The Complete Guide to: Mobster America

Mobsters: Murderous Thugs?

Yes. The history of 20th-century America is littered with facial rearrangements, arm-breakings and blood-splattered deaths brought on by crossing the Mob once too often. But to the traveller, organised crime still retains some glamour. A succession of movies, from the Godfather trilogy to Bugsy Malone, has exulted the American mobster. They have been portrayed as effortlessly cool characters, albeit sporadically deranged. Their grizzly ends – "you'll be sleeping with the fishes", "fill 'em full of lead", "give him a concrete overcoat" etc – are met with the grim resignation of those who live and die by the sword, or rather the garrotte and the Uzi.

Who can forget Al Pacino's celluloid demise in Scarface, rocket launcher and machine gun in hand, head addled by a mountain of cocaine, as he shoots up his palatial residence in Miami? Or Joe Pesci's expressive work with a baseball bat in Goodfellas? The long-delayed release of Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, has brought the Mob back to the silver screen, extending our fascination back to the roots of gangland violence in mid 19th-century New York.

How did New York get its criminal record?

It started with the gangs that grew out of the poverty of Manhattan in the 1830s. Prostitution, extortion and petty crime were already rife, and the gangs evolved to exploit them. Herbert Asbury's book The Gangs of New York, on which Scorsese's film is based, describes how corrupt politicians used men from areas such as Paradise Square, the Bowery and Five Points (where New York's Chinatown is now situated) to intimidate and exterminate their enemies. Forget Republicans and Democrats; the two political parties in Manhattan were the "Native Americans" and "Tammany Hall". They used Irish and Italian gangs such as the Bowery Boys, the Plug Uglies and, oddly, the Dead Rabbits to get their points across. In many instances, gang warfare and political action were virtually indistinguishable. By the early 20th century, men such as William "Bill the Butcher" Poole – an enforcer for the Native Americans – were able to combine both trades, intimidating voters using the gang of which he was chieftain.

Crime was not yet organised; gangs still had to develop their specialities, or rackets, but the idea of "family", of looking out for your own, had taken root. Irish and Jewish gangs, driven by an inbuilt sense of family, were involved in organised crime in 20th-century America. But the most famous mobsters are undoubtedly the Italian Mafia. They were drawn from Sicily, where the word loosely translates as "boldness". Originally formed as revenge squads, the Mafia's sphere of operations expanded upon arrival in the US, in part as a desperate reaction to the difficulties the new immigrants faced. They coined a term to describe their ruthless code: La Cosa Nostra, which means "our thing".

Where can I get a taste of the mob In New York?

The five New York Mafia families are the Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese, Colombo and Bonanno clans. Aficionados of Mob history – fictional or otherwise – can find some appetising gangland sights.

Those with macabre tastes should head for Sparks Steakhouse at 210 East 46th Street in Manhattan (001 212 687 4855, www.sparks-nyc.com). In 1985 Paul Castellano was shot in front of the restaurant, paving the way for the takeover of the Gambino crime family by John Gotti. Gotti was known as the "Teflon Don" because of the government's inability to make any charges stick against him. He was eventually arrested, however, and died in prison last June.

Many of the restaurants of New York's Little Italy, the area made famous by Scorsese's Mean Streets, have a Godfather-like feel to them. More food-related carnage occurred at Umberto's Clam House, 386 Broome St (001 212 431 7545, www.umbertosclamhouse.com). In 1972 – in defiance of Mafia rules banning hits in Little Italy – "Crazy" Joe Gallo was gunned down at his own birthday party.

New York's Central Park looms large in the Colombo family history: they lost one of their own in 1971 in Columbus Circle, at the south-west corner. Godfather Joe Colombo was shot in front of thousands of people while making a speech at an Italian-American Day Unity rally.

Signa Tours (001 212 517 4306, signatour@ aol.com) can provide a custom-made tour of these and other Mob-related attractions in the city. A guide for a "Gangs Tour" costs a steep $100 (£65) per hour, with a four-hour minimum. More affordably, Big Onion Walking Tours (001 212 439 1090, www.bigonion.com) has a weekly Gangs of New York tour that visits areas associated with the film. You won't meet Leonardo DiCaprio, but it's certainly a different take on New York's chequered past. Tickets cost $12 (£8).

For the other side of the story, the New York City Police Museum at 100 Old Slip, NY 10005 (001 212 480 3100, www.nycpolicemuseum.org) has interactive crime-fighting displays, dating back to the police force's foundation in 1843. The museum building itself was erected in 1911 to house the First Precinct's officers. They battled New York's gangsters from here until 1973. Entrance is free, with a suggested donation of $5 (£3.30) per person.

