Albert Anastasia

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Lore & Background

Albert Anastasia was the underboss of the family that would later be named the Gambino crime family. For most of the quarter-century after the Castellammarese War of 1931, the family was a minor player in organized crime, but Anastasia was its most prominent member. He rose to infamy as the operating head of Murder, Inc., the underworld's enforcement arm. Even after Murder, Inc. was smashed in the late 1940s, Anastasia remained in power. In 1951, by all accounts, he murdered the family's founder Vincent Mangano and took over, at which point the organization was recognized as the Anastasia crime family. His reign ended on a day in 1957, when he was assassinated while sitting in a barber chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan, New York City. Some historians believe that his underboss Carlo Gambino helped orchestrate the hit to take over the family.

Reader's Guide

Albert Anastasia's career spanned from the enforcement arm of Murder, Inc. to the boss's throne of what became the most powerful crime family in America for a time. As underboss of a minor family, he became its most prominent member by running Murder, Inc., the underworld's enforcement arm. Even after that organization was dismantled in the late 1940s, he held onto power. In 1951, he murdered the family's founder Vincent Mangano and took over, renaming the organization the Anastasia crime family. His death came in 1957, assassinated in a barber chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan. Some historians believe his own underboss, Carlo Gambino, helped orchestrate the hit. After Anastasia's death, Gambino took over and the family was later renamed after him during the 1963 McClellan hearings.

Did You Know?

• Anastasia was the operating head of Murder, Inc., the underworld's enforcement arm.
• He took over his family in 1951—by all accounts, after murdering the family's founder Vincent Mangano.
• The family was then recognized as the Anastasia crime family until Carlo Gambino took over.
• Anastasia was assassinated while sitting in a barber chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan in 1957.
• Some historians believe his underboss Carlo Gambino helped orchestrate the hit to take over the family.

Rise Through the Underworld's Enforcement Arm

After the Castellammarese War of 1931, the family that would eventually bear the Gambino name was, for roughly a quarter of a century, a relatively minor player among New York's five families. Yet within that modest operation, one figure loomed far larger than the family's station would suggest: underboss Albert Anastasia. He carved out a reputation that transcended his own crew by becoming the operational head of Murder, Inc., the notorious enforcement apparatus that carried out contract killings across the underworld. His infamy as the man who ran that killing machine gave him a profile and a power base that extended well beyond his own family's borders. Even when law enforcement dismantled Murder, Inc. in the late 1940s, Anastasia's grip on influence did not loosen. He survived the collapse of the organization that had made him famous and continued to operate from the top of his own crew, positioning himself for the next decisive move in his career.

Seizing the Family from Mangano

In 1951, Albert Anastasia made the move that would define his final years and reshape the family's identity. By all accounts, he eliminated Vincent Mangano, the man who had founded the crew, and assumed the boss's chair for himself. The act was so definitive that the organization was thereafter publicly recognized as the Anastasia crime family, a name change that reflected the reality of who truly held authority. This was not a simple succession; it was a takeover that elevated a once-minor crew into what would become, for a period, the most powerful criminal organization in the country. Anastasia's path to that position had been built on his earlier work running Murder, Inc., which gave him a network of loyalty and fear that extended across the underworld. By the time he sat at the top, the family's operations already stretched from New York and the eastern seaboard all the way to California, encompassing a wide range of illicit enterprises from labor racketeering and construction fraud to gambling, loansharking, extortion, and money laundering. His murder of Mangano was the final step in consolidating a power structure that had been building for over a decade.

The Barber Chair at the Park Sheraton

On a day in 1957, Albert Anastasia sat down in a barber chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan, New York City, and never left that chair alive. The assassination ended a career that had spanned from the enforcement corridors of Murder, Inc. to the boss's throne of the most powerful family in America. The manner of his death—killed in a public, civilian setting while receiving a routine haircut—underscored how completely the underworld's code of protection had failed him, or how thoroughly his enemies had planned the strike. The circumstances surrounding the hit remain a subject of historical debate, but a significant school of thought points directly to his own underboss, Carlo Gambino, as the architect or at least a key orchestrator of the killing. The motive, in that reading, was straightforward: remove the boss and inherit the family. Gambino's subsequent rise to the top of the organization, and the family's renaming in his honor during the 1963 McClellan hearings, lends weight to the theory that Anastasia's death was not a random act of violence but a calculated coup from within his own inner circle.

The Family After Anastasia

Albert Anastasia's murder in 1957 set in motion a chain of leadership transitions that would define the family's trajectory for the next six decades. Carlo Gambino, widely suspected of orchestrating the hit, took the helm and immediately expanded the family's reach, notably partnering with Meyer Lansky to control gambling operations in Cuba and other locations. Under Gambino, the family's fortunes continued to climb until his death in 1976, when he appointed his brother-in-law Paul Castellano as his successor. Castellano's tenure was cut short in 1985, when upstart capo John Gotti orchestrated his murder and seized power. Gotti's reign, however, ended in 1992 when his own underboss, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, flipped and cooperated with the FBI, sending Gotti and most of the family's top members behind bars. In the aftermath, control shifted to the organization's Sicilian faction. From 2015 until his assassination outside his Staten Island home on March 13, 2019, Frank Cali led the family, marking another violent chapter in a lineage that Anastasia had helped forge.