Cosa Nostra News

Chicago during Prohibition was as lawless and violent as the Wild West. The underworld was fighting its own civil war between north and south. Only the North Siders were the Irish-Americans represented by Bugs Moran. Fighting them were the South Siders, the Italian syndicate led by Al Capone . So to speak. Johnny Torrio, the sly fox.... The war reached its climax on February 14, 1929, St. Valentine’s Day, when a devious trap was set for Moran.

Cool, cool website; thanks to my friend for calling this out: Infamous New York | A Gangland Tour of New York City's Most Infamous Crime Scenes : "Before the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and Prohibition put him on the map, Al Capone received his bachelor’s degree in gangsternomics courtesy of Johnny “The Fox” Torrio, a future mafia chieftan who got his start as the leader of the James Street Gang. A dormouse of a man with button eyes and a nose like a thimble, Torrio could only be described as one of the finest criminal mastermind’s of the 20th century, and it all started on James Street, a tiny sliver of a street that is one of the last remaining vestiges of the old Corlear’s Hook neighborhood. Life in crime came early for Torrio. As a boy he worked in his stepfather’s illegal moonshine den at 86 James Street. In 1904, the urchin started promoting boxing matches, where he met the bantamweight fighter and gangland kingpin, Paul Kelly. Kelly, a suave racketeer whose r...