Now that the holidays are over and things seem to have calmed down, hopefully you are looking for things to read while the weather is still keeping most of us indoors.
This is part three of a series of articles about the South Side Chicago mob. This segment focuses on the Chicago Outfit during the period after Prohibition.
I have many Italian friends and became Italian by marriage, so my sons are part-Italian heritage. When I decided to write a historical mystery novel based on a friend whose family had loose ties to organized crime in the late 1950s, I did a fair amount of research.
The Mystery at Mount Forest is now available, and I’d like to share with you some of what I found most interesting with a particular focus on the South Suburbs where I grew up and my story takes place. I thought that the things that caught my interest might also interest my readers. I’m not trying to compete with the experts on all things Chicago Mob, so if that’s what you’re looking for, I will be including some references with the last post in this series.
If you missed the first two articles in this series, you can read them on my website, http://www.patcamallierebooks.com
Chicago’s South Side Mob – Continued #3
After Prohibition, Villa Venice & the Rat Pack
What happened to the Outfit after Prohibition?
When Prohibition was repealed and those seeking alcoholic beverages were no longer dependent on organized crime, the Chicago Mob returned to their previous businesses, improved and then expanded into new areas, taking advantage of opportunities. They became even more profitable than they had been during Prohibition, with peak profits taking place in the 1950s.
What were those activities?
- Gambling, craps, bookie joints, and thoroughbred racetracks
- Labor racketeering, union infiltration, and misappropriation of union funds
- Exploitation of businesses, control of pension funds and construction jobs, employer kickbacks
- The entertainment industry: strip joints, prostitution, vending machines, jukeboxes, slot machines (back rooms in neighborhood bars), casinos and nightclubs (such as Condessa Del Mar on South Cicero Avenue and Villa Venice), sponsored entertainers (such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Frankie Avalon, Fabian)
- Bail bonds
- Loan sharking
- Street taxes
- Entry into “legitimate” businesses: cement, housing, garbage disposal, real estate, liquor stores, motels, laundromats, breweries, restaurants, dairies.
Notably missing from this list is narcotics. In general, the Chicago Outfit washed its hands of involvement in drug trafficking, discouraging involvement due to risks involved. There were many practical, rather than ethical, reasons. Managing street gangs was something they preferred not to do, since it would draw from what they deemed more lucrative activities they had refined. Also, the Outfit always strongly defended its members, and legal defense for drug crimes was expensive. Members involved in wholesale trafficking on their own time may have been overlooked in later years, but narcotics was not a business the Mob wanted. Therefore, drug trafficking was largely left to other ethnic groups that were growing in the area.
At this point some definitions may be helpful.
Extortion, also called shakedown, is a criminal activity whereby the target is forced (coerced) to pay to avoid being damaged in some way. The extortionist is thus both the problem and its solution. Typically, the target will be offered “protection” to make the problem go away. For instance, a service will be offered to protect a business from dangerous individuals in the neighborhood unless money is paid. The extortionist is both the person who profits by the payment and the “dangerous individual.”
Racketeering is an organized criminal act, or business, that earns illegal money on a repeated or regular basis. This often involved extortion.
In 1945 the Mob opened its first casino on the strip in Las Vegas when Bugsy Siegel broke ground on the Flamingo. Chicago’s Outfit joined the Vegas strip in 1953 when Accardo and Giancana opened a string of casinos. Although mob affiliation with casinos has never really gone away, in the 1970s legitimate owners started buying up casinos in Vegas, and by the end of the 1980s the Outfit was largely out of Vegas.
Vegas was not the only Mob venture in the entertainment industry. For example, two nightclubs in the Chicago suburbs come to mind – the Condessa Del Mar near 122nd and South Cicero Avenue in Alsip, and the Villa Venice on Milwaukee Avenue in Wheeling.
The Villa Venice was owned by then-Chicago-boss Sam Giancana. The elaborate and gaudy nightclub was unlike anything of its day, built to resemble the canals of Venice. The building had a boat landing and patrons could actually ride in a gondola. The showroom seated 800, and a Quonset hut nearby housed a gambling casino. Visitors were transported between the supper club and the roulette and dice tables by the syndicate.
