In the Little Italy Niagara Museum 1221 19th Street Niagara Falls, New York 14301, there are the shoes of Magaddino family underboss, Nino Magaddino, the flashier member of the top mob family of Western New York

David Fruscione at the Little Italy Niagara museum,

which is part of The Mob Tour in Niagara Falls.

Charles Lewis/Buffalo News

Niagara Falls tours of Magaddino mob sites could be a hit

Visitors will get close-up look at local mob history

By Aaron Besecker

NEWS NIAGARA BUREAU

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Want to see where mob hit men played on the streets of the Cataract City? Want to know where the bomb was thrown that killed the sister of one of the country’s longest-reigning Mafia bosses? How about the restaurant where the powerful and famous came to pay tribute to the Don, an spot that’s still open today?

It’s all in Niagara Falls, where the Mafia’s web once touched at least one home on every street in the city, according to the owner of a new tour company.

Buffalo entrepreneur Michael Rizzo, who runs The Mob Tours, plays the role of the storyteller guiding visitors to the sites the mob called home.

The places are all around the city, but probably unknown to almost everyone, including area residents. Places like the former funeral parlor on Niagara Street the Magaddino family used as its headquarters.

Like the former home of a mob defense attorney who was beaten with a hammer and had his neck sliced by a pocket can opener. And the row of houses on Dana Drive in Lewiston where crime boss Stefano Magaddino and his family lived when they moved out of the Falls.

Magaddino, who ruled the city for decades, was “one of the most powerful Mafia Dons in U.S. history,” Rizzo says from the front of the tour bus.

In a 90-minute tour, Rizzo narrates the story of gambling, bootlegging and thuggery which helped the Magaddinos rise to power.

He spent five years researching, thinking he would write a book on the subject. This weekend will be the company’s third weekend offering tours.

In a city world-famous for its natural wonder, once the stomping ground for a major player in the history of organized crime in the United States, Rizzo says he wants to offer one chapter of the Falls’ story.

Outside St. Joseph Catholic Church on Pine Avenue, Rizzo describes Stefano Magaddino’s 1974 funeral that took place inside, one which no Mafia bosses attended.

Another stop on the tour is Little Italy Niagara, a 19th Street storefront with space dedicated to memorabilia tied to the city’s history of organized crime.

Items on display include hats and shoes worn by members of the Magaddino family, said Dave Fruscione, production director for Little Italy Niagara.

Those items, as well as photographs of the Magaddino family, adorn the walls of the building, formerly used in the crime family’s bookmaking operations.

At this point, Rizzo’s tours concentrate on the Niagara Falls area, but he is looking to possibly expand the tour into the Buffalo area this fall.

He said wants to give tourists another reason to stay in the area longer. So far, locals have been the ones signing up the most, he said.

Tours leave from a stop on Third Street between Buffalo Avenue and Rainbow Boulevard at 11 a. m. and 1 p. m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

Trips are $29.95 per person. The company has planned several upcoming special events, including “Dress as a Gangster Day” on July 19, which corresponds with the anniversary of Stefano Magaddino’s death.

To sign up or to get more information, go online to themobtours. com or call 578-4939.

1221 19th Street Niagara Falls, New York 14301

Open from 1—4pm every Saturday

For Private Tours Call 716-622-7170 or 716-957-4949

Buffalo Mob tour crew promises to take you for a ride you won't forget

Peter Edwards
STAFF REPORTER

BUFFALO–There was a time, not so long ago, when residents here would joke about the caskets as they left the Magaddino Memorial Chapel Funeral Home.

``That casket looks heavy today,'' local humorists would say. ``I wonder how many bodies are inside it?''

It was an accepted fact of life – and death – in Western New York that Stefano (Big Steve, the Undertaker) Magaddino, the wrinkly mobster who ran the funeral home on Niagara St. at Portage Rd., liked to get maximum bang for the buck.

