American Mafia: Chicago: True Stories of Families Who Made Windy City History

William Griffith

Oct 2013 · Rowman & Littlefield

About this ebook

Everyone knows stories about the American Mafia and its varied forms of crime, from racketeering to stock manipulation to murder.  American Mafia: Chicago explores the Windy City, strolling through its neighborhoods and imagining scenes from the past—telling the stories of the men, women, and families and revealing the events behind the legends and the history of the families' beginnings and founding members. 
Featuring the most fascinating stories from the early days, when loosely-organized, incredibly secretive gangs terrorized neighborhoods with names like Little Hell, through the mob’s headiest years, when Al Capone and his men pretty well controlled the city, American Mafia: Chicago offers tantalizing glimpses into the era when Chicago was ruled by gangs with their ever-twisting allegiances and tangled webs of relationships.
Most of the buildings are gone now.

But the stories are still there, if you know where to look.

About the author

William Griffith is known to his friends as "Wild Bill," but actually lives a quiet life with his dogs in a small apartment beneath the El tracks on Lake Street - you get used to the noise after a while. His doorknob was salvaged from the rubble of the Lexington Hotel, and the apartment itself is reputed to have once been the home of a member of the Genna Brothers gang. His grandfather was a gangbuster in northern Missouri.