By David Heinzmann
There’s a line in my novel, A Word To The Wise, about the state of the Outfit (the real wise guys, not our friendly little group), warning people that though the mob may seem like an anachronism in this day and age, getting in their way can still be deadly.
It’s an issue that comes up often these days, especially since the Family Secrets trial a few years ago put the top management of the Outfit behind bars. Is there still a potent mob in Chicago? Or is it at this point just a handful of old farts eating out on Taylor Street and talking about the old days.
Not long after I moved to Chicago in the mid-1990s, some friends who knew Taylor Street well told me about eating in one of the joints over there and being seated next to a “going away party.” One of the diners was headed to federal prison. They had a cake and everything, and my friends overheard one of the guys cackle, “Ah, this is just like fucking Goodfellas.”
Every once in a while we’re treated to a little news that brings the real Outfit back into focus, to suggest how organized crime works in the 21st Century. Allegedly.
At the end of last week the U.S. Attorney in Chicago filed charges against Rudy Fratto, a reputed honcho in the Outfit for rigging contracts at the McCormick Place convention center here.
The feds said that Fratto, a lieutenant in the Elmwood Park street crew, also known to some as “The Chin,” squeezed the owner of a trade show company to steer contracts to rent forklifts to a firm favored by the mob. Part of the leverage Fratto allegedly used was a debt the company owner owed to the Cleveland mob.
Fratto and his co-defendant, William “Billy D” Degironemo, have pleaded not guilty.
McCormick Place, along with Navy Pier, are a publicly owned enterprise that are managed jointly by city and state officials. The mammoth complex has long been vulnerable to the influence of organized crime in Chicago. A who’s who of Outfoot foot soldiers were on the McCormick Place payroll in the 1970s. News of mob influence at the convention center comes at a lousy time for McCormick Place, which has been losing big trade shows left and right to other cities, like Orlando and Las Vegas, which have big convention centers that charge much lower prices.
This isn’t the first time Fratto’s name has come up tangled with the alleged influence of the Outfit in government business. Back in the late 1990s, the Illinois Gaming Board planned to grant a license for a new casino in Rosemont, right next to O’Hare airport. But before the Emerald casino could be built, investigators found evidence that the Outfit was pulling the strings of the development. At the heart of that story: Rudy Fratto.
Investigators said the mayor Rosemont had meetings with Fratto and other reputed mobsters about the casino, and that organized crime had a stake in the development that had been masked by a façade of legitimate owners of record. The casino plan was scuttled.
I never covered the Emerald scandal as a reporter, but I’ll admit it gave me a couple ideas.
In A Word To The Wise Chicago officials decide to build a casino downtown on the banks of the Chicago River. But just as the developers are about the break ground, the feds get a tip that mobsters are controlling the project behind a façade of legitimate front men. As the authorities start peeling back the layers of the deal, all the mobsters scramble for cover, killing several people along the way. Like, I said, the casino case gave me an idea, but I took it from there and fully fictionalized the story.
I hope Mr. Fratto doesn’t think I owe him anything.
Showing posts with label Outfit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Outfit. Show all posts
Monday, March 15, 2010
Monday, September 17, 2007
Family Secrets -- Whose Family?
by Barbara D'Amato
A few weeks ago, The Chicago Tribune asked me to write a short piece on the Mob for the Perspectives section, because the Family Secrets gangsters trial was looming large in the news. In the piece, I mentioned the puzzling fact that people seem to love gangsters.
I live about four blocks from Holy Name Cathedral, where Hymie Weiss and four other men were gunned down in a mob hit in 1928. Visitors hearing that Holy Name is nearby, want to be walked over to see whether they can find the bullet holes in the cornerstone.
We have gangster bus tours in Chicago, and gangster-themed restaurants.
And this blog is called The Outfit, isn’t it?
In the Tribune piece I was interested in why we find these mobsters interesting and frequently funny, when they are really horrible people, killing pitilessly and often in gratuitously cruel ways. I asked for opinions.
Surprisingly, most of the emails I received did not respond to that question. Most were from people deeply troubled by what they saw as an enduring prejudice against Italians. Why make such a fuss about the Family Secrets trial, they asked. Why is The Sopranos so popular?
