For Demon Hooch Prohibition Helps Gangsters R Ule City
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THE PLAIN DEALER . SUNDAY, JULY 12, 1998 5-D OUR CENTURY 1923 AT A GLANCE All for demon hooch Prohibition helps gangsters r ule city Fred McGunagle Cleveland had 1,200 legal bars, regulated by police, in 1919 when — a year ahead of the national Volstead Act — Ohio’s Prohibition Amendment ended “the evil of the saloon.” PD FILE By 1923, Cleveland had an esti- Workers put finishing touches on the mated 3,000 illegal speakeasies, often protected by police, along with 10,000 Federal Reserve Bank in 1923. stills. An estimated 30,000 Cleveland- ers sold liquor and another 100,000 made home brew or bathtub gin for Tycoon Kirby in themselves and their friends. In 1920, Cleveland was seventh in and out of prison the country in homicides. By the end of the decade, it had moved up to In an era of free-wheeling tycoons, nobody third. Although many were the result wheeled as freely as Josiah Kirby. He dropped of gang wars, police said the majority out of school at the age of 14 in 1897, but seven occurred because of the general in- years later was head of a large Cincinnati-area crease in drunkenness. real estate concern and mayor of his home- Prohibition was passed by rural town of Worthington. and Southern voters, with little sup- At 24, Kirby was wiped out by the panic of port in the big cities of the Northeast 1907. At 28, he arrived in Cleveland with $5.25 and Midwest. It became fashionable in his pocket and $60,000 in debts. He set up for women as well as men to flout the an insurance agency in the Rockefeller Build- law. The costume of the emancipated ing but twice was forced out of business by his “flapper,” dancing the Charleston in creditors. short skirt and long beads, was in- He switched to securities brokerage and complete without a hip flask. And made $1 million organizing three mortgage that, according to Rick Porrello, cre- companies. In 1918, he bought the Rockefeller ated an opportunity “from a simple Building. He also took over the Cleveland business concept called supply and Yacht Club from receivers, reorganized it and demand.” PLAIN DEALER FILE became commodore; 600 guests saw the Rick Porrello is a police officer. His launching of his yacht, the Suzanne. 1995 book, “The Rise and Fall of the Police raid a home on West Ave. Lt. Charles Snyder, with the cigar, looks over a still. In the same year, he started the Cleveland Cleveland Mafia,” is a history of Pro- Discount Co., selling millions of dollars in hibition in Cleveland, as well as the ates. He was cut down by four men wounded. John managed to stagger stock. In 1921, he erected the 14-story Cleve- author’s family history. His grandfa- with sawed-off shotguns and hand- out, but died on the steps of the Car- land Discount Building at 815 Superior Ave. ther and three of his great uncles guns as he returned home one night. uso Meat Market. In February 1923, the company collapsed. died in the gang wars. August Rini was importing alcohol Police rounded up known gangsters Receivers found it was $33 million in debt and Among the early entrepreneurs from Buffalo, N.Y. Early one morn- and searched their houses. A few its stock was worthless. After a series of sensa- were Woodland Ave. barbers Louis ing, he got an urgent telephone call days later, a still exploded in John tional trials and retrials, Kirby was sentenced and Abraham Auerbach. Their “Love and drove to E. 25th St. and Woodland Porrello’s home. Police who had Me Dearie” hair tonic was discovered to prison for mail fraud in the sale of the stock. Ave., near the Lonardo store. Three searched the house had not reported to be pure grain alcohol. But the first John D. Rockefeller bought the Kirby Build- men stepped from a doorway and it. major supplier of demand was “Big pumped seven bullets into his body. The Lonardo brothers’ funeral was ing and changed its name back to the Rocke- Joe” Lonardo — and he did it legally, feller Building. The building at 815 Superior Salvatore Pella was believed to be one of the largest ever seen in Cleve- selling bags of corn sugar to residents supplying police with information land. Fifteen motorcycle policemen later became the NBC Building, and then the of the Woodland area. Each 100- Superior Building. about Lonardo’s business. He was sit- led two bands and 500 cars of mourn- pound bag produced eight gallons of ting in his car in front of the Piunno Kirby died in 1964 at 80 in a threadbare ers. Hundreds more filled the church whiskey in the stills, which soon were Funeral Home when a passer-by downtown Cleveland apartment, a forgotten