Frankie Yale
Frankie Yale |
|---|
Francesco Ioele (1893 - July 1, 1928), better known as Frankie Uale or Yale, was a Brooklyn gangster and original employer of Al Capone, before the latter moved to Chicago to start his own gang.
Early life
Born in Calabria, Italy, Yale and his family arrived in America circa 1901. He quickly fell in a life of crime as a teenager. Despite his medium height and chubby build, Yale was noted as a fearsome fistfighter and thief. One example of his prowness came at the age of seventeen in 1910 when he and a friend of his, a wrestler named Booby Nelson, laid waste to a bunch of drunks in a Coney Island pool hall, cracking pool cues and hurling billiard balls. One of his early arrests, in October 1912, was for stealing a load of furs. Early in his career, he met Johnny Torrio, who ushered him into the Five Points Gang and groomed him for bigger things.
By the end of World War I, the Mafia-Camorra War was over, Torrio had left for Chicago, and Frankie dominated Italian organized crime in Brooklyn. Known for his generosity to friends and brutality towards his enemies, Yale was known as the "Prince of Pals". At this time Frankie Yale's headquarters was at a bar in Coney Island named the Harvard Inn. It was here that Al Capone worked for several years between 1916 and 1919. At this bar in 1917 Capone got his famous facial scars in a fight over a girl. After a time, Yale married and had two daughters. Known to appreciate funny stories, good food and drink, Yale was a very personable man. His favorite song was said to be Santa Lucia. Yale's "services" included offering "protection" to local merchants, controlling food services for restaurants, as well as ice deliveries for Brooklyn residents. Frankie's most notorious sideline were his cigars, foul-smelling stogies packaged in boxes that bore his smiling face.
Despite his good qualities, Yale could be quite nasty, employing relentless physical and verbal brutality when necessary. One example was Frankie's kid brother Angelo, who served as his chief lackey. Whenever displeased with something (usually gang related) he often beat his brother senseless. On another occasion, when one of his men silenced an informer within the gang by jamming two knives into his torso and breaking off the blades, the killer, Willie "Two-Knife" Altierri, presented the handles to Frankie, who had them mounted on a plaque and hung up in his office.
The New York Waterfront & the White Hand Gang
Yale's chief rivals were the Irish White Hand Gang, headed by Denny Meehan, who controlled extortion on the borough's docks. After a long period of sparring (in one incident Al Capone nearly beat a White Hander to death, facilitating his move to Chicago in 1919) Frankie arranged for the murder of Meehan on March 31, 1920. Shortly after this, Yale was suspected by Chicago police of gunning down James Colosimo, on May 11, 1920, the longtime boss of that Midwestern city, who stood in the way of Johnny Torrio and Capone making huge bootlegging profits. To this day, Yale remains the prime suspect in Big Jim's murder.
After the murder of Denny Meehan, the White Hand Gang was taken over by Bill Lovett. Known as "Wild Bill", Lovett had won the Distinguished Service Cross on the Western Front and was a formidable opponent. A relatively low-key, tit-for-tat war ensued between the White Hand and Yale's "Black Hand." While en route to a banquet on February 6, 1921, Yale was shot and severely wounded in lower Manhattan in an assassination attempt. One man with Yale was killed and another wounded. Lovett was widely believed to have orchestrated the attempt. After recovering from his wounds, Yale got back on the warpath. For most of the early 1920's, the war between the Italians and Irish proceeded on a somewhat even keel. Frankie gained a measure of revenge in August 1921, when one of his alleged attackers, Petey Behan, was beaten to death by a policeman named Daniel Culkin. Four months later, the second alleged shooter, Garry Barry, met a violent end as well.
Some key members of Yale's gang at this time were Joe Adonis, Albert Anastasia, Little Augie Pisano, Sam Pollaccia, Vincent Mangano, Johnny "Silk Stocking" Giustra, and his most gifted killer, Willie "Two-Knife" Altierri, so nicknamed after his preferred method of dispatching a victim. In early 1922, gangland lore has Yale taking a young kid named Vincenzo Gibaldi under his wing, who avenged the mistaken identity murder of his father by killing the shooter, White Hander Joseph Behan, in May 1922, after which he allegedly left for Chicago, where he became infamous as Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn.
Frankie absorbed most of the blame for the January 1923 attempt on Wild Bill Lovett's life, which was most probably committed by two disgruntled White Handers, Eddie Hughes and Timmy Quilty, both of whom were killed in retaliation in the ensuing months. Lovett, at the urging of his wife, retired from mob life after his recovery and turned over control of his gang to brother-in-law Richard "Pegleg" Lonergan. After obtaining a home and job in New Jersey, Lovett returned to his old Brooklyn neighborhood on the night of October 31, 1923, to see old friends. At the Lotus Club on Bridge street, Lovett got drunk and fell asleep inside. The porter of the speakeasy had a chance encounter with members of Frankie Yale's gang later that night and casually related to them that their arch-rival was passed out cold a few blocks away. Soon enough, Two-Knife Altierri, Silk Stocking Giustra, and Vincent Mangano were inside the deserted Lotus Club, smirking over the snoring figure of the Irish gang leader. Despite his drunken state and bullet wounds, Lovett jumped up from the bench where he was sleeping, prompting Altierri to violently drive a meat cleaver into his skull.
The White Hand Gang never totally recovered from Lovett's murder. Pegleg Lonergan was nowhere near as competent, and Yale's dominance was established throughout Brooklyn.
