by PolackTony » Wed Jul 10, 2024 11:45 pm
Neighborhoods like Taylor St were never 100% Italian (this is true also even of NYC neighborhoods like the old Italian Harlem, the largest Italian community in the US in its day). They also were dynamic and undergoing continuous change and flux. Taylor St originated as an offshoot of the old South Loop Italian colony in the late 19th Century (centered around the Polk St train station, this original colony expanded into what became the Taylor St and Chinatown/Near Southside Italian communities). The Italians started out east of Halsted, around Jefferson, but as their numbers began to rapidly grow with the peak decades of Italian immigration, they soon took over the area around Taylor and Halsted (long known thereafter as the “Italian downtown” of Chicago), and then began to continually push westward against the previously dominant Irish. As we all know, there was no love lost between these two groups back in the day and the expansion of the Italian community was later remembered as an extended, years long battle where the Italians fought the Irish tooth and nail, block by block. Eventually the whole area west of Ashland to California also became very heavily Italian. Chicago Italians were notable for their residential mobility, seeking to own their own properties rather than rent from slumlords in tenements as soon as they were able. Like the other port of entry Italian colonies, the old Taylor St was a slum with myriad problems with hygiene and social disorder, and the area west of Ashland was sort of like the “suburbs” of Taylor St, where Italians bought up smaller two flags and cottages. As these more established migrants moved west, they were replaced by newer migrants arriving from Italy who followed in their footsteps. Italians of somewhat greater means, in the years after, were pushing out of the crowded “Patch” and farther out, to areas like Fifth City, Homan Square, Garfield Park, and then Austin on the Westside; to Marquette Park and Clearing on the SW Side; to Humboldt Park and other NW Side neighborhoods; and of course to inner ring western suburbs like Cicero, Melrose Park, Berwyn, Elmwood Park, etc.
The Italian population of Taylor St reached its peak around 1930, being the largest Italian community in Chicago. But, it was a densely packed inner city area that was not huge in size geographically, bounded to the north by Greektown and to the south, across Roosevelt Rd, by the similarly teeming Maxwell St port of entry Jewish ghetto. There were no walls between these neighborhoods, however, so there were mixed blocks on the edges of the “Patch”. There were also Irish and other holdouts from the years before the Italians took over who remained in small numbers. There were friendly relationships, as well as intermarriages, between Italians other groups, alongside conflict and mistrust. Accounts of Taylor St back in the day tend to emphasize the suspicious and standoffish attitude that Italians in Chicago exhibited to outsiders in the community.
By the 1930s, Mexicans began to move into the Taylor St community in small numbers due to the cheap cost of housing. After WW2, more Mexicans came and the neighborhood soon had a notable Mexican minority (there were also a number of Puerto Ricans that arrived in the 1950s, mainly concentrated around Taylor and Western). The general account is that relations were poor to non-existent between the newcomers and the established Italian community, with gang fights and street attacks a common occurrence. Again though, there were also some friendships, some Mexican kids who joined Italian gangs, and even a few intermarriages (a good example that I’ve discussed before was Luis Alemán, Harry’s father). Blacks from the south also began arriving in the area after WW2 but mainly were concentrated in the Jewish section to the south of Roosevelt Rd until the 60s.
Patrickgold wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2024 8:11 pm
Yes Taylor street had the projects but those projects were originally Italians. Taylor street was really a diverse area with certain sections of it being all italian and other areas being other groups.
Yup. The projects in the area, which had the third largest concentration of CHA units in Chicago after the Near Northside and the “State St Corridor” on the Southside, came to be known as the ABLA complex (aka “The Village”), composed of four different projects built over a number of decades. The earliest developments came in the late 30s through the 40s, and as you say, were primarily built for the local Italian community. As large numbers of blacks from the rural south began arriving into the Near Westside, however, high rise developments were constructed in the 50s-60s. With the deterioration of conditions in the projects, by this time most of the Italians had abandoned them and they soon became well over 90% black.
This is the same dynamic that occurred with the construction of Cabrini-Green in Little Sicily. It’s funny, but I’ve seen photos from even back in the 1920s in Little Sicily at the feste for the mutual aid societies at San Filippo Benizi and in a sea of Sicilians you’ll see like one or two random black people there.
