This old vice district is an interesting part of Chicago OC history. Perhaps best known for being Big Jim Colosimos old domain and later, Johnny Torrios. The Four Deuces - where Al Capone under Torrio got his "Chicago start " as a bouncer, was within the borders of The Levee. But by then the vice district had declined since a decade or so.

Anyone with interesting info/photos/stories of The Levee?

There was also a world-famous brothel down there, the Everleigh Club. There are some books on it.

People call it the South Loop, but it was in the extreme South Loop, around 18-Cermak and Dearborn. (Later Capone's main HQ, the Lexington, of Geraldo fame, was located at 22 and Michigan).

I would be surprised if there is a single remnant of the Levee left.

The Four Deuces had a lot of competition, for example the Frolics Club wich first was owned by other gangsters.They offered their "products" with lower prices.So theres a story that one night the Capone gang took a corpse and jammed it into the furnace of the Frolics club.THen the cops came to the club and found the burned body and the joint closed...for a while

Before that the Levee was a Black Hand territory.Guys like James Belcastro and Sam Cardinelli came from the Levee.Also Jake Guzik's father was a Levee saloon owner.

The Everleigh Club,wich was a high class brothel was owned by two infamous crooked alderman, “Bathhouse” John Coughlin and Hinky Dink Kenna.The two of them were connected to many Chicago gangsters and were the main players in the prostitution ring and they used to take street tax from more than 200 clubs and brothels.

During the mid 1910's the biggest owners on the Levee were Big Jim and Ike Bloom.They worked for the First Ward wich had a lot of offices on the Levee back in thouse days.In 1920 both men lost their licences when they got discovered for supporting another political party.The same year Colosimo died and later Bloom joined the First Ward and became a politican so slowly the other criminal organizations took over the Levee

Thanks guys. Some interesting stuff in the hinky Dink/Bathhouse section at www.myalcaponemuseum.com

Among other things a map of the Levee from its heyday complete with the different whorehouses.

Chicago's Levee was typical of pre-Prohibition American cities, when "organized crime" was small-time and local. All cities(even the smaller ones) had a "levee," a "tenderloin," or a "red light district" where vice--gambling, prostitution, drugs and untaxed alcohol--flourished. Ward heelers like The Hink and Bathhouse John were the powers because they took bribes from the vice operators, paid off police and judges, and kept the bulk for themselves. Prohibition put OC on the map because the booze trade was inherently big-time, and national (even international) in scope. And, so much money was being made that the vice operators, like Torrio and Capone, didn't need ward heelers--they not only paid off local cops and judges directly, but also corrupted governors, senators and even President Harding's closest advisers. They paved the way for Cosa Nostra's heyday.