I'm a 'Sopranos' Fan.

Take me to New Jersey

Fans of over-psychoanalysed Mob bosses, as depicted in the hit TV series, should hop off the couch and on to the twice-weekly bus tour which runs from New York. The Sopranos Tour ($35/£22 per person, 001 212 825 3896, www.sceneontv.com) takes in more than 40 locations, including the Bada Bing strip club. Scenes are filmed here during the day; it opens for business in the evenings. The tour also includes Big Pussy's auto shop and the cemetery used in the opening credits. A serving of Italian pastries is included in the price of your ticket, and Joe Gannascoli, who plays the part of Vito, is occasionally on hand to provide autographs.

Where did organised crime spread?

Any town where there was money to be made, including Boston, Detroit and Philadelphia. But the real Mob capitals were Chicago and, later, Las Vegas.

On 16 January 1920 the selling of alcohol was banned throughout the United States. Bootlegging and liquor distribution became a national obsession. Owning a speakeasy meant breaking the law – but despite this, more illegal drinking dens opened up during Prohibition than were shut down by the authorities. To stay open, they needed a supply of illegally brewed alcohol, and they needed to be able to bribe the police. That was where the gangsters came in.

The Italian families, with their business-like family hierarchies, were uniquely placed to capitalise on Prohibition. Suddenly, crime paid. In New York, the "Broadway Mob", controlled by Lucky Luciano, was raking in millions of dollars from the production of alcohol. But it was in Al "Scarface" Capone's Chicago that crime began to dominate ordinary city life, and where tourists can still get a feel of what it was like in the heyday of the mobsters.

Alfonse Capone was born in New York City on 17 January 1899. Like many poor Brooklynites, he was involved in gangland crime. He was arrested for at least two murders, but such was the corruption in New York that he never stood trial. He moved west to Illinois and became a bouncer in a brothel a few miles south-east of Chicago. One belligerent client caught him with a knife, giving him the mouth to ear scar which lead to a nickname he hated – Scarface.

Capone soon acquired a reputation for ruthlessness. He proved adept at arranging the bribes, murders and maimings that accompanied Prohibition. But in 1930 it all went wrong: Eliot Ness's crime-busting unit, the Untouchables, brought him down.

I was thinking of a romantic getaway to Chicago

Chicago and St Valentine's Day are indelibly linked in many people's minds, though not necessarily for the right reasons. On 14 February 1929, at the SMC Cartage Company warehouse at 2122 North Clark Street, Al Capone knocked off six members of the rival Irish North Side Gang in one spray of submachine-gun fire. The intended target was their boss, Bugs Moran, who survived, recognising the hand of big Al. "Only Capone kills like that," he growled. The fact that the hitmen had been dressed as policeman added to the public fascination that grew up around the slayings. The warehouse became a tourist attraction, at least until it was demolished in 1967. Mob fans can still make the pilgrimage: a fenced-off lawn belonging to a nursing home marks the spot.

Chicago is still living under the shadow of this Mob reputation; so much so that its tourist offices balk at the suggestion that people might travel there to relive its murky past. John Dillinger, a Mob gunman dubbed Public Enemy Number One by FBI boss J Edgar Hoover, was murdered outside the Biograph cinema at 2433 North Lincoln Avenue (001 773 348 4123) in 1934. Apparently, passers-by soaked their handkerchiefs in the blood running from his body. These days, however, the art deco cinema isn't quite so X-rated – it's as likely to be showing The Lord of the Rings as Gangs of New York.

How did the police nail the bad guys?

"Welcome to Chicago – this town stinks like a whorehouse at low tide," is how Sean Connery greets Kevin Costner in The Untouchables. Costner played Eliot Ness, perhaps the only "good guy" to become as famous as the villains he pursued (he often invited the press along to witness his busts). The murderous Capone was eventually nabbed for the rather prosaic crime of tax evasion. Chicago's Untouchables Tour (001 773 881 1195, www.gangstertour.com), puts you in Ness's shoes, and takes in all the notable Prohibition-era hit spots, including Al Capone's old hideouts, which are scattered throughout the city. Tickets cost $22 (£13.50) per person.

Simply getting around Chicago can remind you of the battle between the good guys and the Mob: its main public transport is the El, an elevated railway, as featured in The Sting, when Robert Redford outwits a dim cop by scampering along the roof of one of the stations. The dilapidated raised tracks of the El still define the city centre – the Loop.

