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Nov 1, 2017 · John Binder has a bone to pick with his fellow fashion chroniclers. “Mostly their attitude is you can be with us, but you have to believe all the things that we believe,” he said. “If...
4 days ago · John Binder is a business professor emeritus at UIC and a recognized authority on the history of organized crime in Chicago. His new book, "Al Capone's Beer Wars", covers the bootlegging gangs, rackets and law enforcement during Prohibition.
- The Double Cross at Sieben Brewery
- A Short Truce at Mike Merlo's Family Home
- An Assassination at Schofield’s Flower Shop
- Plugged Bullet Holes at Holy Name Cathedral
- An Underworld Murder Under Michigan Avenue
The Sieben brewery and beer gardens at 1466 North Larrabee Street was the site of perhaps the most infamous double-cross in all Prohibition history. Dean O’Banion, mercurial leader of the North Side Gang, had started scuttlebutt that he was retiring from the rackets. He offered to sell the brewery to John Torrio, leader of the major South Side outf...
O'Banion's borrowed time was hitched to the lifespan of one Mike Merlo—chief of the influential Unione Siciliana—who lived with his family at 433 West Diversey Parkway. Merlo, a diplomatic man who believed so-called "underworld" business was better orchestrated in peace, is thought to have prohibited South Side gunmen from snuffing out O’Banion aft...
Two days later, three gunmen (believed to be Frankie Yale, John Scalise, and Alberto Anselmi) stopped at a small flower shop across the street from Holy Name Cathedral, ostensibly to collect flowers for Merlo's funeral. O’Banion was part owner of Schofield's, which doubled as his headquarters. Yale is said to have grabbed O’Banion in a tight handsh...
Don't believe the tour guides who say the drilled hole in the southwest corner of Holy Name Cathedral came from a Prohibition-era submachine gun. That aperture was used to hold a placard with the church service schedule. But if they point to four plugged, faded spots around the dedication year on the cornerstone and tell you that .45 caliber slugs ...
Four years later, Chicago Tribune reporter Jake Lingle was executed in the pedestrian tunnel beneath Michigan Avenue. The public was dismayed: gangsters had put a .38 caliber slug into Lingle’s head to stop him reporting about their underworld crimes and misdemeanors, many thought. Lingle was toasted, lionized, and mourned, until the truth emerged....
John J. Binder is a faculty member and former university administrator who lives in the Chicago area and researches the history of organized crime. His first book, The Chicago Outfit, is a voyage through the Windy City's colorful gangster past from 1900 to 2003.
John Binder was born in 1940. He is a writer and director, known for UFOria (1984), The Lazarus Man (1996) and Houston: The Legend of Texas (1986).
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Oct 18, 2021 · A longtime Chicago resident, author and scholar John Binder became interested in the history of organized crime in the early 1990s. With his background in finance and economics, the subject...
John J. Binder, Ph.D., is the author of two previous books on organized crime and has appeared in interviews on and served as an expert consultant for documentaries on the mob...
