Terranova came to the United States as a young boy in the 1890s. His family included brother Vincent, at least one sister Salvatrese, and half-brothers or step-brothers Antonio, Giuseppe and Nicholas Morello. Terranova grew up in the street gangs of East Harlem and graduated to a position of lieutenant in the organization of racket king Giosue Gallucci.
Terranova's racket specialty became produce, and he cornered the market on artichokes, earning the nickname "the artichoke king." He is also believed to have trafficked in narcotics, and some authorities credited him with christening cocaine "the white stuff."
Terranova's usefulness to New York organized crime was based on his ability to create and maintain relationships with corrupt political and law enforcement personalities as well as his influence among the young street hoods in East Harlem. Upon Gallucci's death in 1915, Terranova began running the lucrative Harlem numbers racket.
Lower East Side Mafia leader Ignazio Lupo married Ciro's sister, and the two men became close allies. During the imprisonment of Lupo and Giuseppe Morello, the Terranovas and Nicholas Morello attempted to maintain order in the New York underworld. They had a difficult time of it (Nicholas Morello was assassinated by Brooklyn Camorrists in 1916), and Ciro Terranova eventually threw his weight behind promising boss of bosses candidate Joe Masseria around 1920.
Masseria and Terranova managed to put down numerous bootlegging rivals and stabilize the Mafia in New York by the late 1920s. Terranova moved himself and his family a safe distance from the city, all the way out in Pelham Manor, and began driving around in an armored limousine.
In 1929, Terranova's alliances with local officials were exposed as the result of a robbery at a dinner honoring City Magistrate Albert Vitale. Police investigation into the holdup (and the unexplained return of stolen items) showed that Terranova and the top men in his organization - all known criminals - were among the guests at the dinner.
At the end of the 20's, a new problem arose - Mafia gangs comprised mostly of immigrants from Castellamare del Golfo, Sicily, became convinced that Masseria was determined to annihilate them. They rose up against him in 1930 and 1931 in what became known as the Castellamarese War. Terranova was viewed as a loyal Masseria ally, but he secretly negotiated, along with Charlie Luciano and others, a surrender to the Castellamarese side commanded by Salvatore Maranzano. As a show of good faith, Terranova, Luciano and the other turncoats were ordered to assassinate Masseria. This they accomplished on April 15, 1931.
During the assassination, Mafia legend indicates that Terranova lost his nerve. With it, he lost his prestige in the underworld. Soon, Luciano and his aggressive young Mafiosi moved in on Terranova's rackets. By 1935, he was left with just his artichoke income. That, too, was eliminated in December 1935, when Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia briefly outlawed the sale of artichokes until competing distribution could be arranged.
In his final years, Terranova was declared persona non grata in Manhattan and was arrested for vagrancy whenever seen on the island. He was forced to surrender his Pelham Manor home in 1937 and was allowed to move back into an East Harlem apartment after that. He claimed to be living on borrowed money at the time of his death from a stroke on Feb. 20, 1938.
Vincent Terranova was born in Sicily around 1887. He was one of a group of brothers, step-brothers and brothers-in-law who dominated New York organized crime for more than three decades.
Vincent Terranova rose to the leadership of a gang located on East 107th Street around 1900. He cooperated in rackets with the downtown-based Mafia organization of half-brother or step-brother Giuseppe Morello and brother-in-law Ignazio Lupo. When Morello and Lupo went off to serve lengthy prison sentences for counterfeiting, Terranova was welcomed as a group commander in the East Harlem organization of Giosue Gallucci.
In the 1920s, Terranova became wealthy as a bootlegger. In May 1922, he was shot to death from a car passing his home at 116th Street and Second Avenue. Several causes are cited by crime historians for his death. It may have been the result of continued Mafia-Camorra fighting. It may have been a maneuver for supreme Mafia power by Umberto Valenti. One historian claims that Joe Masseria was responsible, but Masseria's close relationship with Vincent's brother Ciro and his alliance with Vincent's step-brother Giuseppe Morello in later years make that seem unlikely.