Unione Italiano - 622 S French Hill St
A storefront fraternal organization for Italians only, this one sports Joe Potrello as a member. Here he drinks coffee and wine, plotting impossible revenges against O'Bannion and his gang. Numbers and race-betting rackets operate here, and stolen items (though not items stolen from Italians) can be bought here. The manager is Virgilio Benito, who sports "Big Red" as a nickname. A ridiculously false rumor has it that O'Bannion backs the place and takes the profits.
Joe (Giuseppe) Potrello: he's a sorry sight these days, his power ruined, his influence waning; he has left only two loyal henchman. Not even the Italian youth-gang, the Rocks, respect him very much.
He knows the O'Bannion mob has him marked for death. He also believes that the police are on O'Bannion's payroll and fears that they might set him up (this is not so—New Jerusalem's police are not that corrupt).
Potrello came to the United States in 1917 at the age of 12, sent here by his widower father to live with relatives in New Jerusalem. He grew up in New Jerusalem's poorest Italian section, working in mills here and in nearby Bolton. By age 18, he led a handful of toughs specializing in muggings and shopkeeper extortion. Potrello established an ingenious illegal numbers game modeled on rackets popular in New York. The game turned a good profit. When Prohibition arrived, Potrello had the capital and contacts to locally distribute profitable booze from overseas.
Potrello comports himself modestly and dresses in common working-class clothes. Most Italian-speakers know of him; many admire him. He is a good contributor to the Church, though professing a belief that his actions contradict. Those he has wronged know him as a stern opponent and fear to speak to the police. The police fear him as a cool, shadowy figure who may someday become respectable enough that the Italians will elect him to the Town Council. In fact, this idea has just recently come to Joe, and he is currently running it over in his mind trying to figure out just how one gets involved in local politics. Should the scheme succeed then Potrello will find his fortunes on the rise again, and he will begin carefully and quietly plotting his revenge against O'Bannion, all in the name of civic minded duty, of course.
Type
Bar
Parent Location
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