It’s certainly true that Italian gangsters are the mob characters of choice in movies and television. Even such non-Italian mobsters as Bugs Moran, Bugsy Siegel, and Hymie Weiss himself are seen as sort of honorary Italians. A lot of people don’t even realize that there were Irish mobs every bit as brutal and powerful as the Italians.
One man, a dentist, emailed me that he frequently tells patients that he is Sicilian, because he wants people to realize that there are hard-working, honest Sicilians who are not mobsters. This is sad.
My emailers tell me that jokes are constantly made in their presence about Italian gangsters, Sicilians especially. And to a certain extent, I believe it’s true that ethnic slurs against these people are seen as okay in the way that slurs against the Irish, blacks, Hispanics, or Jews are not.
Yes, there are movies, and I suppose some TV shows, about Irish, Jewish, black, or Hispanic gangsters. But they don’t seem to be part of the nudge-nudge, chuckle-chuckle culture in the way the Italians are. And the characters mostly are not intended to be funny—or made fun of, either.
I don’t really have much of a personal problem with this, having married my Italian last name. In fact, I grew up in a town so WASPy that I had never met an Italian until I went to college.
But I am curious.
So, I have two questions:
What is the reason people are so fascinated by the Mafia and appear to find it so cute?
Second, is it true, as these emailers say, that prejudice against Italians is okay, in a way that jokes and slurs about other ethnic groups are not? Does PC not apply to Sicilians? Are Italians the last ethnic group people can laugh at without fear of being non-PC?
A few weeks ago, The Chicago Tribune asked me to write a short piece on the Mob for the Perspectives section, because the Family Secrets gangsters trial was looming large in the news. In the piece, I mentioned the puzzling fact that people seem to love gangsters.
I live about four blocks from Holy Name Cathedral, where Hymie Weiss and four other men were gunned down in a mob hit in 1928. Visitors hearing that Holy Name is nearby, want to be walked over to see whether they can find the bullet holes in the cornerstone.
We have gangster bus tours in Chicago, and gangster-themed restaurants.
And this blog is called The Outfit, isn’t it?
In the Tribune piece I was interested in why we find these mobsters interesting and frequently funny, when they are really horrible people, killing pitilessly and often in gratuitously cruel ways. I asked for opinions.
Surprisingly, most of the emails I received did not respond to that question. Most were from people deeply troubled by what they saw as an enduring prejudice against Italians. Why make such a fuss about the Family Secrets trial, they asked. Why is The Sopranos so popular?
It’s certainly true that Italian gangsters are the mob characters of choice in movies and television. Even such non-Italian mobsters as Bugs Moran, Bugsy Siegel, and Hymie Weiss himself are seen as sort of honorary Italians. A lot of people don’t even realize that there were Irish mobs every bit as brutal and powerful as the Italians.
One man, a dentist, emailed me that he frequently tells patients that he is Sicilian, because he wants people to realize that there are hard-working, honest Sicilians who are not mobsters. This is sad.
My emailers tell me that jokes are constantly made in their presence about Italian gangsters, Sicilians especially. And to a certain extent, I believe it’s true that ethnic slurs against these people are seen as okay in the way that slurs against the Irish, blacks, Hispanics, or Jews are not.
Yes, there are movies, and I suppose some TV shows, about Irish, Jewish, black, or Hispanic gangsters. But they don’t seem to be part of the nudge-nudge, chuckle-chuckle culture in the way the Italians are. And the characters mostly are not intended to be funny—or made fun of, either.
I don’t really have much of a personal problem with this, having married my Italian last name. In fact, I grew up in a town so WASPy that I had never met an Italian until I went to college.
But I am curious.
So, I have two questions:
What is the reason people are so fascinated by the Mafia and appear to find it so cute?
Second, is it true, as these emailers say, that prejudice against Italians is okay, in a way that jokes and slurs about other ethnic groups are not? Does PC not apply to Sicilians? Are Italians the last ethnic group people can laugh at without fear of being non-PC?
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Happy New Year
Kudos to Kevin Guilfoile for his painstaking research on Dr. Cornbleet's murderer. We agreed as a group that he had important insights on a story that was not getting appropriate press attention; that's why he wrote several consecutive posts on the subject. Kevin scooped big media and all of us at the Outfit are mighty proud of him.
