Apprentice
A few blocks away from the Capone house on Garfield Place was a
small unobtrusive building that was the headquarters of one of the
most successful gangsters on the East Coast. Johnny Torrio was
a new breed of gangster, a pioneer in the development of a modern
criminal enterprise. Torrio's administrative and
organizational talents transformed crude racketeering into a kind of
corporate structure, allowing his businesses to expand as
opportunities emerged. From Torrio, a young Capone learned
invaluable lessons that were the foundation of the criminal empire
he built later in Chicago.
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Johnny Torrio (UPI) |
Torrio was physically small, learning early in life on the street
that brains, ingenuity and the ability to make alliances were
critical to survival. Torrio was a gentleman gangster who was
very visible as a numbers racketeer and almost invisible as a keeper
of whores and brothels.
He was a role model for many boys in the community. Capone,
like many other boys his age, earned pocket money by running errands
for Johnny Torrio. Over time, Torrio came to trust the young
Capone and gave him more to do. Meantime, young Al learned by
observing the wealthy successful respected racketeer and the people
in his organization. Bergreen explains that Al learned from
Torrio "the importance of leading an outwardly respectable
life, to segregate his career from his home life, as if maintaining
a peaceful, conventional domestic setting somehow excused or
legitimized the venality of working in the rackets. It was a
form of hypocrisy that was second nature to Johnny Torrio and that
he taught Capone to honor." In 1909, Torrio moved
to Chicago and young Al fell under other influences.
Kids growing up in immigrant Brooklyn ran in gangs -- Italian
gangs, Jewish gangs and Irish gangs. They were not the vicious
urban street gangs of today, but rather groups of territorial
neighborhood boys who hung out together. Capone was a tough,
scrappy kid and belonged to the South Brooklyn Rippers and then
later to the Forty Thieves Juniors and the Five Point Juniors.
As John Kobler wrote, "the street gang was escape. The
street gang was freedom. The street gang offered outlets for
stifled young energies. The agencies that might have kept boys
off the street, the schools and churches, lacked the means to do
so. Few slum schools had a gym or playground or any kind of
after-class recreation program...They formed their own street
society, independent of the adult world and antagonistic to
it. Led by some older, forceful boy, they pursued the thrills
of shared adventure, of horseplay, exploration, gambling, pilfering,
vandalism, sneaking a smoke or alcohol, secret ritual, smut
sessions, fighting rival gangs."
Despite Al's relationship with the street gangs and Johnny Torrio,
there was no indication that Al would choose someday to lead a life
of crime. He still lived at home and did what he as expected
to do when he quit school: go to work and help support the
family. The family was actually doing quite well under
Gabriele's guidance. He now owned his own barbershop.
Teresa continued to produce children --several boys and then two
girls, one of whom died in infancy. The only significant
disruption in Al's tranquil family life was in 1908 when his oldest
brother Vincenzo (James) left the family and went out west.
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A young Frankie Yale
(William Balsamo) |
At this point in his life, nobody would ever have believed that Al
would go on to be the criminal czar that he ultimately became.
For approximately six years he worked faithfully at exceptionally
boring jobs, first at a munitions factory and then as a paper
cutter. He was a good boy, well behaved and sociable.
Bergreen writes, "You didn't hear stories about Al Capone
practicing with guns; you heard that he went home each night to his
mother. Al was something of a nonentity, affable, soft of
speech and even mediocre in everything but dancing."
.How did the soft-spoken dutiful Al Capone metamorphose into the
spectacularly successful and violent super gangster? One clear
catalyst was the menacing presence of Frankie Yale. Originally
from Calabria, Francesco Ioele (called "Yale") was a both
feared and respected. At the opposite end of the spectrum from
the peace-loving, "respectable" Johnny Torrio, Frankie
Yale built his turf on muscle and aggression. Yale opened a
bar on Coney Island called the Harvard Inn and hired, at the
recommendation of Johnny Torrio, the eighteen-year-old Al Capone to
be his bartender.
