Broadway Mob

The Broadway Mob was a New York bootlegging gang during Prohibition. Although headed by Joe Adonis, the gangs day-to-day operations were handled by Charles "Lucky" Luciano and Frank Costello as well as financially backed by Arnold Rothstein. During Manhattan's bootleg wars, Rothstein would bring in the Bug and Meyer Mob, led by Meyer Lansky and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, to protect alcohol shipments.

As Luciano and Lansky had previously worked together prior to Prohibition, Meyer and Siegel were made partners in the Judeo-Catholic criminal organization. By the late 1920s, the Broadway Mob supplied New York speakeasies with some of the highest quality whiskey including Sherman Billingsley's Stork Club, the Silver Slipper, Jack White's, Jack and Charlie's 21 Club among others. Even its lesser quality alcohol imported from Philadelphia mobster Waxey Gordon was considered far superior to the rotgut liquor supplied by the rest of New York's underworld.

At the suggestion of Rothstein, the Broadway Mob bought interests in several popular speakeasies and nightclub which would lead to purchasing valuable real estate in Manhattan. Its operations were eventually absorbed into the criminal syndicate under Luciano and Lansky, following the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.

Further reading

• Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia. New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8160-5694-3
• Sifakis, Carl. The Encyclopedia of American Crime. New York: Facts on File Inc., 2005. ISBN 0-8160-4040-0