You'll have to head out beyond the Loop, indeed beyond Chicago itself, for a drink in a proper speakeasy. Al Capone's Hideaway and Steakhouse at 35W 337 Riverside Drive, near St Charles, to the west of Chicago (001 888 72273223, www.speakeasycigarco.com) was built in 1920. It immediately started brewing its own beer to capitalise on the Prohibition market. Al Capone took over in 1925. These days, the restaurant is open daily, serving starters of "Sicilian Bullets" (Italian-style chicken wings) and "Capone Dynamite Sticks" (Italian Style Mozzarella Sticks) for $4.95 (£3).

Where did Capone end up?

Capone and other mobster professionals such as Machine Gun Kelly did their time in Alcatraz, the forbidding prison on a mist-shrouded lump of rock that rises from the centre of San Francisco Bay. The prison opened in 1934 (Capone was transferred there the same year) and soon had a reputation for absorbing the most hardened members of the US's prison population. Escape really was impossible, due to the rough waters around the penitentiary. Legend has it that nine escaping inmates made it as far as the sea; none reached the shore alive. Alcatraz shut up shop in 1963, but these days it's one of the most popular tourist attractions in the Bay Area.

Regular ferry tours (001 415 705 5555, www.blueandgoldfleet.com) run to The Rock each day, with each round trip lasting about two-and-a-half hours. Tickets cost $13.25 (£9) per person. The double-decked ranks of tiny cells are bleak enough, but combined with the echoing exercise yard, and the tantalising views of San Francisco (apparently, on clear nights, inmates could occasionally hear the sound of parties being held on the mainland) you get a real sense of the horror of being held captive there. Al Capone certainly didn't thrive; he'd been driven insane by chronic syphilis by the time he was released in 1939. Perhaps Sean Connery was making amends when he later shot chunks out of Alcatraz in The Rock, alongside Nicholas Cage. Capone was penniless when he died. His body rests in an unmarked plot in Mount Carmel Cemetery, Chicago.

I've packed my sharp suit and my baseball bat. now what?

Plenty of tour operators sell short breaks to New York and Chicago. If you prefer to organise things yourself, the cheapest fares to both cities are usually available on Air India from Heathrow. To reach Las Vegas, the only airline with direct flights is Virgin Atlantic. While in Las Vegas, you could make the 273 mile drive up to The Two Bunch Palms resort, near Desert Hot Springs, California (001 760 329 8791, www.twobunchpalms.com), once Al Capone's luxury retreat. The Al Capone suite, which has two beds, two baths and its own gun tower above it, costs $555 (£350) per night. But do be careful: Brits don't necessarily blend in well with Italian Mafia types. Hugh Grant's excruciating mobster accent in Mickey Blue Eyes should remain a lesson to us all.

How the mafia built Las Vegas

Gamblers, gangsters and ol' blue eyes himself

Las Vegas was built on Mob money in the Forties, fuelled by Nevada's loosening of the gambling laws in 1931. The Mob had been involved in gambling since the introduction of slot machines in the 1880s.

By the Twenties, New York Mafioso Frank Costello had equipped his one-armed bandits with little wooden chairs so that children could participate; it's been estimated that even during the Great Depression the slots were earning Costello around $18m a year.

Gangster Bugsy Siegel opened the Flamingo resort, 3555 Las Vegas Boulevard (001 702 733 3111, www.flamingolasvegas.com) with $6m of Mob money in 1946. He was gunned down by his ex-colleagues the next year, when it didn't turn a profit. But his death provoked a surge of interest in the city. Punters liked the idea that they were gambling in the presence of mobsters, and soon Las Vegas was paying off.

By the Fifties, resorts such as The Sands were largely Mob controlled. Caesar's Palace might have boasted classical decor, but in the words of veteran comedian Alan King, "I wouldn't say it was exactly Roman – more kind of early Sicilian."

The FBI stepped in to rehabilitate the place in the Eighties, and these days the city has cleaned up its act, returning control of the casinos to legitimate owners. But gambling is still the beating heart of "Sin City", and the Strip is the neon wonderland associated with films such as Casino and Ocean's Eleven.

Everything has been up-scaled: from its humble beginnings in the Nevada desert, Siegal's Flamingo now has 3,600 rooms and a squadron of real flamingos to keep the punters entertained.

Of course, Ol' Blue Eyes occasionally dusted down a tune or two for them. Frank Sinatra's relations with the Mafia are still the subject of debate, but it is certainly true that he went out of his way to be seen with gangsters. He was close to New York Mafioso Lucky Luciano, and during his career he spent time with gangsters such as Las Vegas's Meyer Lansky and the king of the slots, Frank Costello (rubbed out, 1957). Sinatra's career is closely associated with Vegas: his residence at Caesar's Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Boulevard (001 702 731 7110, www.caesars.com) in 1967 earned him a staggering $100,000 per week.

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