The Legendary Frank “Cheech” Livorsi **Newly Expanded**

In the underworld, a man’s official rank didn’t always tell the full story of his power and influence. And few mafiosi illustrated that point better than Frank (Cheech) Livorsi, a longtime Genovese Family soldier who became one of the most important and well-connected racketeers operating out of New York’s East Harlem section.

Over the course of his criminal career, Livorsi associated with some of the biggest names in the Mafia, from Ciro (The Artichoke King) Terranova and Michael (Trigger Mike) Coppola to Charles (Lucky) Luciano and Vito Genovese. He was a major figure in the notorious East 107th Street Mob, whose narcotics operations attracted considerable attention from federal authorities, and later became embroiled in a lucrative wartime black-market sugar racket that would ultimately cost him his freedom.

But Cheech’s influence extended well beyond his own criminal activities. Through longstanding underworld alliances and the marriages of his daughters into other Mafia families, Livorsi established close ties to powerful figures in both the Lucchese Family of New York and the Detroit Partnership.

Although he never rose above the formal rank of soldier, Frank Livorsi was anything but an ordinary rank-and-file mafioso. His story offers a revealing look at the power, personal relationships, and criminal enterprises that helped shape the American Mafia during the middle decades of the twentieth century.

Frank (Cheech) Livorsi – aka Ciccio, Chee-Chee, Chuck, Frank Livolsi, Frank Lima, Frank Longo, Frank LiVorsi, Frank K. Vivorsi, and Francesco Salvatore Livorsi (TN) – was born in the City of Chicago (Cook County), Illinois on November 10, 1903. It is possible that the family surname may have originally been Livolsi, before later being corrupted to Livorsi. 

By 1910, Frank’s Sicilian-born parents, Bartolomeo and Rosaria (nee’ Berritelli) Livorsi, had relocated with their eight children to New York, settling into the East Harlem section of Upper Manhattan. This was a neighborhood heavily populated with Italian immigrants and an area rife with hoodlums and underworld activity. Young Frank was soon drawn to the streets and quickly gravitated to a life of crime.