History in Washington Park

In 1908, businessman Jesse Binga opened a bank at 36th and State Streets to serve African Americans because white bank owners were denying them service.  After the success of the Binga Bank, he moved into an exclusively white neighborhood in which neighbors bombed his home at 5922 South King Drive five times.  But Binga and his family remained strong and opened the Binga Arcade with offices, a dance floor, and shops at 35th and State streets.  The Great Depression forced the closing of his bank.

Playwright Lorraine Hansberry gained fame for becoming the first African-American woman to have a play produced on Broadway, "A Raisin in the Sun."  Hansberry was also the first African-American and youngest American playwright to win the New York Drama Critics Circle award for best play.  Hansberry lived at 5936 south king drive with her parents while attending Englewood High School, according to the Chicago Tribute Project.  

The Club DeLisa, once located at 5521 South State Street, was one of the most popular nightclubs in the African-American community of Chicago throughout almost the entirety of its existence, from its opening in 1934 to its closing in early 1958.  The club was named for the four DeLisa brothers, who collectively owned and operated it.

Nightly entertainment at the club was in the variety show format, and there was typically no cover charge.  Pianist Albert Ammons was the original house bandleader, although drummer Red Saunders had assumed that role by 1938 and continued in that position on-and-off for the next twenty years, until the club closed its doors.  (The DeLisa brothers threw him a 15th-anniversary party in 1953, and Duke Ellington, who was playing the Regal Theater, appeared as honorary chairman.)  From February 1946 through May 1947, the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra enjoyed a long run at the club.  Other musicians who appeared here included Count Basie, Joe Williams, Big Joe Turner, LaVern Baker (as Little Miss Sharecropper), and Tiny Bradshaw.  Though primarily a bastion of swing music, patrons might also be exposed to blues, soul, and R&B artists.  The DeLisa brothers reportedly also countenanced gambling in the basement as an additional source of revenue.

The Club DeLisa closed its doors in February 1958 after two of the DeLisa brothers had passed away in the preceding two years.  In 1965, the building was purchased for $65,000 by local disk jockeys E. Rodney Jones and Pervis Spann, who renamed it “The Club.”  Cannonball Adderley was one of the first musicians to appear at the club in its new incarnation.

Today, the former Club DeLisa is a vacant plot of land adjacent to a Kentucky Fried Chicken and A&W Root Beer outlet.

The Rhumboogie Café was a wildly popular jazz club that opened in 1940 at 343 East Garfield Boulevard and had a short, but successful reign.  Heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis was rumored to have owned a substantial interest in the club, a fact which was denied by Charley Glenn, a local car dealer who was the club’s ostensible owner.  Sonny Rollins reportedly played gigs here with a pianist named Sonny Blount, who later became known as “Sun Ra.”  Other legends who performed at the club include Fletcher Henderson, Sarah Vaughn, and Chicago’s very own Dinah Washington.  A fire destroyed the entire inside of the club in the early morning hours of January 1, 1946, following a New Year’s celebration, but the Rhumboogie reopened within a matter of months.

A jazz club known as the Swingland Cafe operated on this same spot from 1936 to 1940, before being transformed into the Rhumboogie.

George "Bugs" Moran headed Chicago's "North Side Gang," which posed a direct challenge to Al Capone's south side outfit.  Moran's gang didn't fare too well.  On Februrary 14, 1929, at the Moran-owned S.M.C. Cartage Co. garage at 2122 North Clark Street, Capone's gang mowed down several members of Moran's gang in the gruesome gangland slaying that came to be known as The St. Valentine's Day Massacre.  Moran was Capone's intended target, but he had fled the scene before the shooting started because he thought a police raid was in progress.  When policed asked Moran who he thought was responsible, Moran said "only Capone kills like that."

Moran was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and moved to Chicago when he was 19.  He was arrested three times before turning 21.  Bootlegging became his primary exploit.  He and fellow gang member Earl "Hymie" Weiss would often hijack Capone's illegal shipments and sell them for profit.  Dean O'Banion was Moran's close friend and mentor who robbed and bootlegged with Moran.  A complex array of circumstances, orders, and alliances concluded with the cronies of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone killing Dean O'Banion in Schofield's, his flower shop, on November 10, 1924.

In retaliation for the murder of O'Banion, Moran became the progenitor of the drive-by shooting.  On January 12, 1925, Moran, Vincent “The Schemer” Drucci, and Weiss attempted to assassinate Al Capone at this location, near a restaurant at 55th and State streets.  Using Thompson submachine guns, the trio attempted a drive-by shooting, but they failed to kill Capone, who had entered the restaurant just minutes earlier.

After a few quiet years, Capone delivered a final blow to Moran and his gangsters in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.  And by now we know that story.  Moran was later suspected to have murdered one of Capone's henchmen, "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn, but official confirmation is not in the offing.

With the repeal of prohibition, Moran's gang slowly left Chicago.  After being one of the wealthiest gangsters in the city, Moran was back to petty robberies.  Moran spent much of his remaining life in prison.  He was arrested in Kentucky with fellow crooks Virgil Summers and Albert Fouts on July 6, 1946, and he died of lung cancer on February 25, 1957, while he was still in the pen.

On January 12, 1925, a group of mobsters from the North Side Gang (George “Bugs” Moran, Vincent “The Schemer” Drucci, and Earl “Hymie” Weiss) attempted to kill Al Capone as revenge for the murder of their leader, Dean O’Banion.  They opened fire on his chauffeured car outside a restaurant at the corner of 55th and State Street using Thompson submachine guns – the first known use of the so-called “Tommy Gun” in urban warfare.  They wounded Capone’s driver, but Capone was inside eating and escaped unharmed.