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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