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Vincent Mangano
By Mobster | September 19, 2007
Vincent Mangano, born March 28, 1888 in Sicily, Italy. He died April 19, 1951 at age 63 in New York. Mangano made the waterfront his family’s main income producer. He and his associates would threaten to prevent cargo from being loaded or unloaded if the shipping company refused to pay a tribute. Mangano would force workers to pay a fee for every day they worked on the docks – because of this, the mob knew exactly what was on each ship and could choose what to steal.
Mangano and Camarda established the City Democratic Club, which promoted bedrock American values in the front room, while illegal activities were hatched in the back room. It became a regular meeting place for the members of Murder, Inc., the infamous gang of assassins who, for a price, did the bidding of the Italian mobsters. Philip Mangano frequented the club, as did Vincent’s underboss, Albert “Mad Hatter” Anastasia.
Mangano was the only one of the bosses who retained the old ways so resented by the new breed of mob leaders, including Anastasia. Anastasia grew to prefer the company of other mob bosses such as Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Frank Costello and Louis “Lepke” Buchalter. Likewise, Mangano grew to resent and mistrust Anastasia. The two men regularly argued and fought, having to be pulled apart – possibly for the protection of the elder Mangano who was no physical match for his younger underboss.
Although it ultimately took a full 20 years of working together for matters to come to a head, Mangano eventually met his end at the hands of Anastasia, or so it is believed.
In 1951, Anastasia is believed to have heard of a plot to kill him being formed by his boss, and decided to take preemptive action in what he would ultimately describe as “self defense”. Philip Mangano was found murdered near Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn on April 19, 1951. Vincent also vanished the same day without trace. His body has never been found. Though Anastasia never admitted to having a hand in the Mangano murders, he managed to convince the heads of the other families that Vincent Mangano had been plotting to have him killed (a claim backed up by Frank Costello), and he was named as the new boss of the family.
Topics: Mobsters | 3 Comments »
March 29th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Vincent Mangano is my grandfathers uncle, I came across him while searching my last name on google, and had asked my family. Thanks for putting all this up, I love to read on my family’s history.
April 16th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
is frank j. mangano of the the frank j. mangano related to vincent mangano?
how did you find the family history?
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:30 pm
alritee ,im monica mangano and i dont know if were talking about the same one but, my grandfathers name is Frank Mangano and his son is Frank Mangano Jr.
i hope there related i would be proud to be in the cosa nostra(=