◆ SpookStack

{ People began to talk, and what th., said, in effect, was that Colesime wasn’t really so hot after all and that the rea /smart guys, the brains behind the throne were really Johnny Torrio and that relentless aid who was always with him, Alphonse Capone. And they were right. The Golden Era, otherwise known as prohibition, went into effect on July 80, 1919. It made a swell law to break, the very best one on the book. Torrio and Capone were just pushing Colosimo into this highly lucrative business and showing him some excellent methods by which the iaw could be smashed when the end came for him. This unhappy event brings us back to Colosimo’s tend- ency to take life easy, to keep his eyes closed. It takes us to his cafe which operates to this day at 2126 South Wabash Avenue. His death requires that we introduce one of the loveliest women who ever had the misfortune to have her name mentioned in connection with the under- world, Mias Dale Winter, church singer, musical comedy star, and, for a few days, Mrs. Jim Colosimo. The underworld lord found Miss Winter a stranded actress, ambitious to further her vocal studies, and willin to sing in his cabaret in order that she might make enough money to realize her dream. Her appearance in bis cafe was a disagreeable sensation in the underworld. Obviously she didn't belong there and what did the king mean by thus associating with respectability ? , _ But Colosimo Was Tore than interested in the beautiful singer who stood nightly beside the piano and the orchestra and sang to panders, dope peddlers, bootleg- ers, thugs, and plug uglies. Colosimo was in love with her and, for the first time in his life, decent impulses begen to atir in his curious and contradictory nature. The presence of Miss Winter in Colosimo’s cafe had its effect, for the gentry of the underworld who had used it for years as their favorite rendezvous began to absent themselves as vermin before an extermi- nator, She seemed to renovate the place by her very presence end, more important, she seemed to renovate Colasimo himself. More and more absorbed did Colosimo become in his love for the tiny flower of a woman. He had broken definitely with his wife, de- spite the importunities of his friends and countrymen. _ Under the delicate hand of Miss Winter the cafe, once a perfect example of what money without taste can perform, was trans- formed into a place of beauty. It became a popular and delightful place in which to spend an evening after the theater. The food was excellent, the music good and the singing of Miss Winter, the hostess, mar- velous. A decent element soon occupied the tables and chairs where once the denizens of the underworld were to be seen, and Colosimo’s Cafe became a show place, visited by many celebrities including Enrico Caruso, the great tenor, Florenz Ziegfeld, and opera singers from the Chicago Civic Opera Company. The reputation of Colosimo’s Cafe extended far and wide, and it became one of those places in Chicago you simply couldn't afford to miss seeing. Colosimo rand his, cate et & rare photograph of “Eig” Jim Colosime and lis wifs, Dales Winter, taken shortly after their marriage. Hote the laced shoes. Colorhno, over-lord of the Chicago onderworld for twenty years, engaged Capone as bis body guard when Alphonse was only a Fonugsrter, L] re PRED em oa lr AH pata aia rate 5