THE FIRST VICE LORD is the story of the life and death of Big Jim
Colosimo and Chicago's infamous segregated red-light district--the
Levee. For the first time, the true story is told of the colorful
characters who peopled the Levee from the time of the Columbian
Exposition to the Roaring Twenties, clearly the most colorful period in
Chicago's history. The product of five years of research through Chicago
daily newspapers, magazines, and periodicals, and books on the city's
history, it documents the story as it occurred, with all of the sights,
sounds, and smells of that lusty, unruly era. THE FIRST VICE LORD is the
story of an immigrant Italian lad who grew up in the tenements of
Chicago, where he worked first as a lowly street sweeper, then as a
brothel operator and vice lord, and finally as the owner of the most
famous restaurant of his day. His story is told against the backdrop of
an open red-light district so famous it was known to the crown heads of
Europe.