Public Enemy No. 1

Once named America’s Number One Public Enemy, Johnny Torrio’s death, in 1957, went virtually unnoticed by the public or press. Torrio suffered a heart attack  while in a barber’s chair on April 15^th and died later that day in Brooklyn’s now defunct Cumberland Hospital.  It took a full three weeks after Torrio died before a short news item ran in the New York Times, referring to Torrio as “The man who put Al Capone into business…” Later that same year, rival mobster, Albert Anastasia, was gunned down in a barber’s chair while getting a shave.