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Site of the St Valentine's Day Massacre

Field review by the editors.

Chicago, Illinois

It happened on February 14, 1929, when six members of the Bugs Moran gang (and one very unlucky bystander) 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 some of the wall to collectors, brick by brick, and died in 2004. In 2012 Patey's nephew sold what remained of the wall (roughly three-quarters of it) to the Mob Museum in Las Vegas.

What remains on the site in Chicago is a small, fenced-off lawn 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.

Site of the St Valentine's Day Massacre

Address:
2122 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL
Directions:
North side of the city. I-90/94 exit 47A, east on Fullerton Ave. for two miles, then right onto Clark St. The vacant lot where the Garage used to stand is 2.5 blocks south (between Webster and Dickens), on the right, next to a nursing home. Five trees form a rough line in the lot; the one in the middle marks the spot where the wall stood.
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Nearby Offbeat Places

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Keith Haring: Big and GreenKeith Haring: Big and Green, Chicago, IL - 1 mi.
In the region:
Kiddieland Amusement Park Sign, Melrose Park, IL - 11 mi.

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