Frankie Lamiano (January 22, 1893 – ? ) was a gangster who, by the end of World War I, dominated Italian organized crime in Brooklyn. His gang became the first new-style Mafia “family” which included Italians from all regions and could work in partnership with other ethnic groups if it was good for business. Lamiano’s “services” included providing “protection” to local merchants and controlling food services for restaurants, as well as ice deliveries for Brooklyn residents. Frankie also owned and operated his own funeral home at 6604 14th Avenue across the street from where he lived. When asked about his profession, Lamiano wryly commented that he was an “undertaker.”
At the beginning of Prohibition, Lamiano became one of Brooklyn’s biggest bootleggers. But on February 6, 1921, he and two of his men were ambushed as they stepped from their car to attend a banquet in Lower Manhattan. One of Lamiano’s bodyguards was killed and the other wounded, with Lamiano himself sustaining a severe lung wound that should have killed him. Through circumstances yet to be revealed, however, Lamiano was transformed into a vampire. He subsequently renovated the back room of the Adonis Club to serve as his headquarters and moved his residence to the funeral home. As the self-proclaimed “godfather of vampires,” Lamiano began to unite the various vampire clans under his rule by employing the same tactics he used to unite his fellow Italians into a “family.”
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