Alphonso Sgroia

Sgroia arrived in New York in 1899, aged 13. He earnt his nick­name from his busi­ness, a butcher shop. Sgroia returned to New York on 25^th April 1905 and stayed with his brother Bia­gio on 117^th Street.

On June 24^th 1916 a meet­ing took place at Coney Island between the Sicil­ian Morello gang, the Neapoli­tan Navy Street gang and the Neapoli­tan Coney Island gang. The idea of the meet­ing was to dis­cuss the expan­sion of gam­bling dens in lower Manhattan.

On Sep­tem­ber 7^th 1916, Nicholas Ter­ra­nova and Charles Ubri­aco trav­elled down­town to meet with the Navy St gang. Ralph Daniello served the men drinks before Pagano arrived to take them to a cof­fee house where Lau­ri­tano and Morano were wait­ing. The men walked together towards Myr­tle Avenue when they were ambushed at the junc­tion of John­son St and Hud­son Avenue.

On March 16^th 1917, Joseph “Chuck” Naz­zaro was shot and killed in Yonkers NY. Naz­zaro had been spot­ted talk­ing to the Morello gang in Harlem, and was sen­tenced to death by the Neapoli­tan gangs in Brook­lyn. Fevrola, Sgroia, and the Paretti broth­ers, all from the Navy St gang lured Naz­zaro out to Yonkers under the pre­tence of killing Fevrola for giv­ing the police infor­ma­tion about a gang. The gang then shot Naz­zaro and left his body on the trol­ley tracks.

In May 1917, a very impor­tant event took place, Ralph “The Bar­ber” Daniello, a mem­ber of the Brook­lyn based Navy St gang, began to tell the police every­thing he knew about the Navy St crew and the recent mur­ders. On Novem­ber 27^th Daniello was arraigned with John Espos­ito, Alle­san­dro Vollero and Alphonso Sgroia.

Sgroia was sen­tenced on June 17^th 1918, he received twelve years in Dan­nemora for manslaugh­ter in the case of Nicholas Ter­ra­nova. He went on to tes­tify against his fel­low gun­men Paretti and Fevrola, he was rewarded with a shorter sen­tence and depor­ta­tion to Italy.

Back in Italy, Sgroia was mar­ried on May 10^th 1926. He con­tin­ued his trade as a butcher, and went on to father nine sons.