Salvatore "Toto" D'Aquila (; November 7, 1873 – October 10, 1928) was an early

Italian-American Mafia The American Mafia, commonly referred to in North America as the Italian American Mafia, the Mafia, or the Mob, is a highly organized Italian American criminal society and organized crime group. The organization is often referred to by its mem ...

boss Boss may refer to: Occupations * Supervisor, often referred to as boss * Air boss, more formally, air officer, the person in charge of aircraft operations on an aircraft carrier * Crime boss, the head of a criminal organization * Fire boss, a ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

of the D'Aquila crime family, what would later become known as the

Gambino crime family The Gambino crime family (pronounced ) is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Ame ...

Early life and career

Salvatore D'Aquila was born on November 7, 1873 in

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

to Salvatore D'Aquila and his wife Provvidenza Gagliardo. D'Aquila emigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in 1906 and became an early captain within the

Morello crime family The Morello crime family () was one of the earliest crime families to be established in the United States and New York City. The Morellos were based in Manhattan's Italian Harlem and eventually gained dominance in the Italian underworld by defea ...

East Harlem East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem or and historically known as Italian Harlem, is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City, roughly encompassing the area north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, F ...

. D'Aquila was arrested in 1906 and in 1909; both times the charges were dropped.D'Aquila, Salvatore "Toto" (1873–1928)

The American "Mafia"
' In 1910, boss of bosses Giuseppe "the Clutch Hand" Morello was imprisoned and Salvatore D'Aquila separated from the Morello family. D'Aquila formed his own crime family and was appointed the new ''

capo dei capi ''Capo dei capi'' (; "boss of hebosses") or ''capo di tutti i capi'' (; "boss of all hebosses") or ''Godfather'' ( it, Padrino) are terms used mainly by the media, public, fiction writers and law enforcement community to indicate a supremely po ...

''. His crime family operated from East Harlem and the Bronx, where he rivaled the Morellos'. D'Aquila expanded his crime family's power into

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

and southern Manhattan's

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...

Little Italy Little Italy is a general name for an ethnic enclave populated primarily by Italians or people of Italian ancestry, usually in an urban neighborhood. The concept of "Little Italy" holds many different aspects of the Italian culture. There are s ...

neighborhoods. The most prominent members of the D'Aquila family were

Umberto Valenti Umberto "The Ghost" Valenti (August 14, 1891 – August 11, 1922) was a Sicilian-born New York City gangster and prominent member of the D'Aquila crime family during the 1910s. He is frequently confused with Rocco Valenti, a Camorra gunman of th ...

Manfredi Mineo Manfredi "Al" or "Alfred" Mineo (; 1880 – November 5, 1930) was a Brooklyn-based New York mobster, who headed a strong American Mafia crime family during the Castellammarese War. Mineo's organization would eventually become the present-day Gambi ...

, Giuseppe Traina, and

Frank Scalise Frank Scalice (; born Francesco Scalisi, ; September 23, 1893 – June 17, 1957), also known as "Don Ciccio" and "Wacky", was an Italian-American mobster active in New York City, who led the future Gambino crime family from 1930 to 1931. H ...

. In 1920, after Giuseppe Morello was released from prison, D'Aquila tried to have him and his closest allies murdered. In 1925, D'Aquila moved back into the Bronx.

Death

On October 10, 1928, D'Aquila was shot dead on Avenue A in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, aged 54. After his murder, D'Aquila's family was taken over by

References

Citations Sources * * * *

External links

D'Aquila biography on ''The American Mafia'' website

La Cosa Nostra Database "Salvatore D'Aquila"
*
''Struggle for Control'' – The Gangs of New York
article by Jon Black at ''GangRule.com''
1928 D'Aquila photos
{{DEFAULTSORT:D'Aquila, Salvatore 1873 births 1928 deaths Bosses of the Gambino crime family Burials at St. John's Cemetery (Queens) Capo dei capi Deaths by firearm in Manhattan Murdered American gangsters of Sicilian descent Gangsters from Palermo People murdered in New York City Male murder victims Prohibition-era gangsters 1928 murders in the United States Italian emigrants to the United States

Early life and career

Death

See also

References

External links