I had originally planned to use my post to comment on the convictions of five defendants in the Calabrese family secrets trial for racketeering and fraud, but the jury is still out on the more serious charge of first-degree murder, and sentencing also lies in the future.
Anyway, today is Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish New Year, a time of starting over, thinking afresh about life, about the unnecessary baggage we carry with us. There should be one day of peace in everyone's life from time to time; I chose today to turn off my e-mail, to do no work, to enjoy the beautiful golden day in Chicago with my dog and with friends. And I thought, too, about all the ways that in my life and work I fall short of a mark that I wish I met. One of those ways is to demonize people who oppose ideas and ideals that are fundamental to my sense of self. A friend of mine who's a theologian and does a lot of work on issues around reproductive rights commented recently how much both sides of the abortion battle need each other; we demonize one another, she said, and use the demonic acts the other side commits as ways of galvanizing support for our own positions.
I want to cast off many things this Rosh Hashannah--tormenting myself about my work, wasting the precious time in front of me--but I want also to cast off demonizing people who don't agree with me--if I can make an exception for Dick Cheney and George Bush. As John Donne wrote, “How many men that stand at an execution [who] ask, For what dies that man? should hear their own faults condemned and see themselves executed by attorney?”
For all who visit this site, I wish you a year of health and peace, and pray that the one who establishes peace in the high places will, against all odds, grant peace to all the world.
Sara Paretsky
I had originally planned to use my post to comment on the convictions of five defendants in the Calabrese family secrets trial for racketeering and fraud, but the jury is still out on the more serious charge of first-degree murder, and sentencing also lies in the future.
Anyway, today is Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish New Year, a time of starting over, thinking afresh about life, about the unnecessary baggage we carry with us. There should be one day of peace in everyone's life from time to time; I chose today to turn off my e-mail, to do no work, to enjoy the beautiful golden day in Chicago with my dog and with friends. And I thought, too, about all the ways that in my life and work I fall short of a mark that I wish I met. One of those ways is to demonize people who oppose ideas and ideals that are fundamental to my sense of self. A friend of mine who's a theologian and does a lot of work on issues around reproductive rights commented recently how much both sides of the abortion battle need each other; we demonize one another, she said, and use the demonic acts the other side commits as ways of galvanizing support for our own positions.
I want to cast off many things this Rosh Hashannah--tormenting myself about my work, wasting the precious time in front of me--but I want also to cast off demonizing people who don't agree with me--if I can make an exception for Dick Cheney and George Bush. As John Donne wrote, “How many men that stand at an execution [who] ask, For what dies that man? should hear their own faults condemned and see themselves executed by attorney?”
For all who visit this site, I wish you a year of health and peace, and pray that the one who establishes peace in the high places will, against all odds, grant peace to all the world.
Sara Paretsky
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
What is Evil?
by Libby Hellmann
One of the things that strikes me about Chicago’s media coverage of the Family Secrets trial are the descriptions of witnesses. Nick Calabrese, once one of the most dangerous Mafioisi in the Outfit, wears a “gray sweatsuit and rounded eyeglasses. With his white hair neatly parted, he looked more like a doughy banker in his pajamas than a "made" member of the mob.” When the son of mobster Frank Calabrese testified, the Sun Times said, “at first he had a little tremor in his voice. He appeared nervous.”
The media have done their job-- they’ve humanized evil. I’m not criticizing. As crime fiction writers, we do it all the time. We introduce characters we know to be evil, dress them in designer clothes, give them sympathetic traits, and in an effort to fully develop them, even give them a compassionate back story. The bad guys had a deprived childhood… abusive father… alcoholic mother. Whatever. Readers might not root for them, but at least they “understand.”
What I keep wondering is whether, over time, our attempt to humanize evil has watered down the concept. Just what does it take for us to recognize evil these days?
Fifty years ago, the Outfit was one of the most evil organizations known to man. Elliot Ness was a hero. But now, in our Soprano-fueled culture, the Outfit yields not much more than a yawn. Is it familiarity? Too much exposure? Familiarity is supposed to breed contempt, not boredom. To a degree maybe that’s happened. We perceive the Outfit as less muscular, more feeble. As Kevin pointed out in his last blog, the holy picture ritual almost made them out to be buffoons.
