Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

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PolackTony
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Re: Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

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B. wrote: Mon Jul 31, 2023 11:53 pm I wonder if Paolo Torino is Gentile's "Paolinello". He was a Palermitano involved with a group of young robbers in Chicago, the rest of which Gentile said were murdered on D'Andrea's orders. Paolinello escaped his own death sentence by hiding out in Pittsburgh where he was made and committed a murder for Gregorio Conti with Gentile. He was also assisted in Chicago by Domenico Catalano from Ciminna and received protection from Chicago Heights boss Filippo Piazza from Caccamo, with further help from Milwaukee boss Vito Guardalabene of Porticello.

I've suspected Paolinello was from Ciminna like Catalano as an FBI summary of Gentile's info says Catalano was a "countryman" of Paolo, which would be translated from paesano. So here we have a Paolo from Ciminna who was close to Conti and lived in both Pittsburgh and Chicago. He can be connected to a Caccamese in Chicago as well, like Paolinello's tie to Piazza.

Gentile doesn't give an exact date for the Paolinello situation that I can recall but it had to be the second half of the 1910s and would fit Torino spending "several years" in Pittsburgh around that time like you said. He does say after D'Andrea lifted the death sentence that Paolinello requested permission to remain in Chicago for a time to visit relatives. Would make sense if he eventually returned back there and if he was murdered it explains why we haven't found any trace of him.

If his 1915 naturalization was filed in Chicago, it indicates his trajectory went Chicago>Pittsburgh>Chicago. It is really looking like this is Paolinello. Interesting his murder looks to have happened right after D'Andrea's. Even though D'Andrea initially wanted to kill Paolinello, Gentile says at the meeting where the death sentence was lifted that D'Andrea took a liking to Paolinello. However the timing almost makes you wonder if Torina was involved in D'Andrea's murder and one of the members, along with La Spisa, killed in retribution.
Yes, I agree that it could very well be Paolinello. It’s the only guy we’ve found how would seem to fit, and would explain why we’ve never found him later in Pittsburgh.

Rereading the naturalization document, it was actually filed in Chicago in July of 1918. It states that Torina entered the US in June of 1912 in NYC, and had lived in PA from 1915 until 1918. I haven’t been able to confirm the 1912 arrival manifest, but he was somewhere else for three years before going to Pittsburgh; just based on the fact that he was from Ciminna, Chicago or NYC would be the best bet even if we didn’t suspect he was Paolinello. When he was killed in 1920, the Tribune reported that he had been arrested several times before in Chicago. So, yeah, it could well fit Paolinello being in Chicago first, fleeing to Pittsburgh, and then returning to Chicago. With Conti murdered in 1919, Torina probably lost his protection and D’Andrea could’ve put a hit out on him, or he he could have gotten himself in trouble again. It was also reported that he had a card with the private phone number of the chief of detectives in his person when he was shot.

Just noticed a typo in the post about Torina that I can’t fix now. He was killed June 13th 1920, not 1921. Per his naturalization record he was born in 1893 in Ciminna.
Last edited by PolackTony on Tue Aug 01, 2023 12:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

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I edited my post with more info, particularly his arrival manifest where he headed to Chicago with Calogero DiSpenza. I can confirm this was Chicago boss Rosario DiSpenza's brother, as he lists his father as Nicola and was heading to brother Rosario.

So we can at least rule out him being murdered for retribution for the D'Andrea killing. But as you said it rules in the possibility that D'Andrea was finally able to murder him.

Here is where it says he initially filed for naturalization in Chicago in 1915:

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Re: Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

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B. wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2023 12:35 am I edited my post with more info, particularly his arrival manifest where he headed to Chicago with Calogero DiSpenza.

So we can at least rule out him being murdered for retribution for the D'Andrea killing. But as you said it rules in the possibility that D'Andrea was finally able to murder him.

Here is where it says he initially filed for naturalization in Chicago in 1915:

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Yes, looks like the initial filing was in Chicago in 1915, right before he relocated to Pitt, then it was finalized in 1918 and his citizenship granted January of 1919.

I just found the manifest too and almost fell out of my seat when I saw Calogero Dispenza. So, yeah, this is Paolinello. After Rosario Dispenza was killed in 1914, Paolinello must’ve lost his “rabbi” in Chicago and had no one to protect him there for whatever infractions he had committed. The next question is who was killed around 1914 to 1915 in Chicago that may have been connected to Paolinello, given that Gentile said the clique he ran with all got whacked out.
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Re: Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

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Now, here’s something else. In July of 1921, Nicola Torino, born in 1885 in Ciminna to Pietro Torino and Maria LaDolci, was shot to death under the L tracks after leaving his cigar shop on N Clark St in Lakeview. CPD had a witness who told them that the murder stemmed from a “feud” related to the murder of D’Andrea.

This guy was probably an uncle of Paolinello. Note that Paolinello’s arrival manifest gives his father as Girolamo Torina in Ciminna, while giving his uncle in Chicago as Gasparo Torina. A marriage document in Chicago gives Gasparo Torina’s mother as “Maria Adolce”, so he was probably the brother of Nicola Torino.
Last edited by PolackTony on Tue Aug 01, 2023 1:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

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Paolo's father was Girolamo so maybe Nicola was a cousin. Very interesting.

