Lucky Luciano's Secret Business Partner: Joseph (Joe Carroll) Cirelli

Joe Cirelli, also known as "Joe Carroll," was a fixture in New York's underworld despite having a reputation for staying "clean."

Known for his connections with top mob figures like Lucky Luciano and Tommy Lucchese , Cirelli managed to keep his name out of criminal records while operating popular restaurants that doubled as gathering spots for Mafia elites.

Though Cirelli didn't engage in traditional street crimes, his establishments became a meeting point for notorious gangsters, earning him a quiet yet powerful presence within the Mafia.

His lifelong friendship with Luciano not only enriched him but also positioned Cirelli as a trusted courier and silent partner, allegedly facilitating high-stakes financial transactions and secret communications between the exiled crime boss and his stateside associates.

Joseph (Joe Carroll) Cirelli -- aka Joe Cirella, Joe Collins, and Giuseppe A. Cirelli (TN) -- was born at San Giovanna in Southern Italy on March 19, 1897. FBI records say it was March 14, 1897.

After immigrating to the United States, to New York’s Ellis Island with his mother and two siblings in 1914, the Cirelli family settled down and made a home in the “Little Italy” section of the Lower East Side. Joe was one of three sons born to Giovanni Cirelli and Rosa (nee’ Menta). His brothers were named Rocco and John.

Unfortunately, Joe’s father, Giovanni, reportedly died back in their homeland of Italy when Joe was only an 8-year-old boy. Subsequently, when Joe was only 13 years old, he dropped out of elementary school in the 5th grade.

Joseph Cirelli

The gritty streets of New York’s Little Italy neighborhood are where Joe would get his education. It’s also where he and his brothers were raised and resided for many decades to come.

In 1930, Joe was finally naturalized as a citizen of the United States.

Years later, the FBI and INS (Immigration & Naturalization Service) would question whether Cirelli submitted false affidavits in his bid for citizenship. However, apparently, nothing ever materialized from these allegations.

The Cirelli family lived in a small, third-floor cold-water flat in a tenement building at 238 Mulberry Street, in the heart of their Italian neighborhood. Joe and his brothers attended the local NYC Public School system.

New York’s Little Italy

Old photographs and records reflect that Cirelli had jet-black hair he combed straight back and dark brown eyes. He stood about 5 feet 6 inches in height. By his 40s, he sported a medium build at 160 pounds.

Joe also had a reputation around town as being very good with his hands. This makes sense because, in his younger days, Cirelli had fought professionally as a prizefighter under the ring names Joe Carroll and Joe Collins.

On October 29, 1918 -- during WWI -- Joe Cirelli walked over to a nearby U.S. Army Draft Board located at Sullivan Street and registered and signed up for the U.S. Armed Forces. He was just 21 years old at the time. He was enlisted as a Private 1st Class and assigned to the Army Artillery Unit. But inexplicably, he was Honorably Discharged just two months later, on December 7, 1918.

By 1942, the 44-year-old Cirelli was still living in his old Little Italy neighborhood but now had a little apartment located at 245 Mulberry Street, which was just a few doors down from his boyhood home where his mom still resided.

245 Mulberry Street

One year later, by 1943, he listed his home address as 318 Bay 10th Street, Brooklyn.

Although he reportedly loved the ladies and the nightlife throughout his lifetime, it was thought that Joe Cirelli chose never to marry or have any children of his own. At first blush, it seems that he was a confirmed bachelor through and through who made no qualms about it.

Side note: Other information indicates that Joe had indeed once been married to a young Italian-born woman named Ida, who was 10 years his junior. He once stated on a government form that they were separated in 1941 after 14 years of marriage. During their time together, Joe and Ida lived in a little house located on Prime Avenue in Huntington, Long Island. Joe also stated that during this time period, he worked as a “cobbler,” operating his own shoe repair business.

Clean as a Whistle

Both the New York Police Department and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation say that although Cirelli grew up in New York’s Little Italy neighborhood with many young men who would go on to become among the most notorious racketeers and mafiosi in the nation, he was never considered to be involved in any major overt criminal activity.

Instead, law enforcement agencies at the local and federal levels both say he had no known arrests and, subsequently, had no criminal record or so-called police “yellow sheet” whatsoever.

In other words, technically speaking, Joe was as clean as a whistle!

