Eddie McGrath

Eddie McGrath (born January 31, 1906,[citation needed] date of death unknown[1]) was an Irish-American gangster from New York City, who controlled the Hell's Kitchen Irish Mob and the lucrative waterfront throughout the 1940s. Originally from the notorious Gashouse District on the East Side, McGrath was arrested numerous times throughout the 1920s and 30s for offenses ranging from burglary to murder.

After serving a lengthy stretch in Sing Sing, McGrath ended up as an organizer for the International Longshoremen's Association on the Hell's Kitchen waterfront. With the notorious Joseph P. Ryan in control of the ILA, McGrath became the primary muscle on the waterfront, with gangsters like John "Cockeye" Dunn (who was McGrath's brother in law) and Andrew "Squint" Sheridan as his enforcers. He became a close ally of powerful organized crime figures such as Joe Adonis, Albert Anastasia, and Meyer Lansky.

Eddie McGrath was forced to abscond from New York after Dunn and Sheridan were executed for the murder of a hiring stevedore named Andy Hintz in 1949 and the investigation of waterfront criminal activity subsequently began to escalate. He was sent to Miami as an ILA organizer at the behest of Meyer Lansky, where he spent the remainder of his life.

The character of Johnny Friendly in On the Waterfront is loosely based on a composite of McGrath, Albert Anastasia, and an ILA organizer named Mickey Bowers.

Carlos Marcello

Carlos Marcello, also known as The Godfather and "The Little Man" Marcello (February 6, 1910 – March 2, 1993), was an Italian-American mafioso who became the boss of the New Orleans crime family during the 1940s and held this position for the next thirty years.

Cesare Manzella

Cesare Manzella (Cinisi, December 18, 1897 - Cinisi, April 26, 1963) was a traditional Mafia capo, who sat on the first Sicilian Mafia Commission. He was the head of the Mafia family in Cinisi, a small seaside town near the Punta Raisi Airport. As the airport was in their territory it was an invaluable asset for the import and export of contraband, including narcotics. His deputy was Gaetano Badalamenti.[1]

Stefano Magaddino

Stefano "The Undertaker" Magaddino (October 10, 1891 – July 19, 1974) was a Sicilian mafioso who became the boss of the Buffalo crime family in western New York. His underworld influence stretched from Ohio to Southern Ontario and as far east as Montreal, Quebec. Known as Don Stefano to his friends and The Undertaker to others, he was also a charter member of the American Mafia's ruling council, otherwise known as The Commission.

Joseph Magliocco

Joseph Magliocco, also known as "Joe Malayak" (June 29, 1898 – December 28, 1963) was a New York mobster and the boss of the Profaci crime family (later to become the Colombo crime family) from 1962 to 1963. Magliocco participated in an audacious unsuccessful attempt to kill other family bosses and take over the Mafia Commission.

Tommy Lucchese

Thomas Lucchese (pronounced [lukˈkeːse]; born Gaetano Lucchese, December 1, 1899 – July 13, 1967) was a Sicilian-born American gangster and founding member of the Mafia in the United States, an offshoot of the Cosa Nostra in Sicily. From 1951 until 1967, he was the boss of the Lucchese crime family, one of the Five Families that dominates organized crime in New York City.

Frank Lucas (drug dealer)

Frank Lucas (born September 9, 1930)[4] is an American former heroin dealer, who operated in Harlem during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was particularly known for cutting out middlemen in the drug trade and buying heroin directly from his source in the Golden Triangle. Lucas boasted that he smuggled heroin using the coffins of dead American servicemen,[5][6] but this claim is denied by his South East Asian associate, Leslie "Ike" Atkinson.[7] Rather than hide the drugs in the coffins, they were hidden in the pallets underneath as depicted in the 2007 feature film American Gangster in which he was played by Denzel Washington, although the film fictionalized elements of Lucas' life for dramatic effect.