Our tolerance for evil seems, like so much else in our culture, to have coarsened. We search out “new and improved” evil-doers… the Russian mob.. Asian gangs… Arab terrorists. Quick: which are worse: Nazis or Al Qaeda? Serial killers or pedophiles?
As kids we knew the evil monster in the closet would get us if we didn’t say our prayers, brush our teeth, share our toys. Today, our moral compasses seem so skewed that only the vilest, most reprehensible monsters can rile us. We seem willing to accept, even condone, a laissez faire attitude toward guilt and innocence. (And yes, I’m generalizing to make a point).
But it does become problematic. I’m about to start a new novel. Usually my first step is to define the evil I’ll be writing about. What is it? Who is practicing it? How will it be revealed? Honestly, this time I’m flummoxed—I’ve done the corrupt politician, the neo-Nazi, the vengeful real estate developer, Big Oil, the amoral father. What’s left? An African dictator? Health insurers? The current administration? Whoever killed Kennedy? It all seems so ho-hum. Been there done that…
So, I ask you – writers, readers, observers of today’s society – what do you believe is true evil? What is the worst kind of sin?
Btw, for a study of systemic evil in war, I highly recommend Paul Verhoevens’ film ”Black Book.” It’s a stunning examination of good and evil, and how our perceptions can be upended.
One of the things that strikes me about Chicago’s media coverage of the Family Secrets trial are the descriptions of witnesses. Nick Calabrese, once one of the most dangerous Mafioisi in the Outfit, wears a “gray sweatsuit and rounded eyeglasses. With his white hair neatly parted, he looked more like a doughy banker in his pajamas than a "made" member of the mob.” When the son of mobster Frank Calabrese testified, the Sun Times said, “at first he had a little tremor in his voice. He appeared nervous.”
The media have done their job-- they’ve humanized evil. I’m not criticizing. As crime fiction writers, we do it all the time. We introduce characters we know to be evil, dress them in designer clothes, give them sympathetic traits, and in an effort to fully develop them, even give them a compassionate back story. The bad guys had a deprived childhood… abusive father… alcoholic mother. Whatever. Readers might not root for them, but at least they “understand.”
What I keep wondering is whether, over time, our attempt to humanize evil has watered down the concept. Just what does it take for us to recognize evil these days?
Fifty years ago, the Outfit was one of the most evil organizations known to man. Elliot Ness was a hero. But now, in our Soprano-fueled culture, the Outfit yields not much more than a yawn. Is it familiarity? Too much exposure? Familiarity is supposed to breed contempt, not boredom. To a degree maybe that’s happened. We perceive the Outfit as less muscular, more feeble. As Kevin pointed out in his last blog, the holy picture ritual almost made them out to be buffoons.
Our tolerance for evil seems, like so much else in our culture, to have coarsened. We search out “new and improved” evil-doers… the Russian mob.. Asian gangs… Arab terrorists. Quick: which are worse: Nazis or Al Qaeda? Serial killers or pedophiles?
As kids we knew the evil monster in the closet would get us if we didn’t say our prayers, brush our teeth, share our toys. Today, our moral compasses seem so skewed that only the vilest, most reprehensible monsters can rile us. We seem willing to accept, even condone, a laissez faire attitude toward guilt and innocence. (And yes, I’m generalizing to make a point).
But it does become problematic. I’m about to start a new novel. Usually my first step is to define the evil I’ll be writing about. What is it? Who is practicing it? How will it be revealed? Honestly, this time I’m flummoxed—I’ve done the corrupt politician, the neo-Nazi, the vengeful real estate developer, Big Oil, the amoral father. What’s left? An African dictator? Health insurers? The current administration? Whoever killed Kennedy? It all seems so ho-hum. Been there done that…
So, I ask you – writers, readers, observers of today’s society – what do you believe is true evil? What is the worst kind of sin?
Btw, for a study of systemic evil in war, I highly recommend Paul Verhoevens’ film ”Black Book.” It’s a stunning examination of good and evil, and how our perceptions can be upended.
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