Pelligrino Morano

Alias:

Born: 1877

Nation­al­i­ty: Italian

Died:

Where:

Cause:

Killer:

Pel­li­gri­no Mora­no was the head of a group of Neapoli­tans based in Coney Island, where he owned the Santa Lucia restau­rant, often used as the head­quar­ters for their gang.

Mora­no had pre­vi­ous­ly been based in Harlem. When he was arrest­ed in 1904 for the shoot­ing of an Ital­ian ‘well known to the police’ at Mul­ber­ry and Grand Streets, he gave his address as 327 E 115th Street. Whilst the police believed his claim of inno­cence, he was locked up and charged  for car­ry­ing a con­cealed weapon.

Years later, Mora­no was based in Coney Island. His asso­ciates Alle­san­dro Vollero and Leopol­do Lau­ri­tano owned a cof­fee house at 133 Navy Street Brook­lyn. The cof­fee house was used as the head­quar­ters for their gang, which main­ly con­sist­ed of Neapoli­tans, and was often referred to as ‘The Camor­ra’.

On June 24th, 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. A plan that led to a string of mur­ders across New York.

In May 1917Ralph ‘The Bar­ber’ Daniel­lo, a mem­ber of the Navy St gang, began to tell the police every­thing he knew about Mora­no, the Neapoli­tan gangs, and the recent murders.

Mora­no was later con­vict­ed of mur­der in the sec­ond degree in the case of Nicholas Ter­ra­no­va and Eugene Ubri­a­co and sen­tenced to spend twen­ty years to life at Sing Sing prison.