The Brothers Lanza: Genovese Family Sleepers

What follows is a Button Guys deep dive into the lives and careers of two more Cosa Nostra soldiers that the general public and most mob aficionados alike have never heard of. These Lanzas were the OTHER Lanza brothers! The ones the tabloids and public never heard about.

Although both brothers were formally inducted Genovese Family members for many decades -- and quite active in underworld affairs -- Benny and Charles Lanza remained largely anonymous as “sleepers” working within the New York underworld as they continuously placed one foot in front of the other while promoting their borgata’s gambling and labor racket operations in the Harlem, Bronx, and Westchester County areas.

…This is their life story.

Biagio J. (Benny Bruno) Lanza

Biagio J. (Benny) Lanza — aka Benny Bruno, Biaggio Lanza, Biagio Lenza, Biagio Joseph Lanza, Benjamin Lanza, and Biagio Giuseppe Lanza (TN) -- was born December 16, 1907, in New York City’s East Harlem section. He was one of six children — three sons and three daughters — born to Sicilian-immigrant parents Bernardo and Maria (nee’ Schillaci) Lanza.

The Lanza children were, in age order: Carmelo, Biagio, Catherine, Joseph, Nina, and Jennie.

East Harlem was the neighborhood where he and his siblings were all born and raised. The Lanza children each attended New York City’s public school system, with Biagio reportedly going as far as his second year in high school before eventually dropping out to search for work.

By the mid-1930s, the Lanzas had moved up to the Bronx, which was located just a few miles north of Harlem.

Bernardo Lanza

Over the course of their lives, these neighborhoods would continue to be where most of the Lanza family members would live. It would also be where Benny and his older brother Carmelo or Charlie, would operate for most of their careers.

The Lanza and Schillaci families both hailed from the legendary town of Corleone, Sicily.

Their father, Bernardo Lanza, born in 1885, is believed to have immigrated to the United States by at least 1903. Their mother, Maria Schillaci, immigrated with her parents and siblings around the same time. Both families settled in Harlem, and this is where Bernardo and Maria are believed to have first met and later married.

Given his birthplace and underworld connections, it is quite possible — even probable — that Bernardo Lanza may have been an early member of the Corleone cosca .

It is also highly probable that the families may have known one another back in Sicily.

“Al Brown”

Side Note: Maria Schillaci came from a well-known mobbed-up family. Her brother was Giovanni (Al Brown) Schillaci , one of the most notorious early members of the Cosa Nostra Family headed by the legendary Salvatore (Charlie Lucky) Luciano, serving in the East Harlem-based regime of Family capo Michael (Trigger Mike) Coppola.

Back in the early 1920s, Giovanni Schillaci started out as a burglary and robbery "partner-in-crime" of the infamous Joseph (Joe Cago) Valachi. He was also deeply involved with many other Harlem-bred hoodlums, including such notorious characters as Charles (Charlie Bullets) Albero , Frank (Cheech) Livorsi, Philip (Cockeyed Phil) Lombardo, and Giovanni (Big John) Ormento and his partner, Salvatore (Tom Mix) Santoro.

But of all the top mobsters he was known to be close to and had operated in tandem with over the years, none was more important than Schillaci’s close association with the top boss himself, Lucky Luciano.

Giovanni Schillaci

By the late 1920s or early 1930s, Schillaci was believed to have been formally inducted into the Luciano Family, later renamed the Vito Genovese Family. He held a soldier’s rank, and, through the years, among his other activities, Schillaci became a major narcotics trafficker who operated as both a financier and smuggler/wholesale distributor of heroin and opium sourced from overseas and Mexico, respectively.

Given his unsavory reputation and long police record, after a concerted effort by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Service, in 1947, the U.S. government eventually succeeded in having Schillaci deported back to his native Sicily.

Salvatore Lucania

According to narcotics agents, after Schillaci arrived back on the island, he eventually made contact with his old friend Luciano, who had also since been deported back to Sicily several years earlier.

The Italian police and U.S. authorities say that after reconnecting, the two old friends were constantly seen together. From that point forward, they say Schillaci began serving as Luciano’s personal driver and bodyguard.

Charles (Johnny Bruno) Lanza

Charles (Johnny Bruno) Lanza – aka Charles Bruno, Carmen Lanza, and Carmelo Lanza (TN). NYCPD # B-144112. Born on August 30, 1906 (alternate dob, 08-03-06), Charlie was two years older than Biagio.