Paolinello and his group were accused of robbing people of their rings. Since he was obviously in with the DiSpenzas, it's possible there was more to the story. D'Andrea was still new as boss and maybe Paolinello's group got away with their antics under Rosario DiSpenza but needed to be checked by the new regime.

Was D'Andrea ever linked to DiSpenza's murder? Gentile said he was one of the most fearsome men in the country at the time of the Paolinello issue and now that we know this was around 1915 it appears D'Andrea's reputation already existed early during his time as boss and probably before.
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Re: Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

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B. wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2023 1:00 am Paolo's father was Girolamo so maybe Nicola was a cousin. Very interesting.

Paolinello and his group were accused of robbing people of their rings. Since he was obviously in with the DiSpenzas, it's possible there was more to the story. D'Andrea was still new as boss and maybe Paolinello's group got away with their antics under Rosario DiSpenza but needed to be checked by the new regime.

Was D'Andrea ever linked to DiSpenza's murder? Gentile said he was one of the most fearsome men in the country at the time of the Paolinello issue and now that we know this was around 1915 it appears D'Andrea's reputation already existed early during his time as boss and probably before.
I updated the above post. Nicola was probably an uncle of Paolinello.

Nothing that I recall seeing ever stated or suggested that D’Andrea had any connection to DiSpenza’s murder, but of course that doesn’t mean he didn’t. Wouldn’t surprise me if he did, given his reputation for ruling through terror.
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Re: Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

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PolackTony wrote: Tue Nov 09, 2021 12:24 pm Frank Zizzo Jr was born in Chicago to Francesco Zizzo Sr from Porticello, Palermo and Ninfa Mignosa from neighboring Santa Flavia, Palermo (both in the area of Bagheria). Frank's son Anthony Zizzo was born in Chicago, to mother Margie Maucione, born in Chicago to parents with ancestry from Campania and Laurenzana, Potenza, Basilicata (including the surname Fanelli).
The info I had here for Tony Zizzo's mother is correct, but the genealogy for Frank Zizzo was incorrect, as there was more than one Frank Zizzo of the same age in Chicago.

Frank Nick Zizzo (his nickname was given in FBI files as "Frank Cease", clearly an FBI interpretation of the pronunciation of his surname Zizzo) was born Francesco Zizzo 1913/10/6 in Chicago to Antonino Zizzo and Grazia Di Giovanni, both of Marsala, Trapani. Antonino Zizzo was born in 1888 in Marsala to Francesco Zizzo and Anna Sciacca and emigrated to Chicago in 1906, where his "uncle", Francesco Signorelli, was living (as is often the case for relatives listed on arrival manifests, I could not find an actual familial relation to Signorelli, who I believe was from Castelvetrano). Several of Antonino's siblings joined him in Chicago, along with many cousins from Marsala, mainly settling in the Taylor St Patch, which had a significant colony of immigrants from Trapani province (father Francesco Zizzo later joined his children in Chicago, arriving on a ship with a large contingent of Marsalesi bound for Chicago and Beloit, WI). Grazia DiGiovanni was born about 1894 in Marsala, and arrived in Chicago in 1910, with her siblings and mother Maria Di Pietra (they were bound for her paternal grandfather, Francesco DiGiovanni, already living in Chicago). In 1922, Antonino married Grazia at San Filippo Benizi Parish in Little Sicily, where they lived at 1006 N Larrabee. By 1920, they had relocated to the Taylor St neighborhood, at Polk and DeKalbd (today Bowler St); this was in the immediate vicinity of where the Frattos and Alderisios also lived, and we can presume that Frank Zizzo knew them well. Antonino worked in a factory at this time, though by the 1940s he operated his own fuel oil company and was naturalized in 1935. One of Antonino's naturalization witnesses was fellow Marsalese Giovanni Giammicchia, whose grandson Salvatore Giammicchia was convicted in 2006 for his role in the City of Chicago's Hired Truck scandal (Gammicchia was a political aide to City Clerk James Laski and was accused of facilitating bribes from mob-linked trucking companies; Gammicchia was represented in that case by Alex Salerno, son of Bobby Salerno). Antonino Zizzo died in 1963 in Chicago.

Taylor St in the 1920s was, of course, marked by the activity of the Gennas and other Trapanese mafiosi. Antonino's brother, Tomasso Zizzo, was married to Vita Genna in Chicago, while sister Antonina Zizzo married a Vito Genna and settled near Vineland, NJ. The Genna surname is common in Marsala, so it's unclear to me whether these Gennas were closely related to the infamous Gennas, though it is certainly possible, as the Gennas were reputed to have brought many of their relatives to Chicago, including men involved with the mafia.

In 1934, Frank Zizzo married Margherita "Margie" Mancione in Chicago; she was born in Chicago to Francesco Mancione, of Controne, Salerno, and Rose Falotico, born in Chicago to Rocco Falotico and Carmela Fanelli, of Laurenzana, Potenza, (Carmela Fanelli was an older sister of the infamous Rocco Fanelli, making Rocco Fanelli the great-great-uncle of Little Tony Zizzo). In 1942, Frank Zizzo and his family lived at 2416 W taylor, near Western, and Frank worked with his father Antonino in their family fuel oil business.

