Al Capone

1292 Words3 Pages

His name was Alphonse Capone. His background, along with thousands of other Italians, the Capone family moved to Brooklyn. It was a new beginning in a New World. The Capone’s were a quiet and peaceful family. Nothing about the Capone family was disturbed, violent, or dishonest. The children and the parents were close. They really enjoyed baseball and were often at games. There was no mental disabilities, no traumatic event that sent the boys into the dangerous life of crime. They did not display sociopath or psychotic personalities; they were not crazy. They were a law-abiding, unremarkable Italian-American family with conventional patterns of behavior and frustrations. They displayed no special genius for crime. Family Parents-Gabriele and Teresina Capone Brothers-Vincenzo (James), Raffaele (Ralph), Salvatore (Frank), Alphonse (Al). Home-The Capone’s lived in a cold-water tenement flat that had no indoor toilet or furnishings. The neighborhood was virtually a slum. The family moved to better lodgings in an apartment over their father’s barbershop at 69 Park Avenue in Brooklyn. This move exposed 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 part of town allowed Al to escape from the all-Italian neighborhood. In their spare time, the ragged children gave the streets an explosive vitality as they played stickball, dodged traffic, brawled and bawled. To be a kid growing up in immigrant Brooklyn, you had to be in a gang (Italian, Jewish or Irish gang). 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 Education-The school system was deeply prejudiced against them and did little to encourage any interest in higher education. Al Capone found school a place of constant discipline relieved by sudden outbreaks of violence. At fourteen, Al lost his temper at the teacher; she hit him and he hit her back. He was expelled and never went to school again. The immigrant parents expected their children to leave school as soon as they were old enough to wor...

... middle of paper ...

...0th. 1918 they gave birth to their son Albert “sonny” Francis Capone. Capone had by then turned Illinois into a lawless state. People were actually afraid to pass threw this state because of it. People didn’t understand Capone, yeah he was a dangerous man but only to the people he need to be dangerous against. He wouldn’t just walk up and kill you, unless you deserved it. Plus he never did his “dirty” work he had hit men for that. Capone was later sent to Alcatrez prison for tax evasion. They never caught him for the many murders he plotted, the brotha’s, the alcohol only tax evasion. After about a year Capone had escaped. He went back to his power that was slowly dying. He rose again. After awhile he got sick of Syphilis. Later that year he had passed away on January 25th,1943. Although he had died his power still remained. The cops eventually cracked down on it releasing his power and having Chicago return to its original state. Al Capone had once said “You can go a long way with a smile, but a lot further with a smile and a gun.” Capone had proved that quote he made. He had always had a smile on his face and a gun in his hand with that he became America’s most popular mobster.

Open Document