This, despite maintaining very close lifelong personal relationships with such Cosa Nostra legends as the boss-of-all-bosses himself, Salvatore (Charlie Lucky) Luciano, and East Harlem Family boss, Gaetano (Tommy Brown) Lucchese.

Cirelli was never even officially known to have been assigned a criminal record tracking number by any police agency.

But regardless, once law enforcement realized the friends Joe kept, the authorities made it their business to put together quite a thick portfolio about our man Joe Cirelli.

Nevertheless, over the years, “Joe Carroll” as Cirelli was widely accepted on the streets and back alleys of New York City, hobnobbed with the best of them, and freely interacted with many hoodlums, both socially and in business and financial dealings together.

Considered Well To Do!

However he accomplished it, Joe must have been very adept at whatever he was doing because, over the years, Cirelli was widely considered to have become very wealthy through various businesses he ran or invested in. It was strongly suspected that on more than one occasion, his fortunes, both good and bad, were in partnership with his underworld buddies.

His continued success as a businessman was clearly evident by the expensive suits he wore, the home he lived in, and the general lifestyle he was able to afford.

For instance, by at least the late 1940s -- if not earlier -- he resided at 115 Ascan Avenue, a beautiful, sprawling 4,300-ft. home set on a large corner property in the very exclusive -- and very expensive -- Forest Hills section of Queens County.

115 Ascan Ave., Forest Hills

Side note: In 2024, this same residence, 115 Ascan Avenue, was valued at over $3,200,000.

At the time, authorities tracking his movements also noted that Cirelli liked to hang out at the nearby Forest Hills Inn, one of the neighborhood’s most popular restaurants and night spots known for its fine dining and live entertainment.

Joe was also known as an avid gambler and big-time bettor with a penchant for playing the ponies. Many a night, he could be found at the Roosevelt Raceway in Westbury, L.I., Yonkers Raceway, or other area tracks. He was said to prefer the trotters, but when they weren’t running, the flats at Aqueduct would do fine, too.

The Restauranteur

Aside from the many watering holes and other places of entertainment he enjoyed visiting, police sources say that through the years Cirelli owned and operated a string of top-notch restaurants and cocktail lounges himself.

After he hung up his boxing gloves, Cirelli was known to have become involved in the restaurant business dating back as far as the early 1930s. For some years, he listed himself as the "manager" of a popular Manhattan eatery named the Villanova Italian Restaurant, located at 106-108 W. 46th Street, on Midtown Manhattan’s westside.

The Villanova

Ostensibly owned by his brother Rocco, in 1938, Joe made it “official” by purchasing Villanova from his brother on paper. From that point forward, he listed himself as its owner and operator. Joe reportedly successfully ran Villanova for the next two decades, later selling the place at a tremendous profit in 1956.

By serving some of the very best Italian cuisine to be found anywhere in Manhattan or the outer boroughs for that matter, needless to say, over the years, the Villanova became a wildly popular dining spot that the city’s denizens flocked to for its noted fine southern Italian dishes.

Cirelli’s name was believed to have first piqued the interest of local and federal law enforcement around this same time period -- the mid-1950s.

Joe was "One of the Boys"

You see, among the throngs of diners who flocked to the place were many of the most notorious gangsters and racketeers the Big Apple had to offer.

Naturally, as is usually the case in such matters, through police informants, word soon reached the ears of various city detectives and federal agents who spent their careers following the city’s anti-social characters.

Subsequently, many of these same fellows also happened to be “suspects” in various criminal cases and were followed into the Villanova on numerous occasions.

Over the years, many known mafiosi were repeatedly documented drinking and hobnobbing at Villanova’s bar with one another and with their host…the ever-affable Joe Carroll Cirelli.

Salvatore Luciano

After some investigation, it was brought to law enforcement’s attention that, in fact, Cirelli was being backed financially by the most important and powerful Mafia boss in the nation…the infamous Salvatore (Charlie Lucky) Luciano himself.

That fact alone was enough to pique the interest of any aspiring cop or prosecutor to delve more deeply into the restauranteur’s background to find out exactly who this fellow Joseph Cirelli was.

Joe, The Mafia's Social Director?

In the coming years, the authorities kept their eyes on Cirelli more and more. And what they discovered became even more and more fascinating at each and every turn. It seemed as though the restaurants and bars Joe operated were like magnets for New York’s underworld.

Over the years, police documented his close friendships and associations with top racketeers and other unsavory characters from across the spectrum of crime “Families” in the city.

