The
Young Boy
Shortly after Al was born, Gabriele moved the family to better
lodgings in an apartment over his barber shop at 69 Park Avenue in
Brooklyn (not to be confused with the posh Park Avenue of
Manhattan). This move would expose Al to cultural influences well
beyond what was supplied by the Italian immigrant community. Most of
the people living around Park Avenue were Irish, although Germans,
Swedes and Chinese were also in the neighborhood.
Moving into a broader ethnic universe allowed Al to escape the
insularity of the solidly Italian neighborhood. There is no question
that this exposure would help him in his future role as the head of
a criminal empire.
A block from Al's home was the parish church, St Michael's, where
the Reverend Garofalo baptized him several months after his
birth. John Kobler captures the atmosphere of the neighborhood
in The Life and World of Al Capone:
"Life in the sector where Al lived his first ten years was
harsh, but never drab, never stagnant. Hordes of ragged children
gave the streets an explosive vitality as they played stickball,
dodged traffic, brawled and bawled, while their mothers, dark heavy-thighed
women, bustled to and fro balancing on their heads baskets laden
with supplies for the day's meals. Fruit and vegetable carts,
standing wheel to wheel, made a bright, fragrant clutter along the
curb. The fire escapes that formed an iron lacework across the faces
of the squat tenements shook and shuddered as the El trains roared
by close behind on Myrtle Avenue."
At the age of five in 1904, he went to Public School 7 on Adams
Street. Educational prospects for Italian children were very
poor. The school system was deeply prejudiced against them and
did little to encourage any interest in higher education, while the
immigrant parents expected their children to leave school as soon as
they were old enough to work.
Bergreen describes the poor learning conditions for the children
of Italian immigrants:
Capone house on Garfield Place, Brooklyn
"Schools such as Capone's P.S. 7 offered nothing in the way of
assistance to children from Italian backgrounds to enter the
mainstream of American life; they were rigid, dogmatic, strict
institutions, where physical force often prevailed over reason in
maintaining discipline. The teachers -- usually female, Irish
Catholic, and trained by nuns -- were extremely young. A
sixteen-year-old, earning $600 a year, would often teach boys and
girls only a few years younger than she...Fistfights between
students and teachers were common, even between male students and
female teachers...Al Capone found school a place of constant
discipline relieved by sudden outbreaks of violence..."
Al did quite well in school until the sixth grade when his steady
record of B's deteriorated rapidly. At fourteen, he lost his
temper at the teacher, she hit him and he hit her back. He was
expelled and never went to school again.
About this time, his family moved from their house on Navy Street
to 21 Garfield Place. This move would have a lasting
impact on Al because in this new neighborhood he would meet the
people who would have the most influence on his future: his
wife Mae and the gangster Johnny Torrio.
