Salvatore Catalano was born in the province of Palermo, Sicily, in 1941, one of six children, the oldest of three boys. His mother died when he was a child, his father was a conductor that sold tickets on the Palermo-Argigento bus line. In 1966, with his two brothers Dominick and Vita and one of his sisters Vita, the twenty-five year old Catalano came to the U.S. settling in a $180-a-month apartment on Hemlock Street in Queens, near the Cypress Hills Cemetery. According to his lawyer, Catalano's first job was working as a machinist in a scientific corporation, a claim that the FBI Agent Charles Rooney commented, "What was he working on, F-14s?" Later Catalano managed his brother's gift shop on Knickerbocker Avenue and in 1977 he bought a Queens pizzeria with Guiseppe Ganci and Cesare Bonve