Dago Dukes (circa 1950s)

Rocco Corbini

July 30, 2007

I lived near Ashland Street, first on Taylor and Lytle and later on Ada Street. These memories of the Dago Dukes go back to the 1950’s.

(The Taylor Ashland (1600 west) area was the approximate middle of Taylor Street’s Little Italy. The eastern end of Little Italy was Des Plaines (600 west). The UIC Medical Center stood between Ashland Avenue and the Tri-Taylor part of Taylor Street’s Little Italy. Western Avenue (2400 west) was the western boundary of the legendary Taylor Street.)

Let me start off by saying the Dukes were not like we know a gang today. The Dago Dukes were more like a bunch of guys that needed a name to simply have some kind of tag to identify themselves. Actually, we were a club without a club house. We did, however, have a club house, for a very short time, on the corner of Ashland and Taylor.

Attached are the names of the guys I remember, but it was 55 years ago. Some of those guys also hung around with the Barons and other crazies from the neighborhood.

There were other guys that we hung around with that probably did not identify with the Dukes but were considered part of the gang anyway. Among them were Pat Matedo, Buddy Edmonda, Salvatore “Squeaky” LaPorte, Phillip DeNatali, Joe Laria, Ralph Esposito, Armand Ranucci, Jerry Scalese, Al Bruno, and Al Garcia. There was also a Jewish kid named Richard Green that wanted to be a Duke. So we made him go to Pompeii Church and take communion with us. We renamed him, “Joe Costanza.”  We also had a good friend, Tony Pape, who was going with the mother of one of the guys until he was gunned down with his brother - that was in the fall of 1954.

Someone made up a hypothetical baseball team of some of the crazies that hung around Taylor Street’s Peanut Park. Names like Cherry Belly, Hi HO Silver, Pom Pom Tony, Batman, Charlie O, and more that escape me at the moment.

There was a gang of older guys, probably in their 20s at that time. They were named the Cougars.

I hope this helps you. I’m sure I didn’t spell the names correctly, but they’re probably close enough.

Johnnie Romano was our Alderman at that time.

Copyright, 2009, Vince Romano, All Rights Reserved