FRANK COSTELLO served as boss of New York’s Luciano crime family from 1937 to 1957. Immigrating from Italy as a boy, the troubled Costello had joined a violent street gang by age 13 and spent much of his teens and 20s in and out of jail for various crimes.

Working for the mob in the early 1920s, Costello met young Sicilian gang leader Lucky Luciano. The pair became fast friends and partners, merging their crews with strategic allies to form a mob that established various local rackets, eventually growing into a thriving bootlegging empire. Costello and Luciano were enterprising and ambitious, and the young mobsters brokered power deals with the city’s most powerful Italian, Jewish, and Irish gangsters.

In 1931, Luciano seized power as the top boss in New York and chose Costello to be his right-hand man and closest advisor. Luciano’s reign on top would be cut short by a federal conviction for running a prostitution ring; facing 30 to 50 years behind bars, he relinquished power to his second-in-command underboss Vito Genovese. Soon after taking over, however, Genovese would be charged with murder and fled to Italy to avoid prosecution. Costello was next in line and appointed acting boss in 1937, and the Family continued to grow in power and influence over the next two stable decades of his leadership.

Former boss Vito Genovese eventually complicated matters by returning to New York, expecting to pick up where he left off, in command of the Luciano empire. But Costello refused to give up his power, so Genovese resolved to seize control of the family by having Costello eliminated. In 1957, Costello was gunned down outside his apartment, but miraculously survived his wounds. The hit was botched but the message was received. Rather than risk his life in a violent power struggle, Costello decided to retire from the mob, allowing his rival to take his place at the head of what would soon be renamed the Genovese Crime Family.

Costello audaciously continued to live in New York, becoming a trusted advisor to the Mafia in his later years. His peaceful retirement was free of both mob vengeance and pursuit by the law, and he died of natural causes in 1973 at the age of 82.