The boss himself, Lucky Luciano, regularly frequented the Villanova Restaurant before being jailed for 50 years for compulsory prostitution, and subsequently, later gaining parole and getting deported back to his native Sicily.

Joe Adonis

But over the years, many of Lucky’s men also made it their business to dine at the Villanova. Whether serving as his driver, accompanying him as a bodyguard, dining companions, or simply traveling there for an “audience” with the boss, through the years, many a Luciano Family soldier and capo visited the Villanova.

These included such important men as Family consigliere, the iconic Francesco (Frank Costello) Castiglia , the equally legendary capos, Giuseppe (Joe Adonis) Doto and Joseph (Joe Socks) Lanza, and such important soldiers as Luciano’s personal bodyguard and constant companion, Lorenzo (Chappy) Brescia.

For his part, notwithstanding his lack of participation in traditional “street” rackets, arguably, Joseph “Joe Carroll” Cirelli was as much a bonafide Mafia “associate” of the highest order as anyone else. Maybe even more so.

And because of Joe’s lifelong association and partnership with the biggest Cosa Nostra boss America has ever known, the legendary Lucky Luciano, I dare say that Cirelli himself would rank as a top underworld associate.

Joe's a Convict After All

Despite what the FBI and other agencies may have had in their files on Cirelli, it seems that Joe had a bit of a criminal record after all.

Official government records show that on March 27, 1942, Joseph Cirelli was processed as a newly arrived inmate at the infamous Sing Sing State Prison, located in upstate Ossining, New York.

It seems that our boy Joe had been sentenced by Nassau County Court Judge Johnson just three days earlier, on March 24, in First District Court in Mineola.

Judge Johnson sent Joseph Cirelli up the river to serve a term of between 5-to-10 years behind bars. Cirelli’s offense seems to have been that he was convicted of the crime of Suborning Perjury in the First Degree.

Side Note: You are charged with this violation of the NYS Criminal Statues when you “persuade someone to commit perjury, or knowingly help them do so. Perjury is the act of intentionally lying under oath in a legal proceeding.”

Cirelli was specifically convicted of having convinced a potential prosecution witness to change their testimony on the stand at a trial in Nassau County Criminal Court. The witness, a certain Hazel Giles, committed perjury on the stand during a trial -- or unspecified criminal charges -- held on January 8, 1942.

With that conviction, Joseph Cirelli finally got a police department number assigned to him, becoming Nassau PD #100887.

Side Note: It seems that the FBI and FBN can be a bit faulty at times with their information. Both agencies had Cirelli listed in their 1960s records as having never been arrested, much less convicted, of any criminal charge in his life.

A Mobster's Who's Who

As mentioned above, aside from Luciano and his boys, many other top-notch racketeers and hoodlums frequented Cirelli’s eateries over the years and were considered to be close friends of Joe’s.

This cast of characters included the acknowledged Mafia boss of East Harlem and the Bronx, the infamous Gaetano (Tommy Brown) Lucchese.

Also considered steady customers of Cirelli’s eateries were two of Tommy Brown’s most important Family capos, Andimo (Tommy Noto) Pappadio and Giovanni (Big John) Ormento, both of whom were later convicted as top-level narcotics kingpins.

Frank Scalici visiting Lucky Luciano in Sicily.

Among noted Gambino Family figures who dined there were the former boss, Frank (Don Cheech) Scalici , and two of the Family’s soldiers and important narcotics peddlers, Andrew Alberti and Ugo (Hugo) Rossi.

Still others who regularly frequented his establishments were the notorious rackets kingpin Salvatore (Salvy) Spitale, who first gained international notoriety as the negotiator in the famous Lindbergh child kidnapping case.

Still another was a mafioso named Joseph (Joe White) Anselmi, whose exact Cosa Nostra affiliation was not duly noted in the police files but who was nonetheless listed as a top underworld figure.

A Great Host and Friend of "The Friends"

Considered a consummate restauranteur, “Joe Carroll” was known to everybody who frequented his restaurants as a cordial host to his patrons and all his underworld friends, be they “with” the Italian mob, the Jewish mob, the Irish mob, or otherwise.

This fact became clearly evident to investigators as they repeatedly observed top members of New York’s Jewish Mob also drinking at the bar and dining on the Villanova’s sumptuous Italian delicacies.

Such noted Jewish racketeers as notorious mob boss and Meyer Lansky ally, Harry (Nig Rosen) Stromberg and another important New York-based Jewish narcotics smuggler named Usche (Saul) Gelb.

