THE BLACK HAND FORUM

Chicago guys, I have a Prohibition (and 1930's) era question. How was it that Capone was able to steamroll or bring to heel multiple LCN families? From reading this thread, Chicago Heights and Chicago proper each had native families staffed with men who were very capable, very serious with patronage...

I was doing research a couple months ago, apparently there were made men on record with the Bonannos living in Rochester. I never figured out why but the Bonanno name kept popping up when the FBI was trying to figure out how the Valenti family worked and how it was structured. My answer is Tampa, Pi...

How did the gregarious, freewheeling Capone, carefree and sort of indifferent to rigidity manage to take over an organization that was, at least in that era, a secret society obsessed with secrecy, hierarchy, codes, decorum, councils, and again, secrecy? Capone and let's say, Nicolo Gentile seem lik...

Very thought provoking thread. I majored in film (it was called "Motion Pictures") just a few years ago. The most worthwhile class by far was film history. After covering the obligatory, history of silent film, disjoined early films, and a little Charlie Chaplin, the FIRST feature length f...

Was Nick Calabrese a made guy?

A couple years ago I read the DiCarlo books. Wonderfully written. How big was DiCarlo? It seems he wasn't big enough to remain Magaddino's Underboss, he was ran out of town in Youngstown. Was he just a street guy, a low level capo who got by on who his father was? The book (and my own common sense) ...

MANY in the Outfit and in the Midwest. Hugh McIntosh was probably as powerful as a soldier. Had the Gallos won the second war, there would have been way more high level non-Italians, because Joey Gallo was directly quoted saying he didn't care about ethnicity and would have happily formed a crime fa...

So Chicago had 3 families. Genna, the Outfit (which became a family) and Chicago Heights. The Outfit ate everything around it.

Was Joe Aiello's family separate from the Genna Family? When did the non-Capone Chicago families start? Finally, was Chicago Heights its own family? I think 26 is the correct number but if you want to be correct, you have to include the defuncts as well. Newark. Birmingham. San Diego. I too have rea...

Interesting, I thought he remained a Bufalino guy. What do you make of the Northeast guys who were always said to be part of the Bonanno family as well? Like the Valenti brothers.