As the local stories go, some of Magaddino's victims were discreetly dispatched in the lower halves of caskets, under the remains of paying customers.

That's just one of the bits of Mafia lore offered up on a bus charter through Magaddino's underworld, called Mob Tours, which operates with the motto, "We'll take you for a ride."

"He was able to make people disappear," Mob Tours founder Mike Rizzo said, during a recent tour.

Rizzo notes that Magaddino was America's longest reigning major Mob boss, holding power from 1922 until his death (by natural causes), in 1974. Everyone else on our tour was a New Yorker, but Rizzo's tour will be a hit (in the most positive sense of the word) for anyone who's curious about real-life Sopranos.

There's plenty of local interest for Canadians. The nickname for Don Stefano's group was "The Arm," and his reach extended well into Southern Ontario, including the operations of Hamilton Don Giacomo Luppino (who was rumored to keep a rival's ear in his wallet), Paul Volpe of Toronto (whose body was found in the trunk of his wife's BMW at Pearson International Airport in 1983) and Alberto Agueci of Scarborough, whose 1961 death at Stefano's hands was horrifying even by Mob standards.

Despite his control over nasty hit men, much of Magaddino's success can be explained by his ability to keep things quiet and outwardly respectable, like his funeral chapel.

Among the stops on Rizzo's colourful, well-researched tour is the house where Magaddino's sister was killed in a Prohibition-era bombing, in which the don was the likely target.

There's also a peek at what's left of the old Capital Cafe on Niagara St. where mobsters met, and also a look at old gambling clubs, many of which are also now just boarded up, empty shells of past glories.

There's a 15-minute stop at a former Mob haunt that's now the Little Italy Niagara museum. There, you can peer into the trunk where Magaddino's son, Peter, stashed almost $500,000, at a time when he and his father were crying poor.

There are also the spiffy winged shoes and angora fedoras worn by Stefano's brother and under boss Nino, when strutting up and down Pine Ave.

We also bounced past (deep potholes contributed to the excitement) Stefano's favorite eating spot (still open, and reasonably priced) and the suburban, ranch-style home at 5118 Dana Dr. in nearby Lewiston, where he spent his later years. It was here that Stefano would retreat and act sickly whenever he was sought out by a grand jury. One judge actually went to his pillow side to arraign him on tax charges in December 1968.

We drove past the cemetery where the first big-time Mob informer, Joe (Cago) Valachi is buried. Valachi, who hid out briefly in the Toronto area, rocked the underworld when he went public with a description of the structure of the Mafia in North America, including Southern Ontario.

There's also a stop at the home where a brave federal customs official was blown up in 1925 for honestly doing his job.

In the end, it wasn't courageous customs officials or shrewd rivals or wiretaps that ended Don Stefano's crime empire. It was his own greed. There was plenty of publicity when the almost $500,000 was found in the trunk in the home of Magaddino's son, Peter, who was being groomed to take over as boss.

Peter had told his wife that he didn't have money to take her to Florida that winter.

Worse yet for the crime family, Stefano had told his men that the family hadn't done well that year and he couldn't afford to give them Christmas bonuses.

After his lie about low funds was revealed, Stefano never regained the respect of his men.

His funeral in 1974 at St. Joseph Catholic Church on Pine Ave. (which is also part of the tour) was strictly a family affair, attended by no other major mobsters.

The flabby old don went to the Great Beyond in one of his family's caskets, finally dead and very much alone.

The tours run Saturdays at 11 a.m. The bus boards at 303 Rainbow Blvd. in Niagara Falls. Reservations are recommended. Details: www.themobtours.com, 716-578-4939 or themobtours@yahoo.com , NiagaraTimes.com 716-622-7170 or 716-957-4949 niagaratimes@niagaratimes.com

The Stefano Magaddino Story

Stefano Magaddino was one of the longest serving bosses in American Cosa Nostra history, although his crime family in Niagara Falls was considerably smaller than the New York families, Magaddino still managed to wield a great amount of influence when the commission was approved in 1931.