“The Village” was a very, very rough section in the 60s to the 90s. One had to consider this when thinking about how the guys from the Survivors Club were able to hold the fort down for all those years just down the street from the PJs. These were just off the wall crazy decades in Chicago.
Patrickgold wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2024 8:11 pm
Guys like Jimmy I, Harry Aleman and Gerry Scalise were also in gangs before they joined the Outfit. I believe those three were either in the Taylor street Dukes or the Taylor Street Romans.
Oh, I don’t doubt that for a second. The Taylor Dukes were a tough club and I have heard before that a number of their members got recruited by the outfit. The Dukes were alleged to have been inspired by the old 42 Gang and to have used an initiation ceremony derived from the mafia, involving the burning of paper and swearing of an oath. They were gone as an active street gang by the late 60s, but they mentored the Jousters who were the only Taylor St gang that spread to other neighborhoods of the city by recruiting non-Italians.
Patrickgold wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2024 8:11 pm
A lot of younger Italian groups were pushing ecstasy in the clubs in the 90s including the Italian playboys and some of the smaller groups.
Oh yeah, this was a big thing in Chicago in the 90s, same as with Italian gangs in NYC in that period. C-Notes and other Italian gangbangers were moving a lot of drugs in clubs like Excalibur, as well as clubs out in the burbs, during those years. Same with underground raves. In the 90s there used to be a lot of raves in the old warehouses around Grand and California, by Smith Park, lotta customers at those.
[/quote]
Patrickgold wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2024 8:11 pm
Never heard that Spilotro was a C-Note. He was a full fledged Outfit member by the time the C-Notes started up. Same with Lombardo. He was more of a mentor to the C-Notes from my understanding.
C-Notes started in the early 1950s at Mitchell school yard. While Tony Spilotro was probably not a member, he did hang out at Mitchell a lot when he was young, per Freddie Pascente’s recollections. You might recall that a while back I posted a photo purported to be of some of the founding generation of Notes in the 50s, and one of the guys in the photo is a dead ringer for Vic Spilotro. Given his age, Vic being an original Note makes more sense, though it hasn’t ever been confirmed. And yes, everything that I ever heard painted Lombardo as the “godfather” of the neighborhood. The C-Notes basically worshipped him. Important to keep in mind that the building that he lived in for all those years after marrying Marion was immediately across the street from Mitchell Yard.
Patrickgold wrote: ↑Wed Jul 10, 2024 8:11 pm
I’m not sure what other gang Phil Cozzo would have been involved in. His family basically represented the grand and Ogden area, the heart of the c-notes. If he joined any other gang, I would think that would have gone against the neighborhood.
This isn’t exactly true. C-Notes hood has always been centered around their “motherland” at Ohio and Leavitt, with their secondary area of dominance in the neighborhood being Smith Park. The only chapter they ever opened east of Damen, so far as I have ever known, was at Grand and Noble, which was originally a Gaylord’s section for years. Grand and Ogden was also GLs, while the section around Grand and Ashland was run by another old school Italian club called the Lazy Gents, who started in the 50s by Erie and Wood (in later years this became a notorious section for the Latin Disciples). The LGs used to beef a lot with PVP, an old school alliance of Polish clubs to the north, and formed an alliance in the 60s with the Notes and GLs. By the late 70s, however, the LGs faded away, with their remaining members flipping Harrison Gent (entirely unrelated in their origins despite the similar name) to protect them from the Kings. Harrison Gents were a major rival to the C-Notes, though that’s kind of redundant as the Notes were basically in a state of constant warfare with all of the surrounding Latin gangs for years until they joined Folks.
————————————-
In the 70s-90s, the Notes were very aggressive in expanding beyond their original hood and established chapters in EP (the “Spaghetti Hill” chapter), on the NW Side, the Northside, and even a couple on the Southside. Since the 2000s, they shrunk quite a bit and their original Grand Ave territory has been totally upended by gentrification. Although none of the Notes that I personally knew are now younger than their 30s, my understanding is that they still have active sections at OL and Smith Park, as well as by Harlem and Addison, in Jeff Park, and in McKinley Park on the SW Side. Not sure if they have any presence today in the suburbs.
