It was 10:30 AM, February 14, 1929, at the S.M.C. Company Warehouse Garage located at 2122 North Clark Street, Chicago, Illinois. It was a dark chilly snowy winter’s day.
And it was supposed to be just another illegal liquor transaction, by the mob.
Inside the warehouse, seven men belonging to Bugsy Moran’s northside gang sat waiting for their customers, and for their tardy boss, to arrive.
But instead of Bugsy or their liquor customers, several men soon arrived in a Police Paddywagon.
Five men quickly got out of the police car, three of them in uniform and two in civilian clothing, and they quickly burst into the building with shouts of, “This is a raid.”
They immediately had the seven men raise their hands over their heads and turn to face the back brick wall of the old warehouse garage.
These seven men expected the usual pat down search that fateful morning that police officers normally did with criminal suspects. Not expecting anything more, they meekly went along with what they probably thought was just another police shakedown.
They probably never expected two of the men dressed as policemen to soon open fire with .45 caliber Thompson machine guns, and then quickly flee the scene.
Almost instantly, six of the men were dead, and one lingered for about an hour before dying.
Bugsy Moran, their leader, had escaped this massacre by a lucky twist of fate. He had been running late that morning, and he and two other members of his gang had turned the corner onto Clark Street when the police wagon had pulled up in front of it.
Moran quickly instructed his driver to pull over and wait for the police raid to be over. Once the loud gunfire was heard, he and his two men sped away.
A dog inside the warehouse began barking and howling after the intruders hurriedly left, and when neighbors went to check and see what was going on, they discovered the gruesome bloody murder scene above.
During the subsequent police questioning, Bugsy Moran insisted that “Only Capone kills like that.” And Al Capone was, indeed, his rival in the lucrative illegal liquor business in Chicago.
But notorious southside gangster Al Capone had an air-tight alibi that bloody day. He was without a doubt at his beach home in Miami, Florida when the massacre took place.
And witnesses across the street from the bloody scene that morning could only say they saw men that looked like police officers coming and going immediately before and after the sounds of the rapid machinegun fire.
No one was ever charged for these seven brutal murders. It was just another bloody day in the history of old Chicago.
And the city of Chicago, in its own style, memorialized the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
The building soon became a tourist attraction.
In 1949, the front portion of the S.M.C. Garage was turned into an antique furniture storage business by a couple who had no idea of the building's bloody past.
They soon discovered that the place was visited much more by tourists and curiosity-seekers than by actual customers, so they eventually closed the business.
In 1967, the old warehouse building was finally demolished. But the bricks from the bullet-marked rear wall were purchased and saved by a Canadian businessman.
In 1972, he opened a night club with a Roaring 20's theme and rebuilt the wall, for some strange reason, in the men's restroom.
Three nights each week, women were also allowed to peek inside at this macabre attraction.
And some say that those blood-stained bricks from the old warehouse at 2122 North Clark Street in Chicago still bring misfortune and death to any who come in contact with them today.
Top-notch write ... wonder if "Toothpick Charlie" really was there?
Best regards,
Robert
(((HUGS))) and much love, your friend in tx., karen lynn. :(
Not a good day for many Huh??
Happy Valentine Day Eddie!!
Love TinkY!!
Ps: Go get Andy We Won the cricket yet again..yipeeeeeeee!!