In 1942, LE brought down a huge bootlegging operation on the South and West sides of Chicago, alleged to have been supplying numerous customers across the Midwest with illegal, untaxed alcohol. The Southside network of the group was said to have been headed by Giuseppe "Joe" Tarallo, of Sant' Angelo Muxaro, Agrigento, living at 26th and Wallace in the Chinatown/Bridgeport neighborhood. Joe Tarallo was the younger brother of Angelo Tarallo, shot to death in Oregon, IL, in 1932. The Tarallos were cousins of Jimmy Catuara and had been connected earlier to bootlegging operations in Rockford and Kenosha (discussed in other threads previously). The Westside leaders of the group appeared to have been Giuseppe "Joe" Carlisi, father of Sam Carlisi, and a Frank Rocca, who lived by the Zizzos at Flournoy and Western (I believe he was Francesco Rocca, born 1885 in Marsala, who earlier lived at Blue Island and Taylor in the Heart of the Gennas' base of operations). Also arrested with this group was John Zizzo, a cousin of Frank, who lived on the 2300 block of W Taylor (another one arrested in this network was William Skally, later notorious as a heroin trafficker who was murdered in 1962 after flipping on Carl Fiorito and Teddy DeRose). Given that Little Tony Zizzo was later a member of the Aiuppa/Carlisi crew, we can already place one of his relatives apparently working with Giuseppe Carlisi back in the early 1940s.

Frank Zizzo's first appearance in the papers came with his 1948 indictment for a $68k armed robbery of a jeweler in Birmingham, AL, along with Andrew Carioscia (a cousin of the other Carioscias, who were involved with heroin trafficking and various other crimes over the decades) and George Dicks. Dicks was a longtime outfit associate of Irish-Canadian ancestry, who grew up near Adams and Morgan on the Near Westside; he would later be linked to both Frank Zizzo and Chuckie Nicoletti in operations both in the Western Suburbs and NW IN. Zizzo was sentenced to two years probation for the robbery charges. In 1951, Zizzo was one of 18 men arrested ina raid on a Melrose Park basement with $20k in stolen clothing; others arrested with Zizzo included Dicks, Rocco and Albert Pranno, and Max Inserro (again, we can place Zizzo in connection to someone linked to the Aiuppa/Carlisi crew).

Later in the 1950s, Frank Zizzo relocated to an apartment on the corner of Ruth St and State Line Ave in Hammond, IN, (literally across the street from Calumet City, IL, and a short distance from Phil Bacino's home in Cal City) and gained notoriety as one of the primary outfit players in the Calumet border region spanning Lake County, IN, and SE Cook County. Zizzo was the first LCN member that the FBI was able to identify as residing in IN in the 1960s, operated a major gambling book and policy wheel (numbers operation) out of Hammond, was tied to other Chicago LCN members operating in the area, including Tony Pinelli, Gaetano Morgano, and Johnny Formusa, and convicted in 1963 on Federal interstate racketeering charges for his state border-spanning gambling operations, for which he received a 5-year sentence. The Feds believed that Nino Gruttadauro, Pinelli's nephew and a suspected LCN member, took over Zizzo's gambling territory at this time. Paroled in 1966, Zizzo was arrested again in 1970 on VOSR for consorting with outfit affiliates Gruttadauro, Nick Guzzino, Ralph Tuccillio, Michael Salerno, and Abe Kushner.

Zizzo mainly kept a low profile publicly in the years after this. Nick Calabrese later testified that Frank Zizzo took part in the 1981 murder of Nick D'Andrea. Documents that Snakes has reviewed show that the FBI believed that Zizzo was a captain in the Chicago Family until his death in 1986 in Melrose Park. His crew affiliation is unknown; though there is the possibility that he was capo of an IN-based crew, this remains unconfirmed by quality sources of evidence (Nick Calabrese testified in 2007 that Dom Palermo was capo of the Chicago Heights crew as of 1983, while at the time the FBI thought Zizzo held that position, again underscoring the lack of insight the Feds often had in the past with Chicago's formal structure).

Confirming Frank Zizzo's Marsalese ancestry and the possibility of familial ties to the Gennas might also shed light on his move in the 1950s from Taylor St to Hammond. After Angelo, Tony, and Mike Genna were killed in the Chicago wars of the 1920s, brothers Sam and Vincenzo "Jim" Genna remained active in bootlegging operations, according to LE sources reported by the Chicago press. Jim Genna relocated to Calumet City, where he was reputed to have been "head of an alcohol cooking clan" until his death from natural causes in 1931. Jim Genna lived at 587 Freeland Ave in Calumet City, not far from where Zizzo would later live. While two decades had elapsed, we don't know who Genna was connected to in that area (or if Zizzo was also connected to anyone in Genna's circle later), and we have seen above that Marsalesi, including one of the Zizzos, were involved in major bootlegging networks into the 1940s.
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Re: Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

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A Birmingham connection. I didn't find any Marsala ties there, only Castelvetrano, but if he knew Phil Bacino he definitely knew Nicola Diana whose first cousin was the nephew of Pasquale Amari.
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Re: Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

