By: Holland McGraw

Last September the wife and I took a trip to Chicago prior to peeling off into Wisconsin for photo shoots. This was our second trip to the Windy City, the first time we drove into the city from the highway.

On the outside you see the mirrored facade of a modern city scape, but once you get inside you can see the brick and stone buildings of Chicago’s storied past amongst the new.

We walked the streets shooting into the wee hours of the night, then woke at sunrise to capture the Midwest City in its early morning glow.

The second go around we flew into the city, took fewer pictures and went on tours of Chicago’s seedy prohibition past.

Checking in at the Tremont Hotel, I learned that it was Abraham Lincoln place of choice when visiting Chicago. It felt like destiny because I was wearing my Abraham Lincoln socks.

Our first morning we went on a tour called The Untouchables where a man wearing a fedora with a Tommy gun tie pin pointed out historical locations.

While driving around I noticed a lot of the buildings have been bulldozed. Charles Obanion, the notorious leader of Chicago’s Northside gang, who fronted as a florist and operated out of a flower shop that once made lavish floral arrangements for Gun downed gangsters. The very place he himself was murdered is now a parking lot.

The garage at 2122 North Clark Street, where it’s said, George “Bugs” Moran was late for his own funeral. A place that is today referred to as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, is also gone with the wind. In 1967, they tore the garage down and sold the bricks as souvenirs to the public. In its place today are trees and grass encompassed by an iron fence that surrounds a senior living facility. At the end of the tour I won a complimentary Untouchables coffee mug. Below is a macro image of a bug that landed on my mug. The bug is standing on the face of once Northside gang leader, Hymie Weiss.

Although much is gone some has remained. The Green Mill is an untouched jewel. It’s Chicago’s oldest club dating back to 1907. In the 1920’s it was frequented regularly by Al Capone and partially owned and managed by, Jack McGurn. McGurn was Al Capone’s favorite gunmen and believed to be partial planner and lead participant in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

Today the club remains as it did in the 20’s with its lush woodwork, painted murals, dazzling neon lights and is celebrated as Chicago’s premier Jazz club.

It was at the Greene Mill where I took a number of shots of my wife all dolled up in her 1920’s flapper garb while I drank a dirty martini.

The next day we strolled around Chicago’s Belmont Ave and happened into an antique store, ”The Lazy Dog Antiques.” When I went in I told the man at the counter,

“I like the name of this place.”

He responded, “Yeah, unfortunately we’re on our 3^rd lazy dog.”

“They break your heart when they go, we just lost ours.” I told him.

We continued talking until I brought up the prohibition mobster tours I’d been on. “Check this out,” he said, then showed me a picture he acquired, of Bugs Moran, leader of Chicago’s Northside gang that was printed in the newspapers the day after the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. The thought of going home with an artifact of Chicago’s prohibition past was irresistible.

Upon returning to the hotel I examined the photograph, is this a reproduction? Is it a wire? What newspapers used it?

I found that the image was printed in the Chicago Daily News, February 15th 1929, the day after the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. The photo has been altered and darkened in areas with a pen, so when it’s reduced in size and placed in print, Moran’s features are defined. If you want to see what I’m talking about just look at the image on the screen at a distance and squint.

Overall the picture is an oddball image. Moran is posed in an awkward way slouching in his chair with his head resting on his hand and nose turned towards the light. It’s as if the Associated Press purchased the picture from one of his relatives so they had an image to put in the paper that showed the deceased, along with the gunmen’s living intended target.

On the back of the photo reads:

The caption takes you back to the day February 15th 1929 because it was before the shooting had become known as the infamous, “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.”

On my return to Washington State I purchased an old prohibition decanter with different images that are stuck on the bottle that depict the ills and associations of alcohol. A shot glass came with the decanter that reads, “Happy times are here again.” The images on the decanter are an eye, a jockey racing a horse, a donkey, two monkeys, a swallow and the devil.

“Happy times are here again,” is the title of a popular song that came out in 1929 and served as Franklin Delano Roosevelt theme song in his 1932 presidential campaign. The donkey is symbolic for the Democratic Party because FDR ran on the platform that if elected he’d repeal prohibition.

