S1 Ep3: Charles "Lucky" Luciano (Part 1)

Mafia

Audioboom Studios

True Crime, Society & Culture

4.4 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2018

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the 1920s, at the height of prohibition, the intelligent, ruthless, and visionary, Charles “Lucky” Luciano forever transformed the Mob from warring street gangs into a highly sophisticated criminal empire. By the time Luciano was finished, the Mob was bigger than General Motors, and he had fully organized crime into a booming business.

In Part 1, we explore the early childhood of Luciano, his making in the mob, and his making of the mob. This episode is sponsored by Audible and Blue Apron.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to Mafia, and in this audio boom original podcast series,
0:04.2	we explore America's criminal underworld to reveal the lives and careers of its greatest gangsters.
0:10.8	The series has been extensively researched and produced in consultation with experts, authors, and those who are actually there.
0:18.2	In today's episode, Fleet Cooper examines who some historians consider to be the father of modern organized crime, Charles Lucky Luciano.
0:27.2	Once in every generation comes along a dynamic criminal genius mind.
0:35.2	Lucky Luciano is a quintessential America, using his cunning and intelligence, rises to a position of fantastic power and wealth.
0:45.2	One man changed the whole texture and landscape of crime in America.
0:52.2	There's no question that Luciano invented the modern mafia.
1:01.2	New York at the turn of the 20th century was a city in flux, as immigrants from around the world flooded into town.
1:10.2	Between 1890 and 1920, New York City's population grew by 3 million people.
1:17.2	Journalist and historian Douglas Valentine.
1:20.2	That's a million people every 10 years. It's at least 5,000 people a month, which is an incredible amount of people pouring into a small, little geographic area.
1:33.2	So, New York City was just bursting at the seams.
1:39.2	In April 1906, nine-year-old Salvador Lucanía, soon to be known as Charles Luciano, arrived with his family from Sicily to settle in Manhattan's lower east side.
1:52.2	It was a place where immigrants were trying to establish themselves as a political force.
2:04.2	And at the same time, they weren't always succeeding.
2:10.2	So, the immigrants tended to be insular for in many ways. The Italians would form Italian communities.
2:18.2	There's little Italy still exists in New York.
2:21.2	Former NYPD detective, Joe Caffey.
2:25.2	He was raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the early 20th century.
2:31.2	And when you come out of that environment, you're pretty tough.
2:35.2	Because you're living on the street. You live in handsome-out. Your parents are living handsome-out. You do a menial jobs.
	...

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