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PolackTony wrote: Thu Feb 17, 2022 4:24 pm Lou Briatta was born in 1908 in Chicago and baptized Luigi Briatta in 1909. His parents were Giovanni Braiotta (worth noting that his mother's maiden name was Spizziri) and Maria Teresa Amelio of Malvito, Cosenza, Calabria. As a kid, Briatta lived on Aberdeen near Polk in the Taylor St Patch. In 1948, Briatta married Concetta "Tina" Guzaldo. Her father Cosimo Guzaldo was born in NOLA in 1901, while her mother Christina Lupo was born in Chicago to parents from Caccamo. Given the Guzaldo surname, it's a good bet that Cosimo's parents were also Caccamesi. In the 1940s, the Guzaldos lived near Ohio and Homan in Humboldt Park (incidentally, the Latin Kings originated on this corner a short time later in the 1950s), very near to Cerone. There were several Guzaldo brothers (Phil, Peter, Tony) who lived in the immediate area and ran bookmaking and gambling operations under Joe Gags (who also lived in this neighborhood). Their father was a Michele Guzaldo from Caccamo. Interestingly, Phil Guzaldo married Cecilia Lupo, whose family was also from Caccamo.
PolackTony wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 4:47 pm John D'Arco, Sr was born 1912 in Chicago to Alfonso and Anna D'Arco of Salerno, Campania. Anna and Alfonso may have been cousins of some sort, as her maiden name seems to have been D'Arco as well. Anna entered the US in 1903 at the age of 16 under the name Anna D'Arco, en route from Salerno to relatives living in Yonkers. Anna and Alfonso were married 1907 in Manhattan and shortly thereafter settled in Chicago where their first child Antonio/Anthony D'Arco was born in 1908. The family lived in the Taylor St "Patch". Alfonso died 1927 in Chicago and Anna in 1930. Though she died in Chicago, she was not buried in Mt Carmel cemetery in Hillside, IL with her husband but rather in Yonkers (presumably where her family still lived).

John D'Arco, Sr married Antonia/Antoinette/Annette/Anna Briatta, who was born 1910 in Chicago to Giovanni Briatta and Maria Teresa Amelia of Cosenza province, Calabria. Giovanni was from Malvito, Cosenza and his wife may have been also; their eldest child Maria Raffaela Briatta/Mary Pastore was born in Malvito. Around 1903 they arrived in the US and settled in Chicago (haven't confirmed arrival presumably due to spelling errors with the surname. "Briatta" as such does not appear on any records Italy that I've seen and the family in Chicago used other spelling such as "Briotta" and "Breotta", though those don't seem to be the correct spellings either). One of Antonia's siblings was Luigi/Louis Briatta, born in Chicago in 1908. This was the same Louie Briatta who was the father of Mary Lou Briatta and the father-in-law of John Daley. In 1959 the Tribune quoted Louie Briatta, then 51, as stating that he was D'Arco's brother-in-law. The Tribune also noted in a different article that Briatta was related to "Frankie the X" Esposito through marriage.

EDIT: Pretty sure that the "correct"/original spelling is actually Braiotta.
As I briefly mentioned the Briattas in a post on the other Chicago thread, as two of Lou Briatta's kids married Daleys, here's a fun family tree that the Tribune published in 1999 for a piece examining cronyism in the extended Daley family:

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Re: Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

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PolackTony wrote: Thu Nov 03, 2022 2:18 pm
PolackTony wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 3:56 pm
Antiliar wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 2:25 pm Interesting that Gnolfo's alias was Abbatte:

DATE OF OFFENSE: MAY 31, 1930
Victim Name: Gnolfo, Philip, "Abalte"
Address: Peoria St.
Case Number: 10048
Case Description: Gnolfo, Philip, alias Abatte - Age 41 - Shot to death at 9:45 AM, 5/31/30, while driving his auto south in Peoria St. between 18th and 19th Sts., by five unknown men in another machine who drove alongside and emptied shotguns into his car. Two other men with him, Carmi Guelvi of Toledo and Jos. Fiannaca of Rochester, NY, were wounded. 21 Dist.
At the time of his murder, police told the papers that Gnolfo had been a member of the “Genna gang” and an associate of Orazio Tropea who fled Chicago in 1926 for Rockford (his apparent address when he was killed was still in Rockford), and that he had just recently returned to Chicago to retake his old bootlegging interests (unlikely; not an opportune time to set up shop in Chicago, to say the least). Gnolfo had been acquitted for a 1915 murder in Greensburg, PA (makes sense, given that he was Villarosano) and was a suspect in three Chicago murders, including Genna BIL Henry Spingola. Police believed also that Gnolfo was an Aiello guy and that he had imported his two wounded companions just the day before the shooting to Chicago as bodyguards. Various papers gave different garbled versions of their names. A more plausible name for “Guelvi” was “William Carnido”. This could match some Caronitos from Agrigento who settled in Cleveland. Joseph Fianacca would match a Giuseppe Fiannacca in Rochester, who I believe was most likely from Realmonte, Agrigento. Fiannacca told CPD that he was an olive oil salesman in Chicago on business. The three men were driving near Peoria and 19th St, south of the Taylor St Patch, when another vehicle pulled up alongside them and filled their car with shotgun slugs.