Yale & Prohibition: From Brooklyn to Chicago
With the White Handers neutralized, Frankie had now ingrained himself as a staunch ally of Joe Masseria, who was widely regarded as the capo di tutti capi of New York. Yale had also established a friendship with Charles "Lucky" Luciano. In November 1924, Frankie was summoned to Chicago to help out his old pals, Al Capone and Johnny Torrio, with another murder. It is widely believed that Frankie, along with John Scalise, and Albert Anselmi, went to the Schofield flower shop and killed North Side Gang leader Dean O'Banion on November 10, 1924. Eight days later, Yale and Sam Pollaccia were arrested at Chicago's Union Station, but released when their alibi was confirmed.
After O'Banion's murder, Yale was supposedly appointed the national head of the Unione Siciliane, a Sicilian benovolent organization that served as a front for criminal activity. If Yale did indeed hold this post, it was quite ironic; as he was Calabrese and not Sicilian.
By 1925, the White Hand Gang was a mere nuisance, and Yale stamped it out in the early morning hours of December 26, 1925, at the Adonis Club. Al Capone, who happened to be in town because of his son's operation, agreed to help. Pegleg Lonergan, realizing his once-powerful empire was crumbling, decided to storm the Yale's gang Christmas party at the Adonis. With him were Aaron Harms, James "Ragtime" Howard, Paddy Maloney, Cornielius "Needles" Ferry, and James Hart. Once entering, they took a table near a grand piano at the rear of the club. After drinking more than they should have, the White Handers finally whipped out their guns. Just then, someone cut the power to the club, leaving the White Handers table illuminated by the only remaining light in the building. One of Frankie's men, Sylvester Argolia, hit Aaron Harms in the head with a meat cleaver ala Two-Knife Altierri. Gunshots then erupted from the darkness. Lonergan and Ferry were killed outright. Harms was seriously wounded and died in the street outside the club. The other Irishmen managed to escape with their lives. Al Capone was widely believed to have headed the firing squad that night in the Adonis Club as a favor to Frankie Yale. The White Hand Gang disintegrated after this incident.
Final days
With Brooklyn completely under his control, Yale was on top of the world until the spring of 1927, when he began quarreling with Capone over his refusal to back Al's friend Antonio Lombardo, for the position of Chicago head of the Unione Siciliane. Ostensibly, Yale was supposed to oversee the safety of Capone's liquor shipments through Brooklyn. Soon, many of the Chicago-bound trucks were hijacked before they cleared New York. Suspecting a double cross, Capone asked an old pal James "Filesy" DeAmato to keep an eye on his trucks. DeAmato reported back that Frankie was indeed hijacking his booze. Six days later, on July 7, 1927, DeAmato was gunned down on a Brooklyn street corner.
The relationship between the two men continued to get worse, until the morning of Sunday, July 1, 1928, when Yale was lured out of his Brooklyn speakeasy, the Sunrise Club, with a cryptic phone call which said something was wrong with his wife Lucy, who was at home looking after their year-old daughter. Frankie dashed out to his brand-new coffee colored Lincoln and took off up New Utrecht Avenue. As a red light, Yale saw four hard-eyed men in a Buick sedan staring at him and he hit the gas. Swerving left onto West 44th Street, Yale's car was overtaken by the Buick and the mob boss was riddled with buckshot and submachine gun bullets. The Lincoln crashed into the stoop of a brownstone, violently disrupting a Bar Mitzvah.
The murder car was left a few blocks away, and some of the weapons left inside were traced to Miami, the car itself to Knoxville, Tennessee, and a Thompson submachine gun to a Chicago sporting goods dealer. Al Capone was questioned repeatedly but nothing came of the inquiries. Yale's murder was the first time the "Tommy Gun" had been used in New York gangland warfare. Recent research has indicated that Yale's killers were Fred "Killer" Burke, Gus Winkler, George "Shotgun" Ziegler, and Louis "Little New York" Campagna, most of whom would participate in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre seven months later. One of the Tommy Guns used in the massacre would later be linked ballistically to Yale's murder.
Frankie Yale was given one of the most impressive gangland funerals in America's history. Thousands of Brooklynites lined the streets to watch the procession. Twenty-three cars were required to bear all the floral arrangements while 110 Cadillac limousines carried the mourners. Yale's $15,000 silver casket rested on an open hearse with a podium. As the cortege moved through the streets, a woman darted out from the crowd and spit on Frankie's casket. It turned out to be Peggy Meehan, who was in bed with her husband Denny when he was killed by Yale's men back in 1920. At the cemetery, more drama was caused when two different women showed up claiming to be Mrs. Frankie Yale. Yale's funeral set a standard of opulence for American gangsters that has been seldom matched over the years.
Legacy
While somewhat overlooked in crime histories (he's remembered chiefly as a murder victim of Al Capone), Yale was one of the country's most important gangsters in the early 20th century. Members of his old gang would make their mark on New York organized crime over the years, specifically Joe Adonis, Albert Anastasia, and Vincent Mangano. Sylvester Argolia would accompany Charles "Lucky" Luciano and Meyer Lansky to Chicago for a meeting with that city's top crime bosses in April 1932.
In popular culture
- Yale was portrayed by John Cassavetes in Capone (1975).
- Yale has also been played by Robert Ellenstein in The Lawless Years and by Al Ruscio in the original The Untouchables television series.