Thursday, October 11, 2012

HYMIE HOLED

10/11/1926 - The bloody beer wars of Chicago claim 26-year-old Henry Earl J. Wojciechowski, aka North Side Gang leader Hymie Weiss.

                                      
                                                           Weiss

Only weeks removed from spoiling Al Capone's spaghetti lunch by unleashing ten cars of machine gunners and shotgun wielding mobsters on the Hawthorne Hotel, Scarface ends the truce that was put in place after the incident and gets his revenge.  Planned not to fail by Capone's favorite torpedo, "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn (real name Vincenzo Antonio Gibaldi), two rooms are rented near Weiss' headquarters at 740 North State Street in the flower shop that use to belong to mob boss Dion O'Bannion ... rented and made into machine gun nests staffed by two-man crews who watch and wait for their target (it is believed the men that wait in shifts are Capone mobsters McGurn, Frank Nitti, John Scalise, Albert Anselmi, Sam Hunt, Frank Rio, Tony Volpe, Louis Campagna, and Frankie Diamond).

                                         
                                                       Machine Gun Jack


                                                        The machine gun nest

Eventually the wait pays dividends when Weiss, his bodyguard Sam Pellar, gangster Paddy Murray, attorney William W. O'Brien, and investigator Benjamin Jacobs show up at 4:00 in the afternoon of the 11th.  Alighting from their cars in front of the Holy Name Cathedral, the men are crossing the street on their way to Schofield's Flower Shop when Capone's men, believed to be Nitti and McGurn, open up on them.

                                           
                                                           Path of the bullets
      
                    Schofield's and second story windows next door where the bullets cam from

In the hail of shotgun and machine gun lead that sweeps the street, the main target of the attack, Weiss, is riddled by ten hits and dies instantly, fellow gangster Murray is felled by sixteen killing strikes, lawyer O'Brien staggers into a nearby stairwell with four wounds to his arm, side, and stomach, bodyguard Peller gets off a single pistol shot before being hit in the groin and staggering back to the car, and Jacobs is struck in the foot ... also wounded in the barrage is the Cathedral, taking thirty-five .45 caliber rounds, damage which can still be seen today.

                                   
                                                                O'Brien
                 
                                                      Murray in the street
    
                                                     Hymie at the morgue

Hymie killed, the leadership of the North Side Gang then passes to George "Bugs" Moran ... he too will have troubles with Capone, the worst being a little tangle that will go down in history as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

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