One article on the Gnolfo hit cited investigators as stating that all three men had been present at a meeting in Cleveland a year before, in which Aiello and a number of men from Rockford had also been alleged to have been present. Would seem like they were referring to the Hotel Statler meeting, unless the Aiello group had another meeting in Cleveland some time in early 1929 (if so, that would’ve been right around when Joe Giunta got whacked).

Several days after the killing, police were investigating reports that Gnolfo had been responsible for operating a blast furnace that the “Aiello gang” was allegedly using as a crematory for its victims. After “loyal Capone gang” affiliate Thomas Somnerio (Sommario, born in Chicago Heights to a family from Crotone and Cosenza Calabria) was gunned down June 4th, investigators stated that they had info that Sommario’s killing was a reprisal for Gnolfo, as Sommario was allegedly responsible for the Gnolfo hit with Jack McGurn. Police also stated that Gnolfo was believed to have been responsible for the murder of McGurn’s stepfather.
As noted above, Filippo Gnolfo, aka "Abbate", born ~1887 in Villarosa, was a reputed Aiello supporter murdered in May of 1930, right around the same time that fellow alleged Aiello man Girolamo Intravaia (1928 Statler meeting attendee) seems to have also been murdered.

Gnolfo was also linked to the violence in and around Taylor St in 1926. On March 6, 1926 (3 days before Donato Cerone was shot), a man initially identified as "C. La Cognata" living on the 1100 block of S Racine, was shot to death while riding in a car with three men at 22nd (Cermak Rd) and Keeler in the South Lawndale neighborhood. Another vehicle pulled up next to them and opened fire from as many as five sawed-off shotguns; "La Cognata" was killed instantly with his head nearly blown completely off, while two of his companions were wounded. It subsequently came out that "La Cognata" was actually Giuseppe Calabrese. Calabrese was born ~1892 in Calascibetta and was married to Francesca Blando, also of Calascibetta. At the time of his killing, they lived at Taylor and Racine. According to investigators, the vehicle that Calabrese and his companions were riding in belonged to Filippo Gnolfo, who had been targeted in a series of failed shooting attempts and whose garage had recently been torched. They thus believed that Gnolfo had sent some of his men out to move his car to a safehouse, but his guys wound up making a trip out to Cicero. Gnolfo, a wholesale grocery salesman, lived one block south of Calabrese, at Lexington and Racine. Police believed that the attack against Gnolfo were retaliation for the murder of Henry Spingola, as Gnolfo had been stated to have been in hiding since Spingola was whacked. Gnolfo admitted to investigators that he had been a close personal friend of Orazio Tropea.

The driver of Gnolfo's car, also wounded in the shooting, was named as Ralph Cavalieri, and lived on DeKoven St. This was clearly Carmine "Ralph" Cavalieri, born in 1902 in Rende, Cosenza, Calabria.

Passenger Concetto Lallone also took some buckshot to the head in the attack but survived. Lallone was born in 1896 in Calascibetta and arrived in Chicago with his wife Carmella Blando, sister of Calabrese's wife (their surname was sometimes given as Brandi/Branni, which would reflect local dialetto pronunciation). In 1927, Lallone was naturalized with one of his witnesses being Carmelo La Cognata (the name that Calabrese was either using as an alias or who the papers mixed up with Calabrese initially), who lived on the same block of Racine (1100 S) as Gnolfo. La Cognata was born about 1883 in Santa Croce Camerina, Ragusa -- he would seem to be an outlier, but bear in mind that Samuzzo Amatuna was from Pozzallo, Ragusa. Carmelo LaCognato was later killed in what was thought to have been an accidental shooting by 19-year-old Joseph Castaldo (not sure if this was the same Joe Castaldo later affiliated with Elmwood Park, or a relative, or unrelated); the two were allegedly inspecting a pistol when it went off.

Concetto Lallone, after surviving Chicago's bloody series of mafia wars, died in a work accident in 1936 and was buried alongside his cumpari Giuseppe Calabrese in Mt Carmel. At the time of the accident, Lallone was accompanied by his nephew, named as Thomas Blando. I think that there is a very strong chance that this was Gaetano "Guy/Tom" Blando who along with his son Dominick Blando was an apparent affiliate of the Elmwood Park crew many years later. Gaetano Blando was born in 1917 in Chicago to Domenico Blando and Maria Santo Stefano. Maria was born in Calascibetta but Domenico gave Calascibetta and Gangi, Palermo (very near the border with modern Enna province, then Caltanissetta) on different documents. As noted above, sisters Francesca and Carmella Blando were from Calascibetta, and their father was Gaetano Blando, also the name of Domenico Blando's father. Further, father Gaetano Blando matches a birth record in Gangi, so it would seem that all of these Blandos were one family.