Magaddino was born in Castellammare, Sicily, on October 10th 1891. He left Sicily in 1921 for New York. Along with him, Magaddino took his brother Antonino, and settled in Brooklyn, New York, leaving behind them a feud with a rival gang known as the Buccellato brothers, which left Magaddino's younger brother murdered. On August 16, 1921, he was arrested as a fugitive and shortly after Magaddino and Gaspar Milazzo were ambushed by members of the Buccellato clan who had followed Magaddino to New York. The attempted ambush happened when Milazzo and Magaddino walked out of a store, the ambush turned out to be a disaster as 2 innocent bystanders were murdered. However Magaddino retaliated leaving several members of the Buccellato clan dead.

Following the murders of the Buccellato clan members, Magaddino left Brooklyn for Niagara Falls, were he set up a huge bootlegging empire, thanks largely to being so close to the Canadian border. However a rival gang from Cleveland tried to muscle in but in 1933 the murder of a Cleveland family member forced the Cleveland family back and in turn Magaddino had won his first war with a rival gang.

Magaddino also kept strong ties with some the vast New York families and was the cousin of one of the future crime bosses, Joe Bonanno. These ties would always give Magaddino and the Niagara Falls crime family a seat on the commission when it was set up in 1931 following the murders of Joe Masseira and Salvatore Maranzano.

Magaddino was well respected throughout the entire American Mafia; he was without doubt a real Cosa Nostra traditionalist. He didn't use unnecessary amounts of violence and was very practical when it came to disputes within his own family, because of this Magaddino was well liked throughout his family, hence the long number of years he stayed in control of his crime family.

When prohibition had ended Magaddino was looking to extend his families influence, and therefore laid down plans to make moves into Ohio and into Canada. But it wasn't all happy times for Magaddino in 1936 he survived an assassination attempt but lost his sister when a bomb was detonated in the wrong house. Magaddino however popular, like all Mafia bosses, Magaddino wasn't without his enemies over the years.

Magaddino was instrumental in setting up one of the biggest Cosa Nostra summits ever to take place on American soil when he helped organize the 1957 Appalachian summit. Magaddino was one of the mobsters that escaped through the window following the intrusion of the state police.

By the 1960's Magaddino found himself having to take a larger hand in things with the Commission. Magaddino felt that his cousin was trying to muscle in on Canadian territory that belonged to him, and so set up a meeting with the ruling body to try and come to a beneficial agreement that would suit all involved, but Bonanno refused to show up, a decision enraged Magaddino. Magaddino continued his argument with the commission and in doing so Bonanno lost his leadership of his family, but the disagreement was far from settled.

In 1964 Magaddino’s brother Antonino kidnapped Bonanno. He was reportedly held for 6 weeks before he was released. Magaddino ordered Bonanno to remain in Tuscan where Bonanno had been living for some time. He also told Bonanno about the possibilities of defying the commission and decreed that he retire in Tucson for his own good. After this Magaddino and Bonanno relinquished all ties with each other, as they never saw each other again. This gave Magaddino the opportunity to align himself with another big Canadian mobster the up and coming Johnny "pops" Papalia.

By the late 1960's Magaddino now thought it was time he gave up some of his Responsibilities as leader of the Buffalo crime family, by allowing his second in command Fred Randaccio to take control of the day-to-day operations, as Magaddino gradually loosened his grip of the Buffalo crime family. In the early 70's Buffalo family members felt as if Magaddino was taking more than his fair share of the family profits and so Magaddinos leadership was now finally at it's end. Magaddino was also plagued by a number of heart problems.

Stefano Magaddino succumbed to a heart attack on July 19, 1974. His funeral was attended by hundreds of people. Among the crowd were FBI agents who took down license plate numbers outside of St. Joseph's Church in Little Italy Niagara, Pine Avenue, Niagara Falls, NY.