and the streets outside. There were operating quietly — except for an oc- fired three shots through the open more flowers, newspapers reported vestige of the Roaring ’20s. casional explosion — throughout the window. Two days later, he was laid with civic pride, than for the funeral · neighborhood. out inside the funeral home. of gangster Dion O’Banion in Chi- Soon, Lonardo was raking in $5,000 In 1926, Big Joe Lonardo and his cago. Sightseers gawked at one of the most ornate a week and was the padrone, or “god- brother John were playing cards in It was rumored that Anthony Car- banking offices in the world when the Federal father,” of the neighborhood. “Lonar- the back room of the Porrello family’s uso was working late at his meat mar- Reserve Bank, designed by Walker & Weeks, do’s competition was dealt with by his barber shop in Little Italy. The seven ket when John Lonardo staggered to PLAIN DEALER FILE opened in August. The pink granite Italian henchmen in typical Mafia tradition,” Porrello brothers also were in the his doorstep, and Caruso saw the gun- Renaissance exterior was striking, but the in- Porrello writes. “They died.” corn sugar business. Two gunmen men running away. A few nights A Cleveland officer smashes some terior was even more magnificent: high Louis Rosen hijacked a carload of stepped through the back door and later, he was shot and killed. Joe Por- homemade beer at a “joint at 82nd vaulted ceilings, coffered and gilded, with alcohol belonging to Lonardo associ- opened fire. Joe fell mortally rello appointed himself Mafia boss of and St. Clair” during Prohibition. walls of veined Sienna marble and arched Cleveland, though he and his six bays screened by wrought-iron gates. Enter- brothers had rivals — the Mayfield ing the bank has been compared to walking Rd. gang of Frank Milano and “Big in charge of the underworld, though into the interior of a bar of gold. Al” Polizzi, which soon included An- in alliance with the Cleveland Syndi- gelo Lonardo, Joe’s son. cate, headed by Moe Dalitz. · In December 1928, a policeman no- Dalitz’s group, an offshoot of De- Tris Speaker hit a Speaker-like .380, four ticed a group of flashily dressed men troit’s “Purple Gang,” operated the points behind Rogers entering the Statler Hotel. Suspi- “The Big Jewish Navy,” running li- Hornsby’s league-leading cious, he copied down their names quor across Lake Erie past the out- from the hotel register. They were manned Coast Guard. The Coast average. Speaker also led top criminals from around the coun- the Indians with 130 runs Guard captured the pride of the fleet, try. The next morning, 65 police sur- the 300-horsepower, armor-plated batted in, 59 doubles and rounded the hotel and arrested them, “Sambo-G,” with 1,500 cases of booze 17 home runs. George Uhle charging them as “suspicious per- aboard. The following day, it was dis- pitched 29 complete games sons.” Porrello rounded up 28 citi- covered that the liquor was missing. while compiling a 26-16 re- zens to pledge their homes as bail for By now, public support for Prohibi- cord. the hoods, who were given suspended tion was fading, and the new leaders sentences and told to get out of Cleve- could read the handwriting on the But this was the Yan- land. wall. They branched out into gam- kees’ era, and the Indians’ They had gathered to divide up ter- bling, both illegal and legal. When Uhle 82-71 finish was good only ritories in Cleveland and around the Dalitz died in 1989 at the age of 89, he for third place, 16Ö games country. It was later learned that Al was mourned as “Mr. Las Vegas.” behind Babe Ruth & Co. Capone was a late arrival and, tipped They left a legacy of police and po- off to the trouble, hurried back to litical corruption that continued until Chicago. · the administration of Mayor Harold Western Reserve University and Case In- Porrello relates gang murder after gang murder, including those of Big Burton and his safety director, Eliot stitute of Technology had spurned the 1922 Joe Porrello and brothers Raymond Ness, in the late 1930s. The disrespect proposal of their alumni to combine as the — his grandfather — Rosario and for the law engendered by Prohibi- University of Cleveland, but St. Ignatius Col- Vincenzo. Big Joe’s funeral was even tion never completely died out. lege liked the name. In May 1923, it became CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY bigger than Joe Lonardo’s. However, McGunagle is a Cleveland free- Cleveland University. The funeral of John and Big Joe Lonardo. Milano’s Mayfield Rd. gang emerged lance writer. That upset prominent Clevelanders, who still wanted their own Cleveland University.