Judging from his police record, Charlie seemed more criminally diversified than his brother was. Either that, or Charlie just wasn’t as lucky as far as getting arrested went.

He had at least six notches on his police record that included arrests for grand larceny (twice), armed robbery, bookmaking (twice), and vagrancy. He was convicted once on a charge of grand larceny and once for bookmaking. But, similar to his brother, Charlie never served any jail time related to either conviction.

Operating from his Bronx neighborhood, besides running a thriving supply firm that formed the basis of the Lanza brothers' lucrative labor-shakedown scheme, Charlie was reportedly also criminally active in various other types of rackets which focused primarily on illegal gambling.

Whereas, either by design or happenstance, at a certain point, Benny gravitated more toward a career as a labor official on behalf of himself and his mob superiors, Charlie remained more of a street guy working the rackets.

Yet, despite their different focus, both brothers fit comfortably into the Genovese Family’s mosaic of labor racketeering and union corruption and infiltration, and complemented one another’s activities on behalf of their borgata.

In a very real sense, Benny and Charlie became the yin and yang of one another.

Whereas Benny controlled a plasterers union on behalf of the Family, his brother Charlie was the president and owner-operator of Lanco Building Supplies Company, Inc. on behalf of the Family.

One controlled the local’s day-to-day business affairs, while the other oversaw the flow of building supplies to companies under contract with the local.

Side Note: Lanco was a major Bronx-based wholesale distributor of building materials to plastering firms and building contractors around the New York Metropolitan area, especially those companies operating under union contract. According to investigators with the New York State Labor Department, Lanco Building Supplies just happened to serve as the key source of building materials to unionized contractors working with the plasterers local.

The business name was a derivative and play on their family surname, combining “Lanza” and “company” to form the corporate name, Lanco.

As mentioned, the Lanza brothers' known criminal activities included labor racketeering, shakedowns and extortion, bookmaking, and policy rackets.

Labor investigators say that, over the years, they had been the focus of several criminal investigations related to labor-union corruption and racketeering in the building trades industry.

One investigation centered around allegations that Benny Lanza was instrumental in providing a so-called “sweetheart contract” that provided favorable employee rates and working contract provisions to the management of a construction firm in exchange for receiving annual under-the-table payoffs.

In a second investigation conducted several years later, U.S. Labor Department investigators focused on allegations that Lanza had pressured various construction contractors to purchase all of their building materials from a Bronx building-supply company owned and operated by his brother Charlie.

The Early Days

Biagio Giuseppe Lanza was described in government files as a solidly built man, standing approximately 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighing 180 pounds. He had brown eyes and hair, and a sallow complexion.

By the time he had reached his late teens, he reportedly met and started dating a local Harlem girl, who came from E. 104th Street, named Mary Novara. Their relationship quickly turned serious, and they decided to get married, which they did on October 8, 1928. Mary had just turned 19. Benny was just 22.

They rented a small apartment for themselves in the Bronx at 2910 Wallace Avenue. By 1930, they decided to start a family of their own. Subsequently, one year later in 1931, Mary gave birth to a daughter, the first of three children they would eventually have together. They named the infant Marie, in honor of Benny’s mother.

Less than two years later, in November 1932, Marie gave birth to a son they named Donald. Three years after that, she gave Benny another daughter whom they named Bernice — the female equivalent of Bernard, or Bernardo, in honor of Benny’s father.

Throughout the remainder of the 1930s and 1940s, all the Lanza siblings lived near one another up in the Bronx.

To support his wife and growing family, Benny found a job in the construction industry working as a plasterer. It was a trade and skill both Lanza brothers had reportedly learned from their father, who was also involved in the plastering business.

Benny found employment with the Actual Pasterer Corporation, with offices at 161 East 121st Street, in his old East Harlem neighborhood.

By the mid-1930s forward, everything was going smoothly for Benny and Mary. They had three beautiful children, a nice apartment, and Benny was bringing in a steady paycheck.

Then, on September 1, 1939, all hell broke loose when World War II began. And suddenly, just like that, with a snap of a finger, the world was turned upside down

Thirteen months later, on October 16, 1940, Lanza was summoned by his Uncle Sam to help out. That was the day the 32-year-old husband and father of three walked down Allerton Avenue to the local U.S. Draft Board Office #103 in his Bronx neighborhood and signed up for the draft.

Lanza served in the U.S. Armed Forces for almost two years before getting honorably discharged and returning home to Mary and the kids.

