can't see his face.

Dave Critchley proved that photo isn't of Maranzano, he even had the London paper where that photo was taken from. The photo is of a guy named Salvatore Messina.

http://mysite.verizon.net/resrev64/id1.html

Is it just me or does Maranzano look like a right fat fuck in those images of his corpse, Messina was slim and it was pretty obvious it wasn't him. Why on earth would someone just decide to claim that picture was of Maranzano?

It´s called sensationalism. "Media" coverage on the Mafia is full of it. That´s something to keep in mind every time we read about the Mafia.

That's not Critchley's site. It's my site.

Thanks for putting that link on your post.It was fascinating reading and contained some info that I had never seen. This is why I love this board,so many posters taking so much time to research and share stuff about our mutual hobby. Thanks again for your work.

You're welcome.

BTW, HairyKnuckles is correct in what he wrote. The Mafia existed in America for decades before Maranzano. Luciano helped for the Commission, but the idea of a Commission was brought up before then by Vincenzo Troia. This was while Maranzano was the boss of bosses. He shot down the idea and distanced himself from Troia because it would have taken away his power.

Sorry about that Faithful1. My mistake, i didn't know who's site it was. I tried to link to the pdf file that Dave Critchley made on the Maranzano photo....(I'm pretty sure it was Dave C that made it) but the site that was hosting it seems to be down.

Those two photo's from the London papers really leaves no doubt that the photo everyone thinks is Maranzano is really Salvatore Messina.

Whoever found those photos it was a Great find!

A person from England shared the London newspaper with me; Dave later told me that this person got it from him. The funeral photo I think came from the New York Daily News, and some of the death scene photos were in a newspaper archive and were first posted by Howie Carr of the Boston Herald.

I don't know what Maranzano photo you are referring to when you wrote of a "pdf file that Dave" C made. Are you talking about the photoshop of what Maranzano looked like? If so, that was created by Tom Hunt and published in Informer magazine.

Faithful1 it does say the Informer on it but the copy of the pdf file i have of it says by David Critchley Ph.D.

Here's a quick shot of the top of the pdf file i have of it. If i'm mistaken it was by Critchley i apologise to whoever did it.

But i do see what your saying, it must of originally been on the Informer site and someone made a pdf of the article. I thought it was Critchley that put it out but i could very well be wrong on that. Sorry for the confusion.

This death scene picture of Maranzano is probably the best photo of his face that i have seen. I saw it on a website some time ago and copied it. I can't recall which site had it.

Faithful1 it could be from one of your sites for all i know. If so, i apologise again.

Faithful1 you were correct. I just went and took a look at the pdf file properties and the original file was called inf-v02n3-jul09.pub. The files author is listed as just Tom, but it must be the Tom Hunt you mentioned.

The file was on the moagnyc.org site. I've seen links to it in numerous places including Maranzano's wiki page.

The file i downloaded was

http://moagnyc.org/documents/Maranzano_David-Critchley.pdf

But that moagnyc.org site appears to be gone now.

Again i'm sorry for the confusion, i've had these files for a good amount of time and always thought Critchley put all of them out, but i guess i was wrong about that. Thanks.

Dave wrote the article you cited above, "Maranzano Muddle," and it was published in Informer magazine. Included with the article was a photoshop image of what Maranzano may have looked like. I uploaded my own blog on the website you went to before the "Maranzano Muddle" article came out. Dave and I came to a lot of conclusions independently and we did research together in New York in 2002, and since then, off and on, share research material. On most things we agree but there are some items where we differ. On Maranzano and Buster from Chicago we agree.