50 Photos of Real-Life Gangster Homes and Hideouts

Bugs Moran’s Chicago hotel suite

Unlike his rival Capone, gangster George “Bugs” Moran preferred to live in a luxury hotel. Though his parents were French immigrants, the mobster, who was born Adelard Cunin, headed the mostly Irish-American North Side Gang, which battled against Capone’s Italian-American South Side Gang for control of Chicago’s illegal alcohol trade.

© Hulton Archive/Getty/Courtesy The Pierre

Bugs Moran’s Chicago hotel suite

During the 1920s and 1930s, Moran resided at Chicago’s opulent Parkway Hotel. The Art Deco building was conveniently located less than a block away from the North Side garage, where the gang stored the bulk of its illicit booze. The site was later the scene of the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.

© Courtesy The Pierre

Bugs Moran’s Chicago hotel suite

Moran wasn’t the only North Side Gang member who lived at the hotel. Henry Gusenberg and optician-turned-criminal Reinhardt Schwimmer also resided there. Gusenberg, along with Moran, narrowly avoided being gunned down in the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. Schwimmer, on the other hand, wasn’t quite so lucky and was among the seven victims.

© Courtesy The Pierre

Bugs Moran’s Chicago hotel suite

Following the massacre, Moran lost much of his power and influence in Chicago, and the ending of Prohibition in 1933 coupled with the Great Depression pretty much finished him off. The mobster continued to reside at the Parkway before leaving Chicago in the mid-1930s. He was locked up in 1939 and spent much of his remaining life in prison, where he died in 1957.

© Courtesy Lincoln Park Condos

Bugs Moran’s Chicago hotel suite

The luxurious hotel, which once housed a grand ballroom, high-end restaurant and of course the requisite speakeasy, has since been converted into the Pierre, a luxury condo development. Fortunately, the conversion was carried out sensitively, and the building still retains its Art Deco splendor.

© Courtesy Lincoln Park Condos