The Gambling Profession

Once he returned home from the war, Benny got back into the plastering business. He also resumed doing a few other things along with his brother Charlie in order to earn more money and make up for the time he lost in the service. After all, Benny had a lot of mouths to feed.

Dating back to the mid-1930s, Benny and Charlie had gotten involved with illicit gambling activities in Harlem and the Bronx.

They first started out by running numbers for a mobbed-up policy operation in East Harlem. After a couple of years, they made a decision to expand into bookmaking. From that point forward, the Lanzas started accepting wagers on horse races and sports, in addition to their numbers business.

The gambling rackets seemed to agree with them. And, apparently, they were pretty successful at it too. Local law enforcement sources say the Lanza brothers “booked” for decades. And the New York Police Department had their yellow sheets to prove it, too.

In fact, the NYPD Intelligence Squad said that aside from the Lanza brothers' activities as union officials and labor racketeers, through the years, they also operated as horse and sports bookmakers and a policy-numbers operators.

Benny’s police record dated back to the 1940s and reflected at least three gambling arrests. It listed one arrest for horse bookmaking and two more arrests for booking policy-numbers. And although he was later convicted on all three occasions, he never served any jail time.

Records reflect that Charlie was also heavily engaged in the gambling rackets just as much as Benny. In fact, judging from his rap sheet, Charlie appears to have been even more involved — not only in gambling, but in other criminal activity as well.

Nonetheless, despite a number of arrests during their underworld careers, neither brother ever suffered any kind of significant negative repercussions for their criminal activities.

It appears that Charlie and Benny were the Genovese Family’s equivalent of Duracell Batteries, who kept “Taking a licking, but kept on ticking” and just doing their thing.

Suburban Squires

By at least the late 1950s or early 1960s, the Lanza brothers and their wives both left the Bronx for the greener pastures of Nassau County, Long Island.

Benny and Mary, with their three children in tow, moved to the upscale community of Garden City, purchasing a pretty home set on a quarter-acre of property at 8 Terrace Park.

Set on one of the neighborhood’s quieter blocks, the house featured 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. Garden City was long considered one of Nassau County’s more exclusive communities.

Charlie wanted to be close to his kid brother, so he bought a home just a few miles away in the town of Malverne.

And although the neighborhood they chose wasn’t as fancy as Garden City, he and Margaret chose a pretty Tudor-style home set on a corner lot at 51 Ackley Avenue.

This was the home and neighborhood where they would raise their sons Bernard and Richard, and their daughter Marie.

Side Note: Similar to his brother, Charlie also named a son and daughter after his parents, Bernardo and Marie. [This is a traditional Italian custom dating back to antiquity.]

8 Terrace Park, Garden City

51 Ackley Avenue, Malverne

Gettin' Plastered

By at least 1950, Benny was already employed as a business agent for the International Plasterers Union.

Local and federal law enforcement authorities say Lanza became a powerful labor union official in his capacity as the long-serving business agent for Bronx-based Local #60 of the Operating Plasterers Union (AFL-CIO).

From the 1950s through the 1970s, Local #60 was headed by Stephen Lojocano and Thomas Nicolosi, who served as President and Vice-President, respectively. Alfred Dolce served as a member of the local’s executive board.

Benny Lanza was reportedly installed as business agent after Benedict Tantillo vacated the post in order to become the vice-president of the allied Plaster & Cement Masons International Association.

Based in New York City, Local #60 was a relatively small union comprised of approximately 700 dues-paying members who worked on construction projects throughout the metropolitan area, but were most active in the Borough’s of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Westchester County.

In later years, Biagio’s son, Donald C. Lanza, who had since gone to college and law school to become a licensed attorney, was installed as an overseer and fiduciary for the Local #60s Welfare & Pension Fund.

Side Note: During his tenure as a labor union official, Biagio also served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York — a coalition of 110 labor locals representing over 200,000 union members.

And in that capacity, one of his more colorful events occurred back on May 26, 1970, when Lanza became one of 23 labor leaders invited to the White House to meet with then-President Richard M. Nixon.

The labor coalition that traveled to the White House was led by Peter J. Brennan, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York and New York State, and Thomas Gleason, general president of the 116,000-member International Longshoremen’s Association and vice-president of the Executive Committee of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.

This important event casts some light on Biagio Lanza’s standing in the world of organized labor.

