Site of the St Valentine's Day Massacre
Chicago, Illinois
It happened on February 14, 1929, when seven members of the Bugs Moran gang were gunned down by members of the Al Capone gang. The victims were stood against a brick wall and shot.
The wall was part of the SMG Cartage Company garage, which was demolished in 1967 -- but the bloodstained, bullet-pockmarked 10-foot-long wall was bought at an auction by Canadian businessman George Patey. He reassembled all 400+ bricks into a men's room wall at his Banjo Palace nightclub in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was covered with plexiglass and had targets painted on it; patrons who were able to hit the targets with their pee would trigger a stream of water that flushed the urinal.
The Banjo Palace closed in 1976. Patey sold the wall to collectors, brick by brick, and died in 2004. What remains on the site in Chicago is a small fenced-off lawn and that belongs to a nearby nursing home. Five trees form a rough line in the lot; the one in the middle marks the spot where the wall stood. As with all attractions that depend on trees, you should visit before one of them dies.
