Born Giuseppe Maria Barbara in 1905 in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Barbara immigrated to the United States in 1921, along with an older brother called Carlo, settling in with relatives in Endicott, a small town to the east of Binghamton, and getting a job in one of the numerous shoe factories scattered across the region. Barbara began his criminal career by setting up a house of prostitution and was soon working as a hitman for the Buffalo crime family in Buffalo, New York. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1927. He was a suspect in the 1931 murder of Calomare Calogaro, who was shot dead in Wyoming, Pennsylvania. A few months later, police found a Thompson sub machine gun in Joe's car, which had apparently been used in a recent gangland shooting in New York City. In 1933, he