Forty-Two Gang

The Forty-Two Gang is a teenage street gang in Chicago that started during the Prohibition. Like Brooklyn's Italian and Jewish street gangs of Brownsville and Ocean Hill, the Forty-Two Gang serves as a "farm team" for future members of the Chicago Outfit. Forty-Two gang members include future syndicate members Sam "Teets" Battaglia, Louis "Cockeyed Louie" Fratto (also known as Lew Farrell), Felix Alderisio ("Milwaukee Phil"), Samuel DeStefano ("Mad Sam"), Charles "Chuckie" Nicoletti, Fiore "Fifi" Buccieri, Albert Frabotta, William "Smokes" Aloisio, Frank "Skids" Caruso, William Daddano ("Willie Potatoes"), Joe Caesar DiVarco, Rocco Potenza, Leonard Gianola, Vincent Inserro and brothers Leonard, Marcello Giovanni Caifano ("John Marshall"), Mario DeStefano and Joey "Cowboy" Miletta.

The gang's history has been well documented and researched. In 1931, sociologists at the University of Chicago determined that of the original forty-two Gang members, over thirty had been killed, seriously wounded or imprisoned on a variety of charges, including murder, armed robbery and sexual assault. The gang is found commonly around what are to be known as the Italian neighborhoods of Chicago.

The Forty-Two Gang started in 1925, with twenty-four members (some as young as nine years). The boys supposedly named their gang after Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, claiming they were one better than their fictional namesakes. The gang came from Chicago neighborhoods known as "the Patch" and "Little Hell", located to the northwest and near north of the loop.

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