Now, here's something else. Recall the "Michael Blando" who was an alleged partner of Antonino Spano "Il Cavaliero" and was murdered following Spano's hit in August of 1926. Spano, as has been mentioned a number of times, was a Taylor St Marsalese who reputedly betrayed the Gennas with Amatuna and Tropea; after the latter was killed, Spano fled to Chicago Heights and partnered with then-boss Filippo Piazza, until both were murdered soon after (my guess is that without Tropea, Spano may have transferred into the Heights Family or at least got protection from Piazza; Piazza's murder and the subsequent takeover of the Heights Family by Chicago may thus have been a consequence of or related to the war on Taylor St). "Blando's" actual surname was DelBuono, and his father was Giuseppe DelBuono of Calascibetta. His younger brother, Salvatore DelBuono, who afterward went by Sam Faragia (their mother's surname), was, of course, married to Mooney's kid sister Mary Annette Giancana (their descendants are the Faragias and Celozzis, the later of car dealership fame and alleged Joe Fosco death threat infamy). Given the "Blando" thing and shared peasani background, very possible that the DelBuonos were related to the Blandos; at the very least they were part of the same mafia faction on Taylor St.

The name of the fourth man in the car with Cavalieri, Calabrese, and Lallone, who was unwounded in the attack, was given as "Tony Ponetti". Given the strong Calascibetta connections here, I think it's a good chance that this may have been Tony Pinelli. We know that later, Pinelli -- as apparent capodecina of the Gary crew -- had strong connections to the Pittsburgh outfit, including boss John LaRocca, who was from Villarosa. If Pinelli started out working for the Villarosene Filippo Gnolfo, then this could have been part of the context of those later ties (there were also plenty of other Villaroseni in Chicago as well, of course). Now, before moving to Chicago, Gnolfo had also lived in PA. In 1914, his eldest child Jean Gnolfo was born in 1914 in Latrobe, Westmoreland County, PA (just to the east of the Pittsburgh metro area). By 1917, they were living in Chicago. At the time of the Calabrese murder, the Trib reported that when Gnolfo was previously seized (along with Calabrese and Cavalieri) in mass raids by Federal agents of Chicago "Sicilian" gangsters (some of the men seized and described as "Sicilians" were, of course, Mainlanders, such as Cavalieri), it turned out that he was a suspect in a 1915 murder in Greensburg, PA (also in Westmoreland County, and had fled PA after that. Gnolfo's wife was Caterina Sallomi, who I believe was also from Villarosa. Interesting to note that another woman named Maria Colaianni from Calascibetta was married to a Charles Sollami from Villarosa in Chicago -- later Chicago member Carlo Colianni was himself born Calogero Colaianni in Calascibetta and was a brother of Maria Sollami (in 1930, Colianni was living with Charles and Maria). There were also Sollamis who settled in Latrobe, PA.
Interesting to note that the FBI's 1973 list of Chicago LCN members had Gnolfo as a deceased Chicago member. Presumably, they had a CI who mentioned Gnolfo to them, possibly the early 1970s member CI from Taylor St that we have discussed in the past here in a different thread.

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Re: Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

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On the evening of December 28th, 1928, two men in a car pulled up alongside the sedan of bootlegger Filippo LaPaglia and opened fire, killing LaPaglia but leaving his passenger, Pietro Mirando, unharmed. LaPaglia and Mirando were parked at 32nd and Wells on the Southside, in an area strongly associated with the activities of the Capone faction of the mafia. LaPaglia was born in Ciminna in 1889 and arrived in Chicago in 1912, when his compaesan' Rosario DiSpenza was boss of Chicago. He settled in the old Italian colony in the South Loop, living on LaSalle near Polk. In 1928, he married Rosalia Giancola, who had just arrived in Chicago from Ciminna; when police arrived at their residence to notify her of her husband's murder, she initially believed them to be öutlaws" and answered the door with two loaded pistols. LaPaglia's buddy, Pietro Mirando, was a steelworker from Bisacquino, who lived near Ogden and Taylor in the Taylor St Patch. the LaPaglia murder was less than two weeks before the hit on presumed Chicago boss Pasquale LoLordo; given the timing and location, I would suspect that LaPaglia may also have been attacked by affiliates of the Aiello-Moran Northside faction.
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Re: Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

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On May 3rd, 1929, the body of Calogero Folisi was found dumped in a ditch near the southern border of Chicago, at 134th and Torrence. Folisi had been slashed in the face and died from blunt force trauma to the head by a hard object, caving in his skull. He was described as a poolroom owner and bootlegger, and was well-dressed with multiple items of diamond-studded jewelry on his person, ruling out robbery as a motive. While his identity was initially a mystery, he was identified by papers on his person that recorded bootlegging transactions and included the name of Joseph Anico (probably Giuseppe Annico, of Santa Caterina Villarmosa). Anico confirmed Folisi's identity and admitted that he knew him back in Sicily, but hadn't seen him for two years. Folisi was born around 1883 in Calascibetta, and at the time of his death was living at Leavitt and Polk in the Taylor St Patch, on the same block where the Borsellinos (also bootleggers) and the Frattos lived. The meaning behind the name "Giuseppe Portaccio", tattooed on Folisi's right arm, remained a mystery to investigators (and it is odd, as the surname Portaccio isn't even Sicilian, but rather mainly found in Puglia). Given his residence and ancestry, it is very likely that Folisi was an associate of Filippo Gnolfo. Folisi's murder came just 4 days before the infamous murders of presumed acting boss Joe Giunta and presumed soldiers Giovanni Scalise and Alberto Anselmi, all of whom were also associated with the Taylor St Patch, and Folisi's murder may well have been related.
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Re: Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

