Alphonse Capone Essay, Research Paper
Alphonse Capone
Born 1/17/1899, Brooklyn
Died 1/25/1947, Florida
Al Capone 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. 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.
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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.
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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.
Bibliography
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