Blood Ties

It was often the practice of labor unions from different industries to work together to better achieve their common goals. This was especially true of “mobbed-up” unions.

To that end, Plasterers Helpers Local #30, headed by Henry Lanza, who served as union president, was one such allied labor union.

Harry Lanza

Side Note: Despite having the same surnames, there was no familial blood connection between Henry Lanza and the Lanza brothers.

But Henry (Harry) Lanza did have heavy Genovese Family connections. Harry’s brother was the infamous waterfront racketeer Joseph (Socks) Lanza .

And according to New York Detectives and the FBI, Harry Lanza himself was an FBI-documented “official” Mafia soldier who served in the Cosa Nostra Family once headed by Salvatore (Charlie Lucky) Lucania, since taken over by Luciano’s former underboss, Vito (Don Vitone) Genovese.

In fact, at one point, Harry Lanza was alleged to have been elevated by the Family to a capodecina post and then placed in charge of his brother Joe’s former crew.

A Little Exposed

Despite their best efforts at anonymity, Benny and Charlie got caught at least once with their slips showing.

That rare event took place in March 1969 when the Lanza brothers were featured in an investigative series released by Newsday titled, “The Genovese Clan Extends Activity.”

The article described the Genovese Family’s activities on Long Island and then named 23 men said to be either reputed members or associates of the Family.

Michael Coppola

Although the FBI didn’t specifically name their criminal associates and just generally named them both as Genovese Family soldiers, because of who their uncle was and the fact that they were born and raised in East Harlem, it is more than likely that they — just like their uncle John Schillaci — served in the Harlem-based regime of the Michael (Trigger Mike) Coppola .

It’s also more than likely that Benny Lanza was ‘appointed’ to his position with the plasterers union by Coppola, through the influence of both his uncle and their father Bernard, who was also involved with that particular union local.

Bernardo Lanza was also a plasterer by trade. This is most probably how his two sons first became involved in the industry.

Other key Genovese figures they were believed to be close to included Gaetano (Tommy Palmer) Greco , who was another highly respected longtime capo based in Lower Manhattan and a major power within the building trades.

Exiting Quietly, Stage Left

At the age of 63, Benny Lanza was stricken with cancer. Less than one year later, he succumbed to the disease. He died on Tuesday, February 13, 1973. Benny was only 66 years old.

He was waked for one day at the Fairchild Funeral Chapel on Franklin Avenue, Garden City. The next day, Friday, February 16th, he was given a full Mass of Christian Burial at Resurrection Saint Anne’s R.C. Church, the family’s parish in Garden City. He was then interred at the nearby Holy Rood Catholic Cemetery, Post Avenue, Westbury.

Benny Lanza was reportedly survived by his devoted wife, Mary, their two daughters, Marie and Bernice, and son, Donald, as well as eight grandchildren...and, eventually, 13 great-grandchildren as well.

Mary Lanza died twenty-five years after her husband, on June 1, 1999. She was 89. At the time of her passing, Mary was living in York, Pennsylvania, where she had moved years earlier to be with her youngest daughter, Bernice.

Carmelo (Charlie) Lanza died just four years after his kid brother. Charlie passed on Monday, July 11, 1977.

He was waked locally at the Bruns Funeral Home, 34 Hempstead Avenue, Lynbrook, L.I., and then given a Mass of Christian Burial at St. Thomas R.C. Mission Church. He was then driven upstate to the town of Hawthorne, where he was then interred at Gate of Heaven Cemetery.

In a funny postscript, six years after his death, in 1983, the FBI mistakenly included Charles Lanza on a hierarchy chart “allegedly” depicting the current membership of the Vito Genovese Family.

Until next time…”The Other Guy”

The Brothers Lanza: Genovese Family Sleepers

Dive Deeper into the Underworld

“Jigger” Santo: Worcester’s Deadliest Wiseguy

Notorious Corona Gambler – Genovese Soldier Ralph Serpico

Genovese Soldier & Waterfront Rackets Boss: Philip “Philly Katz” Albanese

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The Brothers Lanza: Genovese Family Sleepers

Often Imitated. Never Duplicated. Button Guys of The New York Mafia...There's Only One!

Tour the Underworld with Button Guys

Dive Deeper into the Underworld

“Jigger” Santo: Worcester’s Deadliest Wiseguy

Notorious Corona Gambler – Genovese Soldier Ralph Serpico

Genovese Soldier & Waterfront Rackets Boss: Philip “Philly Katz” Albanese

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