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PolackTony wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 7:30 pm
PolackTony wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 6:57 pm
Antiliar wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 4:08 pm
PolackTony wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 9:40 am Hitting a wall with the Manno brothers. Pat Manno I have as born 1908 in Chicago (he appears as Patsy, Patrick, or Pascal in various documents) to Nicola Manno and Maria Esposito. All of their documents that I have reviewed just state that they were born in Italy. I'm pretty sure that this was "Pat Manning", however, as he had brothers named Nick, Sam, Fred, and Tom and married a Bessie Tremont (Pat Manning was stated to have been partnered with a guy named Tremont). My best guess is that the Manno surname was Sicilian, but the surname is also present in Calabria and Campania as well as other regions.
Unfortunately there's no Nick Manno listed here: https://services.cookcountyclerkofcourt ... fault.aspx

According to this ship manifest, his last residence was San Vitaliano, near Naples. Strange that he would depart from Palermo. Maybe he was born in Sicily and he and his parents moved to San V later on:
Name
Nicola Menna
Gender
Male
Ethnicity/ Nationality
Italian
Age
22
Birth Date
1880
Departure Port
Palermo
Arrival Date
14 Apr 1902
Arrival Port
New York, New York, USA
Ship Name
Trojan Prince

But according to his son's birth record, he was born there:
Name: Nicola Menno
Birth Date: Abt 1880
Birth Place: Vitagliano, Italy
Gender: Male
Age: 28
Spouse: Maria Esposito
Child: Pasquale Menno
FHL Film Number: 1288161
Great find. There are many Mannos and Mannas in Chicago, but it was listed as Menno/Menna. Now the question is what the surname actually was, originally. If Manno, more likely to be Sicilian. If Menna, much more likely Napolitan’. There are Mennas in San Vitaliano, but hardly any in Sicily. Esposito is of course a classically Napolitan’ surname, so I’m thinking it’s possible both parents were Napolitan’. Maybe he was in Sicily for non-family reasons. I note that on that ship in 1902 there were several other guys from San Vitaliano also headed to Chicago as well as someone from Marigliano. Maybe they had to take a ship to Sicily first en route to the US?

EDIT: When Pat Mannings’ brother Salvatore Sam Menna was born Nicola was listed as born in Marigliano. Marigliano and San Vitaliano of course directly border each other.
Another addendum. In 1910, Maria Esposito's father Frank Esposito was living with her and Nicola Menna in Chicago. From other documents that I believe match him (Francesco Pasquale Esposito, born 1866), his birthplace was listed as Scisciano while his sister lived in San Vitaliano.

I think it's safe to conclude that the "Manno" brothers were Napolitan'.
As a follow-up to this. Nicola Menna and Maria Carmela Esposito, the parents of the Manno brothers, were married at Holy Guardian Angel Parish in 1906, with the Parish entry recording that both parties were born in "San Vitaliano, Caserta". San Vitaliano was, of course, originally part of the Nola district of Terra di Lavoro (the old Caserta) province, prior to 1927 when La Terra di Lavoro was abolished under Mussolini.
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Re: Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

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PolackTony wrote: Tue Nov 09, 2021 8:40 am James Vincent Torello was born in Chicago to Vincenzo Torello Sr from Vaglio di Basilicata, Potenza, Basilicata and Frances/Mary DeMaio, born in Chicago to parents from Potenza province, Basilicata and Avellino province, Campania.
James Vincent "Turk" Torello Jr. was born in Chicago in 1930 to Vincenzo "James" Torello Sr. and Francesca "Frances" DeMaio. Frances was born in 1910 in Chicago to Salvatore De Maio, of Roggiano Gravina, Cosenza, Calabria, and Alessandra Salvini, of Alessandria del Carretto, Cosenza, who settled in the Taylor St Patch. Other Taylor St mob-connected families with ancestry from Alessandria del Carretto included the Adduccis, Mundos, and Basiles, while the Spingola (Spincola) family (in-laws of the Gennas and longtime alleged friends of Paul Ricca) was from Roggiano Gravina, as was Vincenzo Abbollito, a suspected early Kansas City member and partner of Giovanni Cirrincione.

James Torello Sr was born in 1910 in Kansas City to Faustino Tarillo (the original spelling of the surname) and Antonio Tamburrino, both of Vaglio di Basilicata, Potenza. The Tarillos arrived in KC in the 1900s, where father Faustino worked as a laborer. In 1923, Faustino died, and James Sr relocated to Chicago with his older brother Rocco Tarillo at this time (Chicago had a colony of immigrants from Vaglio, including a bunch of Tamburrino relatives of the Tarillos). In December of 1923, 12-year-old James Torello was arrested in Chicago after firing a shotgun into a crowd and wounding three other boys near his home on the 1400 block of W Edgemont (Grenshaw); police told the papers that young James was "inflamed by moonshine" when he committed the attack. In 1930, he married Frances DeMaio at Holy Guardian Angel Parish, and the couple lived in an apartment at 825 S Marshfield, near Polk (long since demolished for the UIC Medical Center Campus); James Sr. worked at the time in a candy factory. He clearly didn't quit his day job as a hoodlum, however, as James Torello Sr was charged for the robbery-murder of Westside resident Abraham Siplester in 1938. Pinched for the crime along with accomplices Anthony Tondola and Bertram De Lisle, Torello pled guilty to having been the shooter of Siplester and was given a life sentence -- the 1940 and 1950 censuses show him as incarcerated in Stateville Penitentiary. He was apparently paroled at some point before his death in 1987, which was recorded at suburban Woodridge, DuPage County, where his older siblings Rocco and Lena Tarillo had lived.