What I find interesting about the ills of alcohol displayed on the bottle is that the illegality of liquor was responsible for the rise of crime, corruption, violence and gangsterdom in the 1920’s and 30’s which was far worse than the alcohol itself. Bugs Moran is a testament to this because when alcohol became legal his main source of income vanished. 17 years later his pockets were turned inside out and he was in and out of prison for common crimes until his death. Bugs Moran was known as the one that got away, but at the time of his death in the year 1957, a year that is said to be America’s happiest, he died a poor man and received a paupers burial in the prison graveyard. It was prohibition that made Moran one of the wealthiest men in Chicago and the repeal of prohibition that transformed him back into what he always was, a common criminal.

Notes:

http://www.civilwarinart.org/items/show/57

http://www.weirdchicago.com/greenmill.html

http://www.myalcaponemuseum.com/id27.htm

http://antique-photos.com/en/helpful-info/500-press-photo.html

http://www.myalcaponemuseum.com/id157.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugs_Moran

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These bottles are from the past, but if you understand their significance they tell a story that takes place in the future.  I recently started digging in an old Seattle dump with a friend, Niel.  The dump is from the 30’s and gives insight to our past.  We tend to find more whisky bottles than anything.  Most of the whisky bottles are embossed with the words, “FEDERAL LAW FORBIDS SALE OR RE-USE OF THIS BOTTLE.”  Bottles marked with these words are referred to as prohibition bottles.  The reference to the whisky bottles as Prohibition bottles sends a persons imagination soaring with images of speak easys, fedora hooded gangsters and flappers, but the truth of the matter is these bottles were made for use from 1932-1964, just one year before prohibition was repealed.  The embossing wasn’t mandatory under federal law until January 1, 1935.  So, the image of the fedora-hooded gangster could really be a Beatles crazed lady screaming for John and Paul. With that in mind, most of the bottles we’ve recovered are primarily from the 1940’s with the exceptions of a few holdover whisky and beer bottles from the 1920’s, which brings up a question you might be asking yourself, why are there whiskey bottles being made and distributed in the U.S. throughout prohibition?  A quick answer, the Volstead Act. There were three provisions that allowed for the consumption of alcohol under the Volstead Act:

1. Sacramental purposes.
2. If you lived on a farm you could make Hard Cider or home made wine.
3. Medicinal Alcohol that could be obtained with a prescription from a doctor.

Provision number 3 in the Volstead Act brings us to a popular movie that just came out, “The Great Gatsby,” which was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s.  The Great Gatsby made his fortune in Drug Stores that fulfilled Dr. prescribed alcohol to patients.  It was prohibition and alcohol of the past that built the Drug Stores of today. Prohibition was the foundation on which the Walgreens Drug store was built.  Some people might try to persuade you that it was Walgreen’s invention of the milkshake that made them a success, but I believe Mr. Gatsby would tell you otherwise. After the repeal of prohibition, whisky bottles were sold in large supersized bottles to quench the thirst of the masses.  Shortly after prohibition was repealed Washington State created the Washington State Liquor Control Board that monitored the distribution of alcohol tallying a profit of eight million six hundred thousand dollars…this is 1936 dollars we’re talking about. Some of the bottles we’ve dug have both the “FEDERAL LAW FORBIDS SALE OR RE-USE OF THIS BOTTLE,” and Washington State Liquor Control Board embossed on the bottles.  The justification for the Washington State Control Board was that, with the repeal of prohibition, the public was out of control.  The state government emphasized that alcohol needs to be regulated in order to protect children and citizens in the community. I found this information interesting because alcohol both during and post prohibition has taken the same road into the public as marijuana is taking today. Among the whiskey bottles, we’ve found glass prescription bottles, cosmetic jars, coffee Jars, cottage cheese jars, ketchup bottles, milk bottles, beer bottles, cocktail mixers, local soda bottles, spoons made in Nevada, saucer made in West Virginia, tea cup made in Japan,  a steel cup made in Sweden, medical instruments, children’s toys, pieces of jadeite kitchenware, rubber sols and much more. While digging in the old Seattle dump I found that bottles and Items from the past act as different windows to view the past present and future…DIG IT!

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