Al Capone

Alphonse Gabriel “Al” Capone, born in the borough of Brooklyn, New York, on January 17, 1899, remains one of the most infamous figures in American history. Though his accomplishments were not in the traditional sense, he is most famous as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit, an organized crime syndicate. During the Prohibition era, Capone's criminal empire, built on bootlegging, gambling, and prostitution, made him a symbol of the roaring twenties' lawlessness and wealth, and he wielded immense power. His reign in Chicago was marked by violence, including the notorious 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. Ultimately, he was arrested and convicted not for his violent crimes, but for federal income tax evasion in 1931, leading to his imprisonment.

Capone's foundational ties to Brooklyn are where his life of crime began. Born in the borough to Italian immigrant parents, he was raised in a strict household in the Park Slope neighborhood, attending P.S. 133 and the Sacred Heart Catholic School. As a teenager, he joined two notorious street gangs, the Brooklyn Rippers and the Forty Thieves Juniors, and later became a member of the powerful Five Points Gang, where he was mentored by mobster Johnny Torrio. It was while working at the Harvard Inn on Coney Island, a bar owned by gangster Frankie Yale, that he received the famous scars that earned him the nickname "Scarface." While his infamy took root in Chicago, his formative years in the rough-and-tumble streets of Brooklyn were instrumental in shaping the ruthless persona that would become legendary.

Photo Credit: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/miami-al-capone/