He thus outlived his son James "Turk" Torello, who died in 1979 from cancer. By the 1940s, Turk Torello lived with his mother at 1133 S Mason, near the intersection of Roosevelt and Austin in the neighborhood known as "The Island" on the border of Chicago and Cicero. Turk's first appearance in the papers came in 1953 when he was arrested along with Tony Ozanto, Teddy Ziemba, and Rocky Infelise for an attempted bank burglary in Fulton, KY; by this time, Torello lived at 27th and Austin on the Cicero side of the street.
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Re: Chicago Outfit Places of Origin

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PolackTony wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 10:32 pm
PolackTony wrote: Sun Feb 20, 2022 12:37 am Per my info, Joseph "New York"/"Joe the Barber" LaBarbera was most likely the Joseph Anthony LaBarbera born in New Orleans in 1912 to Antonio LaBarbera and Anna Gagliano. His father best matches the Antonio LaBarbera who arrived in NOLA in 1903 and was born in 1876 in Bagheria. There are a couple of potential matches for Anna Gagliano, but none give any info more specific than "embarked at Palermo". By 1915, the LaBarberas were living in Fredonia in Chautauqua County, in far Western NY, where Antonio died in 1919. His obituary stated that he was a member of the "Fraternal Beneficial Society". Perhaps this was a compaesani society, or just a more general mutual aid society, but I wonder if it had any connections to the mafia as some such societies did. In 1920 the LaBarberas were still living in Fredonia, but by 1930 they were in Buffalo, where Joseph still lived per his WW2 draft card. My understanding is that he arrived in Chicago during the 1940s. Per his SSDI, he died in 1983 with his most recent address in Buffalo, so at some point, he returned.

If his family was from Bagheria, perhaps they had a connection to Chicago, potentially explaining how Joseph wound up there.
Thanks to B. for reminding me to look into LaBarbera again in the context of the Syracuses. Based on Buffalo and Chicago press coverage, I was able to confirm that the Chicago guy was the Joseph Anthony LaBarbera above. But, rather than having been born in NOLA, he was born in Independence, Tangipahoa Parish, LA. As noted above, he and his family subsequently moved to Chautauqua County, NY. Following the death of Joseph’s father, they relocated to Buffalo. In 1940, LaBarbera was convicted on robbery charges with some other men in Buffalo. The conviction was then overturned when LaBarbera was able to produce an alibi that placed him away from the scene of the crime. In 1942, the Buffalo papers stated that he was being held by police in Chicago when it was found that he was living there under the name “Joseph Barone”. LaBarbera was wanted in Chautauqua County for a hold up of an underground casino in a local social athletic club. I’m not positive what the disposition of that case was; his alleged accomplices were men from Buffalo.

In 1948, LaBarbera was busted in Chicago for trafficking cocaine with Northside crew member Dominic “Libby” Nuccio and Frank Borelli, an East Harlem-based Lucchese Family member with close and long-standing trafficking ties to Chicago. At the time, LaBarbera was residing at 1432 N Lasalle on the Near Northside (in Nuccio’s core territory around Division and Clark). In 1959, an investigative piece by the Daily News centered on a push by Libby Nuccio to take over independent bookmaking operations in the Lakeview and Uptown neighborhoods on the Northside. The News reported that Joseph “Muscles” LaBarbera, a Buffalo native who had a lengthy arrest record in Chicago and Buffalo, was Nuccio’s primary enforcer in bringing the bookies to heel. The News stated the LaBarbera went by the alias “Joseph Villa”, and had been identified by CPD detectives as a recruit of the “Three Doms” (Nuccio, DiBella, Brancato) in 1942. In 1959, LaBarbera was arrested in CPD vice raid on the Northside and gave his address as 1433 N Mohawk. Apparently, LaBarbera owned a Division St tavern used as a house of prostitution. In 1967, a CI who may have been Rocco Pranno identified LaBarbera as a Chicago member.

It seems that LaBarbera returned to Buffalo at some point in the 1960s and apparently transferred to the Buffalo Family. He died there in 1983.

Now, Independence happens to be the same town in Louisiana where Sam Syracuse’s mother, Loretta Conti, was born. Like Conti, LaBarbera went from Independence to Chautauqua County, NY. And then, to top it off, they both wound up in Chicago around 1942. Like Rosario and Sam Syracuse, LaBarbera used multiple aliases. One wonders if this was all coincidence.
As a note, the FBI had Joe LaBarbera, alias “Joe Barone”, identified as a “reported” Chicago LCN member as early as 1964. Not sure who their source was here:

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