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The names vary by region, city, usually even among the small groups that work together. They include Leadpipe, Lucky, Scarface, The Barber, The Dasher, The Teflon Don. And then there was The Undertaker, an unlikely man from Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily.
To many people in Niagara Falls, New York Stefano "The Undertaker" Magaddino was just a regular businessman in their city. But, to those who really knew him, like the men back in Brooklyn he terrorized when he was young, or those that feared him in his vast territory, Magaddino was a powerful and feared mafia don.
How did he get the nickname The Undertaker, one that would make many men quiver at the sound of it? By 1940 he was well established in Niagara Falls, having made millions during Prohibition, killing his competitors in western New York and across the Canadian border. He opened several legitimate businesses, including a beer distributor. But when his younger brother Antonino got the opportunity to go into business with Paul Palmeri, the timing was right. Nino, as he was known, became partners in a funeral home with Palmeri.
Palmeri was also a well-known businessman in the Falls. He had moved to the area about 1922, around the same time Magaddino came into power, and moved across the street from him, and two doors from Nino. They obviously walked in the same circles and most likely worked together in some way.
Palmeri was also known to law enforcement long before Nino and Stefano would be. In 1931 he was arrested in Chicago by authorities investigating a kidnapping ring, which they believed might have its base of operations in Niagara Falls. That same year Falls police tried to catch a suspected meeting of Al Capone's men in a Falls hotel but were too late. The pieces added up, but police were unable to pin anything on Palmeri.
When Palmeri and Nino joined together to open what would later become Magaddino Memorial Chapel in 1940, no one suspected anything unusual. But after just two years Palmeri decided to sell his share of the business to Nino and head east to New Jersey. It was there that Palmeri met up with another Falls alum, gambler Willie Moretti.
Moretti would climb the crime ladder and claimed to be friends with Al Capone, Frank Costello, and Joe Adonis. Palmeri's son would marry one of Moretti's daughters, and in 1951 Moretti was murdered in a coffee shop. Palmeri would be questioned by police to determine Moretti's final hours.
Back in the Falls, the Magaddino's quietly ran the city, still relatively hidden from the authorities. The funeral home was first located in a storefront at 1710 Pine Avenue. In 1955 they opened a brand new building at 1338 Niagara Street. It was a modern building that allowed them to run the legitimate funeral business alongside their illegal business enterprises. The funeral home would become known as the headquarters of the Magaddino family, where Stefano could be found on any given day shouting orders or berating a man in broken English or his native Sicilian dialect.
They were an enterprising family and many men disappeared over the years, on orders given from the funeral home? Maybe buried in a coffin with a false bottom to hide an extra body? No one knows for certain, and those that do are either dead or not talking. But you can be certain, if you crossed The Undertaker, there was a good chance you would disappear too.
Michael Rizzo is a native of Buffalo, New York. Always a good writer, as an adult he acquired an interest in local history after purchasing a home built in 1893.
He has since written two books on Buffalo and authored articles that appeared in The Buffalo News.
His current interests include the Buffalo/Niagara Falls mafia and organized crime, which he has done extensive research on, and providing tours of former gangland sites.
Michael you mean to say there really was a Mafia? Rhetorically, could it jkust possibly be that tehy have they gone ligit and could it be they have been taken over by the bankers? You know loan sharking as one of their prime money producers and it seems the banks, who charge even way more usury ahve found support in our government. Strange, what is good for one is illegal for another. Good article.
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