The Making of the Mob airs on AMC tonight with an all new Monday June 15, season 1 premiere called “The Education of Lucky Luciano” and below is your weekly recap. Tonight, Lucky Luciano arrives in New York.
For those of you who don’t know, is a 8-part television miniseries based on notorious New York gangster Lucky Luciano and his rise in the New York City crime mob.
On tonight’s episode as per the AMC synopsis, “Lucky Luciano arrives in New York and teams up with Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel.”
You aren’t going to want to miss any of the unfolding action tonight. We’ll be recapping the season 1 premiere live right here for you at 9pm. In the meantime, hit up the comments and tell us your thoughts on the show.
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RECAP:
Tonight’s episode of Making The Mob: New York begins with a flashback to Chicago, during the year of 1931. Charles “Lucky” Luciano called the most powerful gangsters in America to a meeting that would change everything. Lucky took the floor and announced that they need to start running their businesses like a business, there will be no more bosses, instead there will be a board of commission representing the 5 families – just like they have set up back home in Sicily. In a single move Lucky created the most powerful crime syndicate that America had ever seen – it was the birth of the modern America mafia.
Charles Luciano arrived in New York City fresh off from a boat in 1906. Charles’ family hoped to find better lives, but what they found was a segregated city with more than $4 Million people. The only way to survive was to turn to a life of crime. 100’s of unorganized gangs terrorized the blocks in turf war mayhem. Lucky Luciano’s family was barely surviving, and his father couldn’t find a job and began drinking and abusing the family.
By the time Lucky was 15 he had dropped out of school and was running the streets looking for money to help out his family. He joined one of the gangs in the neighborhood – Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Seigel, who were actually Jewish, not Italian like Lucky. Meyer was well-known for his knack for mathematics, and Bugsy was known for his bad temper and strong arm. With their unique talents, Meyer, Lucky, and Bugsy began establishing themselves as a powerful group of gangsters.
While they were running the streets Lucky and his young crew came face to face with Frank Costello, who was in the process of roughing up a guy for his boss Joe Mazaria. Joe shot and killed the guy, and then ordered Frank to pull the gold teeth out of his mouth. Frank is a new recruit, and doesn’t have the stomach for it – but he doesn’t want to let his boss down. Lucky offers to give Frank a hand, and orders Bugsy to pull the teeth out of the dead guy’s mouth for him. Frank was impressed and took Lucky and his crew under his arm and had them running a racket for him and Joe. After a while the petty crime began to get old, and Frank decided to bring in a new soldier – Vito Genovese.
Eventually, the government passed the 18th Amendment and Prohibition was in effect, the Amendment actually backfired though. Instead of cleaning up and sobering up America, they actually created a multi-million dollar industry for the Mafia. In just a few months there are 100’s of thousands of speakeasies popping up in New York, and overnight Joe Mazaria became “Joe the Boss” and his empire covers half of Manhattan.
Lucky and his crew made a fatal mistake though, one night they robbed one of their boss Joe’s trucks to make a statement, but they had no idea that it was his truck. Lucky and his crew go in to hiding, Joe has his men searching the city for them – so they decide to take Joe out themselves. Lucky nominates himself to go see Joe, and “handle it.” Lucky meets up with Joe for a talk and explains that they didn’t know the trucks were his, he tells Joe that he will make it right, he offers to murder anyone for Joe.
Lucky heads back to his crew and reports that he survived the meeting alive. Frank Costello thanks Lucky for taking the fall for them. Lucky reveals that he had to make a deal with Joe, before they are in the clear they have to murder Umberto Valentini – one of the most dangerous mobsters in New York. Lucky and his crew followed Valentini for weeks and then they made their move – at age 25 Lucky Luciano committed his first murder and took out Valentini for Joe Mazaria. Joe is impressed with Lucky’s kill and promotes him, not that Lucky is in his inner circle he is put in charge of selling heroin. Heroin quickly became Joe Mazaria’s biggest business when the government outlawed the medicine.
Lucky becomes one of Joe’s top earners – and begins making more in a day than he used to make in months. Eventually Lucky is on the police’s radar, he is arrested for selling heroin and forced to serve 6 months in prison. While Lucky was rotting in jail Mazaria continues to make money, he realizes that if he truly wants to succeed he is going to have to become his own boss.
While Lucky is locked up his partner Meyer Lansky makes an important new bootlegging connect – Arnold Rothstein. Rothstein single-handedly orchestrated the Black Sox Scandal, and won a totally of $4 Million on the fixed game. Rothstein seen the potential in Prohibition, and wanted to cash in – he built a business of his own, similar to what Mazaria had done. When Lucky got out of prison, Meyer took Lucky to introduce him to Rothstein.
Lucky and Meyer begin working under Rothstein’s wing and begin “selling the good stuff” and making double the amount of money selling to rich people that they were selling to poor people while working for Joe. There is a down side though, they are still being forced to give a huge cut of their profits to Joe Mazaria – and the kickbacks start to get old. Joe thought that he deserved it because he was “so important” and so vital to other gangsters in NYC. Lucky and his crew come to the decision that they are going to have to kill Joe and take him out once and for all. They sit down with Rothstein and he advises them, he warns them that the odds are not in their favor. Rothstein warns Lucky that he better trust himself, because if he takes out Joe Mazaria then he is going to be all alone – and he will only have himself.
