It's a tour that you can't refuse
Outing spotlights suburbs' mob homes

By Angela Rozas
Tribune staff reporter
Published June 21, 2005


Move over Ernest Hemingway, Frank Lloyd Wright and Bob Newhart. The Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest is adding a few new names to its roster of celebrated residents.

Like "Joe Batters," "Momo" and "Machine Gun Jack."

For the first time in its 37-year history, the society is sponsoring a trolley tour of the homes and history of the Made Men of organized crime who once resided in the two towns.

The sold-out tour Sunday will be led by River Forest author John Binder, who penned the book, "The Chicago Outfit."

While tour operators have taken visitors for years through Chicago mob sites, no tour has focused solely on Oak Park and neighboring River Forest's role in organized crime, maybe because it was considered tacky or unflattering. Heritage and history have always been a bit highbrow in Oak Park, once home to Hemingway, Wright and Newhart.

"When we talk about Oak Park history now, we're not trying to just give the Chamber of Commerce version," said Historical Society board member Peggy Tuck Sinko. "We want to tell the truth. There are many good things, but there are other things that weren't so good."

The tour is called "Welcome to the Neighbor Hood!" and will benefit the historical society.

Binder, a finance professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, will take visitors to see the outside of 14 homes in the area where the infamous and lesser-known mobsters lived.

Visitors will go to the 1400 block of Ashland Avenue in River Forest to a white brick ranch that was home to Tony "Joe Batters" Accardo, head of the Chicago mob from 1943 to 1955.

The home was custom-built for Accardo, including a walk-in banklike vault where federal authorities once found hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, and an extensive basement where he could meet with other mobsters at a 32-person conference table, Binder said.

Visitors will cruise over to the 1100 block of South Wenonah Avenue in Oak Park to a modest brown brick home where the gregarious Sam "Momo" Giancana lived and was shot to death in the basement in 1975.

Unlike some of the more entertainment-focused tours in Chicago, where guides are known to dress up in dark mob-style suits and crack cement-shoes jokes, Binder said his tour will be more history than flash.

In other words, no fedoras.

"That's campy," Binder scoffed.

Binder developed the tour from his own notes and research, having studied mobster history as an "obsessive hobby" for the last 14 years. He was once president of the Merry Gangsters Literary Society, a loose organization of writers, former detectives and ordinary folk who gathered to talk about mob history.

"People are fascinated with the dark side," Binder said. "Ninety-nine point nine percent of us lead quiet, normal, law abiding lives. ... Who wants to watch a TV show or read a book about that? The dark side is totally different."

Other than the home where Giancana was murdered, the tour will have very little else related to mob crimes. That's because both towns were considered places where mobsters went to live, but not do business, said Historical Society research director Diane Hansen.

That approach has left a somewhat more positive impression on local residents, adding a sort of twisted dynamic to the town's pedigreed history.

"They didn't go on shooting rampages or anything like that," Hansen said. "They didn't bring the neighborhoods down. If anything, they kept them safer. Nobody wanted to come into a hired boss' territory. So a lot of people think it's actually good that they were there."

The tour sold out in two days. There's a waiting list for potential tours later in the summer or fall.