Neighborhoods like Taylor St were never 100% Italian (this is true also even of NYC neighborhoods like the old Italian Harlem, the largest Italian community in the US in its day). They also were dynamic and undergoing continuous change and flux. Taylor St originated as an offshoot of the old South Loop Italian colony in the late 19th Century (centered around the Polk St train station, this original colony expanded into what became the Taylor St and Chinatown/Near Southside Italian communities). The Italians started out east of Halsted, around Jefferson, but as their numbers began to rapidly grow with the peak decades of Italian immigration, they soon took over the area around Taylor and Halsted (long known thereafter as the “Italian downtown” of Chicago), and then began to continually push westward against the previously dominant Irish. As we all know, there was no love lost between these two groups back in the day and the expansion of the Italian community was later remembered as an extended, years long battle where the Italians fought the Irish tooth and nail, block by block. Eventually the whole area west of Ashland to California also became very heavily Italian. Chicago Italians were notable for their residential mobility, seeking to own their own properties rather than rent from slumlords in tenements as soon as they were able. Like the other port of entry Italian colonies, the old Taylor St was a slum with myriad problems with hygiene and social disorder, and the area west of Ashland was sort of like the “suburbs” of Taylor St, where Italians bought up smaller two flags and cottages. As these more established migrants moved west, they were replaced by newer migrants arriving from Italy who followed in their footsteps. Italians of somewhat greater means, in the years after, were pushing out of the crowded “Patch” and farther out, to areas like Fifth City, Homan Square, Garfield Park, and then Austin on the Westside; to Marquette Park and Clearing on the SW Side; to Humboldt Park and other NW Side neighborhoods; and of course to inner ring western suburbs like Cicero, Melrose Park, Berwyn, Elmwood Park, etc.
The Italian population of Taylor St reached its peak around 1930, being the largest Italian community in Chicago. But, it was a densely packed inner city area that was not huge in size geographically, bounded to the north by Greektown and to the south, across Roosevelt Rd, by the similarly teeming Maxwell St port of entry Jewish ghetto. There were no walls between these neighborhoods, however, so there were mixed blocks on the edges of the “Patch”. There were also Irish and other holdouts from the years before the Italians took over who remained in small numbers. There were friendly relationships, as well as intermarriages, between Italians other groups, alongside conflict and mistrust. Accounts of Taylor St back in the day tend to emphasize the suspicious and standoffish attitude that Italians in Chicago exhibited to outsiders in the community.
By the 1930s, Mexicans began to move into the Taylor St community in small numbers due to the cheap cost of housing. After WW2, more Mexicans came and the neighborhood soon had a notable Mexican minority (there were also a number of Puerto Ricans that arrived in the 1950s, mainly concentrated around Taylor and Western). The general account is that relations were poor to non-existent between the newcomers and the established Italian community, with gang fights and street attacks a common occurrence. Again though, there were also some friendships, some Mexican kids who joined Italian gangs, and even a few intermarriages (a good example that I’ve discussed before was Luis Alemán, Harry’s father). Blacks from the south also began arriving in the area after WW2 but mainly were concentrated in the Jewish section to the south of Roosevelt Rd until the 60s.
[quote=Patrickgold post_id=280287 time=1720667469 user_id=6577]
Yes Taylor street had the projects but those projects were originally Italians. Taylor street was really a diverse area with certain sections of it being all italian and other areas being other groups.
[/quote]
Yup. The projects in the area, which had the third largest concentration of CHA units in Chicago after the Near Northside and the “State St Corridor” on the Southside, came to be known as the ABLA complex (aka “The Village”), composed of four different projects built over a number of decades. The earliest developments came in the late 30s through the 40s, and as you say, were primarily built for the local Italian community. As large numbers of blacks from the rural south began arriving into the Near Westside, however, high rise developments were constructed in the 50s-60s. With the deterioration of conditions in the projects, by this time most of the Italians had abandoned them and they soon became well over 90% black.
This is the same dynamic that occurred with the construction of Cabrini-Green in Little Sicily. It’s funny, but I’ve seen photos from even back in the 1920s in Little Sicily at the feste for the mutual aid societies at San Filippo Benizi and in a sea of Sicilians you’ll see like one or two random black people there.
