Catena was born in 1902 in South Orange, New Jersey, and subsequently became familiar with legendary mobsters Willie Moretti, Thomas Greco, Cosmo "Gus" Frasca, and Abner "Longy" Zwillman in the early 1910s. Later, it has been confirmed that Catena moved to New York City to join the forces of Charles Luciano and Meyer Lansky during the early 1920s, when the rise of two Mafia Dons named Giuseppe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, began fighting a bloody internal battle called the Castellammarese War.