Word: torrio
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Death Revealed. Johnny Torrio, 75, compact (5 ft. 5 in.), button-eyed dean of Chicago's Prohibition-era gang leaders, (e.g., Dion O'Bannion, Hymie Weiss) who brought Al ("Scarface") Capone from Brooklyn as a $75-a-week mug, tutored him, later (1925) bequeathed him his underworld empire and title of Public Enemy No. 1; of a heart attack; on April 16, in Brooklyn. Dapper Torrio, a topnotch organizer, executive and marksman (tagged by colleagues as "Terrible Johnny" long before police got anything on him), joined Big Jim Colosimo in Chicago as chief triggerman in 1910, gathered...
Grimy Cicero, Ill. (pop. 67,000), which huddles close to Chicago's west boundary, has never had a reputation for being exclusive. During the roaring '20s, the Torrio-Capone mob roared through Cicero's streets in armored cars, ruled its wide-open gambling joints, honky-tonks and whorehouses. Cicero is also an industrial town, with tree-lined neighborhoods of workingmen's homes, and friendly corner taverns where jukeboxes play lively polkas and the talk at the bar is in many languages. Though its history is pockmarked with crime and violence, Cicero makes one proud boast...