“The Village” was a very, very rough section in the 60s to the 90s. One had to consider this when thinking about how the guys from the Survivors Club were able to hold the fort down for all those years just down the street from the PJs. These were just off the wall crazy decades in Chicago.
[quote=Patrickgold post_id=280287 time=1720667469 user_id=6577]
Guys like Jimmy I, Harry Aleman and Gerry Scalise were also in gangs before they joined the Outfit. I believe those three were either in the Taylor street Dukes or the Taylor Street Romans.
[/quote]
Oh, I don’t doubt that for a second. The Taylor Dukes were a tough club and I have heard before that a number of their members got recruited by the outfit. The Dukes were alleged to have been inspired by the old 42 Gang and to have used an initiation ceremony derived from the mafia, involving the burning of paper and swearing of an oath. They were gone as an active street gang by the late 60s, but they mentored the Jousters who were the only Taylor St gang that spread to other neighborhoods of the city by recruiting non-Italians.
[quote=Patrickgold post_id=280287 time=1720667469 user_id=6577]
A lot of younger Italian groups were pushing ecstasy in the clubs in the 90s including the Italian playboys and some of the smaller groups.
[/quote]
Oh yeah, this was a big thing in Chicago in the 90s, same as with Italian gangs in NYC in that period. C-Notes and other Italian gangbangers were moving a lot of drugs in clubs like Excalibur, as well as clubs out in the burbs, during those years. Same with underground raves. In the 90s there used to be a lot of raves in the old warehouses around Grand and California, by Smith Park, lotta customers at those.
[/quote]
[quote=Patrickgold post_id=280287 time=1720667469 user_id=6577]
Never heard that Spilotro was a C-Note. He was a full fledged Outfit member by the time the C-Notes started up. Same with Lombardo. He was more of a mentor to the C-Notes from my understanding.
[/quote]
C-Notes started in the early 1950s at Mitchell school yard. While Tony Spilotro was probably not a member, he did hang out at Mitchell a lot when he was young, per Freddie Pascente’s recollections. You might recall that a while back I posted a photo purported to be of some of the founding generation of Notes in the 50s, and one of the guys in the photo is a dead ringer for Vic Spilotro. Given his age, Vic being an original Note makes more sense, though it hasn’t ever been confirmed. And yes, everything that I ever heard painted Lombardo as the “godfather” of the neighborhood. The C-Notes basically worshipped him. Important to keep in mind that the building that he lived in for all those years after marrying Marion was immediately across the street from Mitchell Yard.
[quote=Patrickgold post_id=280287 time=1720667469 user_id=6577]
I’m not sure what other gang Phil Cozzo would have been involved in. His family basically represented the grand and Ogden area, the heart of the c-notes. If he joined any other gang, I would think that would have gone against the neighborhood.
[/quote]
This isn’t exactly true. C-Notes hood has always been centered around their “motherland” at Ohio and Leavitt, with their secondary area of dominance in the neighborhood being Smith Park. The only chapter they ever opened east of Damen, so far as I have ever known, was at Grand and Noble, which was originally a Gaylord’s section for years. Grand and Ogden was also GLs, while the section around Grand and Ashland was run by another old school Italian club called the Lazy Gents, who started in the 50s by Erie and Wood (in later years this became a notorious section for the Latin Disciples). The LGs used to beef a lot with PVP, an old school alliance of Polish clubs to the north, and formed an alliance in the 60s with the Notes and GLs. By the late 70s, however, the LGs faded away, with their remaining members flipping Harrison Gent (entirely unrelated in their origins despite the similar name) to protect them from the Kings. Harrison Gents were a major rival to the C-Notes, though that’s kind of redundant as the Notes were basically in a state of constant warfare with all of the surrounding Latin gangs for years until they joined Folks.
————————————-
In the 70s-90s, the Notes were very aggressive in expanding beyond their original hood and established chapters in EP (the “Spaghetti Hill” chapter), on the NW Side, the Northside, and even a couple on the Southside. Since the 2000s, they shrunk quite a bit and their original Grand Ave territory has been totally upended by gentrification. Although none of the Notes that I personally knew are now younger than their 30s, my understanding is that they still have active sections at OL and Smith Park, as well as by Harlem and Addison, in Jeff Park, and in McKinley Park on the SW Side. Not sure if they have any presence today in the suburbs.