Al Capone: A Brief Introduction

Alphonse “Al” Capone (Born 1/17/1899, Brooklyn; Died 1/25/1947, Florida) is one of the most recognized names in American history. Alphonse was born to Neapolitan immigrants Gabriel and Teresa. His surname, originally Caponi, had been Americanized to “Capone”. The Capone family included James, Ralph, Salvatore (Frank), Alphonse, John, Albert, Matthew, Rose and Mafalda. Capone was proud to be an American “I’m no Italian. I was born in Brooklyn”, he often said.

Al went to school with Salvatore Lucania, later known as Lucky Luciano.

At about the age of ten he began to follow up-and-coming gangster Johnny Torrio, also a Neapolitan. At fourteen he quit school after striking a teacher. Capone and Lucky Luciano joined a gang known as the Five Pointers, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Capone worked for Frank Yale, president of the Unione Siciliane, as a bouncer and bartender. One night he made a remark about the sister of Frank Galluciano, and Galluciano slashed Capone’s face with a pocket knife, leaving three large scars on the left side of his face.

For much of his criminal career, newspapers would call Capone by the hated name “Scarface”.

Incredibly, Capone choose to forgive Galluciano and, years later, hired him as a bodyguard. Johnny Torrio had moved to Chicago to work for his uncle, Big Jim Colosimo. Torrio sent for his trusted lieutenant, Capone. Suspected of two murders, Capone was eager to leave New York. Capone worked under Torrio as a bouncer and thug. On May 11, 1920, Big Jim Colosimo was assassinated in his own cafe by an unknown killer.

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Johnny Torrio was now the leader of the most powerful gang in Chicago, and Capone his right-hand man. Torrio imposed a peace treaty on the other gangs, which lasted until the O’Banion Genna war. Torrio was shot by O’Banion men in reprisal for O’Banion’s slaying. He survived, barely. Before retiring to Italy, Torrio turned over leadership of his gang to Capone. The Di Vito monument, a short distance east of the Bishops’ mausoleum, features busts of Mr. and Mrs. Di Vito in shallow alcoves. The Ionic columns on the side are partially covered with clinging vines.

Mount Carmel is one of Chicago’s finest graveyards. It is located in west suburban Hillside, across the street from Queen of Heaven. Mt Carmel is the oldest Catholic cemetery in the western part of the Archdiocese of Chicago. The vast majority of persons buried here are Italian. Italian traditions include statuary, and photographs on the monument, and private mausoleums. There are over 400 private family mausoleums in Mt. Carmel, more than any other cemetery in the area. Italian immigrants in Chicago preserved their culture, and Mount Carmel has a wonderful Old-World feel. The most popular attraction is the Bishops’ mausoleum, which received over 50,000 visitors in the two months after the death of Cardinal Bernardin in October 1996. But to many, Mt. Carmel is equally famous for the graves of Chicago’s notorious gangsters of the 1920s – including Al Capone, best known of them all.