On This Day in 1930 Stefano Ferrigno was Killed

On this day in 1930 one of the prominent New York mobsters of the prohibition era, Stefano Ferrigno, was assassinated during the height of the Castellammarese War.

Ferrigno was a mid-level leader in the Salvatore D’Aquila crime family in the 1920’s and he led an important gang that would take part in everything from bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, extortion and controlling the longshoremens unions.

After Joe Masseria ordered the killing of D’Aquila in 1928, Ferrigno became underboss to the new leader, Alfred Mineo.

On November 4, 1930, a meeting of Masseria supporters was held in Ferrigno’s Bronx apartment at 759 Pelham Parkway South. In attendance were believed to be a number of top Masseria and Mineo crime family members, including Mineo, Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, Vito Genovese, Masseria, and Ferrigno himself.

Maranzano faction members including Joe Profaci, Nick Capuzzi, Joe Valachi and a hitman known only as Buster from Chicago were observing the meeting from an apartment Valachi had rented across the courtyard. According to Valachi, on the night of November 5, 1930, Steve Ferrigno and Al Mineo left the apartment and walked across the courtyard, and the Maranzano men mowed them down with gunfire.

The D’Aquila family would eventually become the Mangano family in 1931, and then later the Gambino family.

On this day in 1930, one of the more prominent New York mobsters of the Prohibition era met a violent end when Stefano Ferrigno was gunned down in the Bronx, a casualty of the brutal power struggle that would ultimately reshape the entire American underworld. His assassination, carried out alongside his boss Alfred Mineo, came at the height of the Castellammarese War — a bloody conflict between two rival factions fighting for control of organised crime in New York City.

Ferrigno had risen through the ranks as a mid-level leader within the Salvatore D'Aquila crime family during the 1920s, commanding an influential gang involved in bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, extortion, and the control of longshoremen's unions along the waterfront. His criminal portfolio made him a valuable and dangerous figure during Prohibition, when fortunes were being made and lost at gunpoint. When Joe Masseria ordered the killing of D'Aquila in 1928, Ferrigno adapted quickly, aligning himself with the new order and rising to the position of underboss under the family's incoming boss, Alfred Mineo.

The Castellammarese War had placed every senior mobster in New York on edge. On the evening of 4th November 1930, a gathering of Masseria supporters convened at Ferrigno's Bronx apartment at 759 Pelham Parkway South. The meeting was said to have drawn some of the most significant figures of the era, including Mineo, Charlie "Lucky" Luciano, Vito Genovese, and Masseria himself — a who's who of the criminal establishment that Salvatore Maranzano was determined to dismantle.

Unbeknownst to those inside, Maranzano's men had been watching. Joe Profaci, Nick Capuzzi, Joe Valachi, and a hitman known only as Buster from Chicago had taken up position in an apartment Valachi had rented across the courtyard, with a clear line of sight to the building. According to Valachi's later account, on the night of 5th November, Ferrigno and Mineo stepped out of the apartment and walked across the courtyard. In an instant, the Maranzano faction opened fire, cutting both men down.

The double murder was a significant blow to the Masseria camp, eliminating two senior figures in a single stroke and accelerating the war's momentum toward Maranzano's eventual, if short-lived, triumph. The crime family that Ferrigno had served would go on to become the Mangano family in 1931, and later the storied Gambino family — one of the most powerful of New York's Five Families, whose origins are inseparable from the violence of that era.