This article includes a list ofgeneral references, butit lacks sufficient correspondinginline citations. Please help toimprove this article byintroducing more precise citations.(November 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
TheBroadway Mob was a New York bootlegging gang duringProhibition. Although headed byJoe Adonis, the gangs day-to-day operations were handled byCharles "Lucky" Luciano andFrank Costello as well as financially backed byArnold Rothstein. During Manhattan's bootleg wars, Rothstein would bring in theBugs and Meyer Mob, led byMeyer Lansky andBenjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, to protect alcohol shipments.
As Luciano and Lansky had previously worked together prior to Prohibition, Meyer and Siegel were made partners in theJudeo-Italian criminal organization. By the late 1920s, the Broadway Mob supplied some of the highest qualitywhiskey to several New Yorkspeakeasies, includingSherman Billingsley'sStork Club, theSilver Slipper,Jack White's, and Jack and Charlie's21 Club, among others.[1] Even its lesser quality alcohol imported from Philadelphia mobsterWaxey Gordon was considered far superior to therotgut liquor supplied by the rest of New York's underworld.
At the suggestion of Rothstein, the Broadway Mob bought interests in several popular speakeasies and nightclubs which would lead to purchasing valuable real estate in Manhattan. Its operations were eventually absorbed into the criminal syndicate under Luciano and Lansky, following the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.