Mobsters Al Scarface Capone Chicago Outfit A child from an Italian immigrant family, Al Capone, also known as Scarface, rose to infamy as the leader of the Chicago mafia during the Prohibition era. One of the most famous American gangsters, Al Capone, also known as Scarface, rose to infamy as the leader of the Chicago mafia during the Prohibition era. Before being sent to Alcatraz Prison in 1931 from a tax evasion conviction, he had amassed a personal fortune estimated at $100 million and was responsible for countless murders. Many New York gangsters in the early 20th Century came from impoverished backgrounds, but this was not the case for the legendary Al Capone. Far from being a poor immigrant from Italy who turned to crime to make a living, Capone was from a respectable, professional family. His father, Gabriele, was one of thousands of Italians who arrived in New York in 1894. He was thirty years old, educated and from Naples, where he had earned a living as a barber. His wife Teresina Teresa was pregnant and already bringing up two sons: 2-year-old son Vincenzo and infant son Raffaele. The family moved to a poor Brooklyn tenement where Alphonse Capone was born on January 17, 1899. The young Capones home was far from salubrious. He lived in a squalid tenement, little more than a slum, near the Navy Yard. It was a tough place given over to the vices sought by sailor characters that frequented the surrounding bars. The family was a regular, law abiding, albeit noisy Italian American clan and there were few indications that the young Al Capone would venture into a world of crime and become public enemy number one. Certainly the familys move to a more ethnically mixed area of the city exposed the young Capone to wider cultural influences, no doubt equipping him with the means to run a notorious criminal empire. But it was Capones schooling, both inadequate and brutal at a Catholic institution beset with violence that marred the impressionable young man. Despite having been a promising student, he was expelled at the age of 14 for hitting a female teacher, and never went back. It was then that Capone met the gangster Johnny Torrio which would prove the greatest influence on the would-be gangland boss. Torrio taught Capone the importance of maintaining a respectable front, while running a racketeering business. The slightly built Torrio represented a new dawn in criminal enterprise, transforming a violently crude culture into a corporate empire. Capone joined Johnny Torrios James Street Boys gang, rising eventually to the Five Points Gang. In a youthful scrape in a brothel-saloon, a young hoodlum slashed Capone with a knife or razor across his left cheek, prompting the later nickname Scarface. Torrio moved from New York to Chicago in 1909 to help run the giant brothel business there and, in 1919, sent for Capone. It was either Capone or Frankie Yale who allegedly assassinated Torrios boss, Big Jim Colosimo, in 1920, making way for Torrios rule. As Prohibition began, new bootlegging operations opened up and drew in immense wealth. In 1925 Torrio retired, and Capone became crime czar of Chicago, running gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging rackets and expanding his territories by the gunning down of rivals and rival gangs. Despite a brief hiatus when Capone married middle class Irish girl Mae Coughlin and settled down as a bookkeeper, he was soon to return working for his old boss Johnny Torrio in Chicago. The unexpected death of Capones father was a turning point. It is believed that the sudden freedom from parental influence was the reason that he stopped trying to maintain a law abiding, respectable lifestyle. As Capones reputation grew he still insisted on being unarmed as a mark of his status. But he never went anywhere without at least two bodyguards. He was even sandwiched between bodyguards when traveling by car. He also preferred to travel under cover of night, risking travel by day only when absolutely necessary. With his business acumen, Al became Torrios partner and took over as manager of the Four Deuces Torrios headquarters in Chicagos Levee area. The Four Deuces served as a speakeasy, gambling joint and whorehouse under one roof. m.youtube/watch?v=loqwNHRjcqQ&list=PL5WIywlgoHyIKHr6-W2qAC2Fr89lE7y0C
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 18:51:41 +0000
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