Nicolò Terranova (1890 – September 7, 1916), also known as Nicholas "Nick" Morello, was one of the first Italian-American organized crime figures in New York City. He succeeded Giuseppe Morello as boss of the then Morello Gang in 1909 and was succeeded by Vincenzo Terranova in 1916. Along with his half-brother Giuseppe Morello and brothers Ciro and Vincenzo Terranova, he founded the Morello crime family, and was later one of the participants in the Mafia-Camorra War of 1915–17.
Terranova was born in Corleone, Sicily, in 1890 to parents Bernardo Terranova and Angelina Piazza. In 1893, Terranova emigrated from Sicily with his family, including his brothers Ciro and Vincenzo, arriving in New York on March 8, 1893. In 1903, Nicolo's sister Salvatrice Terranova married Ignazio "the Wolf" Lupo, who was running the Black Hand organization in Little Italy, Manhattan.
In 1915, Brooklyn Camorra leader Pellegrino Morano, a man who had his own dreams of expansion, began moving in on the Morello family's Manhattan territory of East Harlem and Greenwich Village. After a Neapolitan ally of the Morello family, Goisue Gallucci was killed in East Harlem. The more forward-looking Nicholas Morello thought it foolish to continue such old battles and offered to make a peaceful settlement. Pellegrino Morano took such a move as a sign of weakness and spurned the offer. By 1916 the warfare was so intense that only the most hardy mafiosi or Camorrista dared cross the East River into the other's domain. They usually returned home in a hearse.
The Neapolitans did not fear police investigations because they paid off police officers and omertà prevented witnesses to step forward. His associate Vollero received a death sentence, which was later reduced to a minimum of 20 years.
Tony Parretti received a death sentence for his part in the killing of Morello and Ubriaco. Both were also involved in the murder of Joe Nazzaro.
Nicolo and his three brothers lie in bare graves in Calvary Cemetery in Queens, New York, not far from Joe Petrosino, who investigated them, or other Morello crime family members, such as Ignazio "Lupo the Wolf" Lupo.
Aftermath
After Nicholas Morello’s death, leadership of the Morello crime family passed to his brother Vincenzo Terranova, with another brother, Ciro, serving as underboss. The imprisonment of Morello and Morano brought what newspapers described as the first Mafia War to a close. Along with it faded Nicholas Morello’s ambition of forging a grand alliance of gangs.