The police eventually also took note that among the many mobsters who hung around Cirelli’s places were many men known to be involved in the international narcotics traffic.

Over time, this fact became so important to drug agents with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics & Dangerous Drugs (FBNDD) that in their internal reports, they noted (and I quote), “Cirelli is not known to have himself engaged in any major illegal activities, but he has undoubtedly been one source of income for Luciano. His restaurants were notorious as rendezvous for Mafia racketeers.”

The Money Courier

On January 10, 1948, a then 50-year-old Joe Cirelli boarded the S.S. Santa Rosa luxury passenger ship, owned by Grace Lines, at New York Harbor en route for a trip overseas to Italy.

Just two years later, on May 26, 1950, agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics surreptitiously watched and took careful notes as businessman Joseph Cirelli, U.S. Passport #204049, once again boarded a luxury cruise ship docked along Manhattan’s West Side piers, departing that same day for Europe.

This particular luxury liner, the S.S. Conte Biancamano, was about to set sail from New York Harbor for an overseas voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to Italy. It was bound for the Port of Naples.

Cirelli stated on official documents required by the U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Service that he intended to stay abroad in Italy for two months.

Two months later, just as he had declared, on July 23, 1950, Cirelli once again boarded the S.S. Conte Biancamano at the Port of Naples for the trip back to the United States.

The boss relaxes at home

The authorities believe that Cirelli took other trips overseas to Europe, specifically to Italy. But what we do know for sure is that he traveled to Italy at least two times within as many years.

The Federal Narcotics Bureau strongly suspected that Cirelli made these trips at the behest of his close friend, business partner, and direct superior, Lucky Luciano.

Agents also strongly suspected that, in addition to catching up about what was happening back in the States with their joint restaurant businesses, Cirelli brought secret messages to Luciano from his soldiers and “amici” stateside.

Even more importantly, Joe also brought Lucky’s cut from the profits of their business ventures together, as well as Luciano’s cut of other monies entrusted to Cirelli by the Luciano Family hierarchy. These monies were drawn from the coffers of the Luciano Family’s vast racket operations to supplement their exiled boss’ bankroll.

Big Investments, Big Profits

Below are a few examples of the two friends' business ventures.

For instance, simultaneous with the sale of Villanova, it was learned that Cirelli had just opened a fabulous new restaurant on Long Island that had reportedly cost over $250,000 to build. He had chosen the perfect location for his new venture: a beautiful, upscale neighborhood called Roslyn, located within fast-developing western Nassau County, on the border of New York City’s Queens County.

Because their former Manhattan-based restaurant had been so popular and successful and everyone who was anyone already knew its name, Joe and Lucky decided to name this new restaurant The Villanova Italian Ristorante of Roslyn.

The new Villanova was reportedly nothing less than a showpiece. Joe operated the place for the next several years and then decided to sell it in 1958. After all, Joe was already in his early sixties and wanted to relax a bit. But the partners reportedly sold it on their terms. Joe and Lucky reportedly got a whopping $310,000 for the place.

After deducting the “alleged” $250 grand it first cost to build the joint, Joe and Lucky netted a hefty profit of at least $60,000 for themselves -- $30,000 apiece -- which was considered a tremendous amount of money back in the 1950s.

Through the years, some of Joe’s other investments included a 2-1/2 year ownership interest in Frank’s Spaghetti House, located in East Hempstead, L.I. He also had a financial interest in a string of shoe repair shops across Long Island that he operated for upwards of 15 years.

During the 1950s and early 1960s, another place Joe often frequented and was also suspected of holding a financial interest in was the Bella Napoli Restaurant & Bar, located in Westbury, L.I.

It’s more than likely that Lucky was also a partner in these dining establishments.

There was no public obituary available, and there was no specific date as to what year Joseph “Joe Carroll” Cirelli passed away.

But suffice it to say that during the course of his lifetime, “Joe Carroll” played a pivotal, if mostly anonymous role, in Cosa Nostra’s shadowy portfolio of businesses and criminal assets the mob possesses.

Not to mention the additional role Joe may have played while rubbing shoulders and sharing secrets with his buddy, Salvatore “Charlie Lucky” Luciano, arguably the most notorious Mafia boss of the last 100 years!

Until next time…”The Other Guy”

Lucky Luciano’s Secret Business Partner: Joseph (Joe Carroll) Cirelli

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