Famous entertainers performed at the Villa in the early 1960s, including such notable singers as Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, and Eddie Fisher. Tina Sinatra, Frank’s daughter, explains that the “Rat Pack” of movie fame that included Sinatra, Martin, Davis, and President John Kennedy’s brother-in-law Peter Lawford, performed there as a favor to owner Giancana, who had helped get union support for John F. Kennedy in the 1960 Presidential election.
The Villa Venice burned down in a “mysterious” fire in 1967, and today a Hilton Hotel is on the site of the old nightclub.
In addition to live performers and nightclubs, the Mob’s control of the jukebox industry not only resulted in huge profits but greatly influenced which entertainers became popular. Top 10 and Top 40 listings determined what was played on radio shows and drove record sales. The lists were derived from statistics taken from juke box playings, the selections in the boxes made by the mobsters who filled them.
Another lucrative area was thoroughbred horseracing, not only in bookie joints but also crime taking place at the tracks. Anyone who had access to stables could be involved—jockeys, trainers, stable boys, owners—with such activities taking place as doping, prods, bribing jockeys, racing under false names and ringers, and other “fixes.” Jimmy Emery from Chicago Heights was particularly involved, as written in the preceding article.
After its peak in the 1950s, a variety of changes influenced the direction the Outfit took. In the 1960s, for instance, the advent of “free love” took a significant bite out of the vice trade. The population became less tolerant of criminal behavior and violence, and reform of the area’s legal system and law enforcement crackdowns became more successful. As a result, the Outfit concentrated on bookie joints, graft, union interference, racketeering and extortion, and a new business of chop shops was conceived.
Jimmy “The Bomber” Catuara had been a hit man for the Mob from a young age. He was short, thick, and bald-headed, with a violent streak. He earned his nickname by blowing up taxicabs in the ‘20s and ‘30s, for which he had served a jail sentence. In the 1940s he became Jimmy Emery’s chief enforcer for the Chicago Heights Outfit. He lived in Oak Lawn, and controlled mob operations for the South Side and in Chicago’s southwest suburbs, running chop shops in the 1960s. This major mob activity under his direction led to the Chop Shop Wars and many gangland deaths.
Because he shorted mob bosses of their full share of profits and promoted violence and infighting, thereby drawing much unwanted attention, the Mob eventually replaced him. However, he refused to leave, and when it was rumored that he had turned informant he was found shot gangland style on July 28, 1978.
By the time of Catuara’s slaying, the Outfit was declining for a multitude of reasons. The 1970s saw the death of a number of major mobsters, such as Paul “The Waiter” Ricca, Frank LaPorte, and Sam “Momo” Giancana. Legal off-track betting and a state lottery cut into gambling profits. Pressure increased on crackdowns on union corruption. Vegas casinos were being bought out by legitimate owners. The Mob faced serious competition due to ethnic changes and narcotics, with effective operations focused on neighborhoods. Thus, far-reaching organized crime lost its attraction.
By the 1980s the Outfit was largely out of Vegas, and had reorganized and downsized. The business now concentrated on video poker machines in neighborhood bars, professional sports betting, juice loans, and extortion.
In addition to factors listed above, the number of recruits for a “career” in organized crime was affected by a decrease in immigration and the decisions of children of mobsters who made other choices. By the 1990s the mob’s impact was minor.
Despite these changes, the Outfit is still alive today, according to Chicago Outfit expert John J. Binder, author of The Chicago Outfit and Al Capone’s Beer Wars. “They can still be found in their favorite haunts, but they have a much lower profile. However, the Outfit is ready to move any time it sees an angle for itself…”
Very interesting read. I did have to look up “juice loan.” How fun to learn a new term.
Thanks for the article.
Best wishes.
Hi Pat:
Another very interesting article. The ‘outfit’ is always fascinating for some reason, especially for those of us living anywhere in the greater Chicago area. It seems that everyone knew somebody who was ‘connected’.
Best wishes,
Ken