Thanks Toodoped interesting list.
Yes born in Licata , in the province of Agrigento. Grew up in Red Hook, Brooklyn. McGurn moved to Chicago when he was 14 where he later took up a career in boxing as a teenager and changed his name to "Battling" Jack McGurn because boxers with Irish names got the better bookings. He lost his father and later stepfather (murdered) very young.
Intriguing character but he didn't live in Red Hook. He lived in Carroll Gardens not far from the Gallo's tenement near the Brooklyn waterfront. Red Hook is separated from Carroll Gardens by Hamilton Avenu and after 1940, the Gowanus PkWy. His father was murdered by Wild Bill Lovett's White Hand Gang who ran the waterfront until, first he, and then, PegLeg Lonergan were taken out by Frankie Ioele and Capone.
It's a possibility he received the moniker Machine Gun because of windmill punches as a boxer rather than a preference for the tommy gun. After his father was murdered, his mother moved to Chicago but I haven't been able to determine whether he and Capone were connected in Brookyn and he followed Capone out to ChiTown, or did he connect with Capone in Chicago and return with him in order to square the bill with Lovett over the murder of his father.
