Street Corner Society

The Social Structure of an Italian Slum

William Foote Whyte

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780226922669
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Street Corner Society is one of a handful of works that can justifiably be called classics of sociological research. William Foote Whyte's account of the Italian American slum he called "Cornerville"—Boston's North End—has been the model for urban ethnography for fifty years.By mapping the intricate social worlds of street gangs and "corner boys, " Whyte was among the first to demonstrate that a poor community need not be socially disorganized. His writing set a standard for vivid portrayals of real people in real situations. And his frank discussion of his methodology—participant observation—has served as an essential casebook in field research for generations of students and scholars.This fiftieth anniversary edition includes a new preface and revisions to the methodological appendix. In a new section on the book's legacy, Whyte responds to recent challenges to the validity, interpretation, and uses of his data. "The Whyte Impact on the Underdog, " the moving statement by a gang leader who became the author's first research assistant, is preserved." Street Corner Society broke new ground and set a standard for field research in American cities that remains a source of intellectual challenge."—Robert Washington, Reviews in Anthropology

PART I

CORNER BOYS AND COLLEGE BOYS

CHAPTER I

DOC AND HIS BOYS

1. THE MEMBERS OF THE GANG

THE Nortons were Doc’s gang. The group was brought together primarily by Doc, and it was built around Doc.When Doc was growing up, there was a kids’ gang on Norton Street for every significant difference in age. There was a gang that averaged about three years older than Doc; there was Doc’s gang, which included Nutsy, Danny, and a number of others; there was a group about three years younger, which included Joe Dodge and Frank Bonelli; and there was a still younger group, to which Carl and Tommy belonged.

Since the Nortons, as I knew them, grew out of these earlier groupings, some historical background is necessary. The story of the evolution of the Nortons can best be told as Doc’s story.

Doc was born on Norton Street in 1908. His mother and father, who came from the province of Abruzzi, were the first non-Genoese Italians to settle on the street. In a large family, Doc was the youngest child and his mother’s favorite. His father died when he was a small boy. When he was three years old, infantile paralysis shriveled his left arm so that it could never again be normal, but by constant exercise he managed to develop it until he was able to use it for all but heavy work.

Doc spoke of his early years in this way:

When I was a little boy, I used to dress very neatly. I always used to have a clean suit on, and when I sat down on the doorstep my mother told me always to sit on a newspaper….. Other mothers would tell their sons, “Look at the way Dicky dresses. Why can’t you be like Dicky?” It’s only natural that they didn’t like me—until I showed them they’d have to respect me…..

I was about twelve when I had my first fight. I had a brother two years older than me. He got in an argument with a kid my size. He said to me, “He’s too small for me, you fight him.” At first I didn’t want to, but finally I fought him. And I beat him up….. After that I began to think maybe I was pretty good.

Nutsy was the head of our gang once. I was his lieutenant. He was bigger than me, and he had walloped me different times before I finally walloped him. When he walloped me, there weren’t many people around, so I didn’t mind, but the one time he broke his promise that he wouldn’t hit me, there was a big crowd around. I was a proud kid. I couldn’t let him get away with that….. You see, I was wrestling him, and I had him down. I said, “If I let you up, will you promise not to hit me?” He promised, but when I let him up and turned away, he cracked me on the nose, and I got a bloody nose. I went after him, and I was beating him up when the big fellows stopped us….. Next day I saw him leaning up against the wall. I went up to him and said, “I’ll kill you,” and I let him have one. He didn’t fight back. He knew I was his master. And that got around. So after that I was the leader, and he was my lieutenant….. That was when I was thirteen or fourteen….. Nutsy was a cocky kid before I beat him up….. After that, he seemed to lose his pride. I would talk to him and try to get him to buck up.

After I walloped him, I told the boys what to do. They listened to me. If they didn’t, I walloped them. I walloped every kid in my gang at some time. We had one Sicilian kid on my street. When I walloped him, he told his father and the father came out looking for me. I hid up on a roof, and Nutsy told me when the father had gone. When I saw the kid next, I walloped him again—for telling his father on me….. But I wasn’t such a tough kid, Bill. I was always sorry after I walloped them.

They had faith in me, Bill. That’s why I had to do some of these things. If one of our kids had gotten beaten up on some other street, I would go down there with him. Two or three of our boys would follow, not to help fight—just to watch. I would ask the kid, “Which one hit you?” He would point out the fellow, and I would wallop him. Then I would tell him, “Don’t hit this kid any more, see!”

I was a tiger when I was a kid. I wasn’t afraid of anybody. Most kids when they fight just push each other around, but I had a knockout punch in my right. I had the power. I could only use that one hand except for blocking but that commanded even more respect. They said, “What couldn’t he do if he had two good hands?” And they thought the right was stronger because of it—maybe it was….. It wasn’t just the punch. I was the one who always thought of the things to do. I was the one with half a brain.

Doc was always sensitive about his arm, and he would not permit anyone to make allowances for his disability. He spent many hours at home shadow-boxing to develop speed and co-ordination.

Doc’s most serious challenge came from Tony Fontana. As he told me:

Tony was in my gang when we were kids together. He was a good fighter. When he entered the ring as an amateur, he started off winning three fights by knockouts. When he turned pro, he was still knocking them out….. At that time I was the leader of the gang. I was the tough guy. But he began to get fresh with me. One night he began pushing me around and talking big. I listened to him. I thought, “He must be tough. All those knockouts have got to mean something.” So after a while I said, “I’m going up to bed.” I got undressed and went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I put on my clothes and came down again. I said, “Say that to me again!” He did and I let him have it—pow!…. But he wouldn’t fight me. Why? Prestige, I suppose. Later we had it out with gloves on the playground. He was too good for me, Bill. I stayed with him, but he was too tough….. Could he hit!

Doc told me these things only when I questioned him, and always, when he had finished telling about an incident in which he had “flattened” some rival, he would half-apologize and say that he really wasn’t so much, that he could hardly understand how such things had happened.

Every now and then there was a clash with some other gang, and a “rally” resulted:

Once a couple of fellows in our gang tried to make a couple of girls on Main Street. The boy friends of these girls chased our fellows back to Norton Street. Then we got together and chased the boy friends back to where they came from. They turned around and got all Garden Street, Swift Street, and Main Street to go after us….. It usually started this way. Some kid would get beaten up by one of our boys. Then he would go back to his street and get his gang. They would come over to our street, and we would rally them.

This time they carried banana stalks and milk bottles. We were armed. We used to hide our weapons in cellars so that we would have them ready in case of an emergency. But there were fifty of these fellows and only sixteen of us so we retreated into doorways and cellars to wait for them to cool off….. They hung around there for a while, doing nothing, until I gave the signal to come out. Then we charged on them. I swung a banana stalk around me. I swung it through all the way to Main Street, and then I was behind the enemy lines, so I had to swing it back again….. They used to have cement flowerpots standing up around the playground. We knocked them down. They would have killed anybody they hit, but we didn’t want to hit anybody. We only wanted to scare them….. After a while, things quieted down, and they went away.

I don’t remember that we ever really lost a rally. Don’t get the idea that we never ran away. We ran sometimes. We ran like hell. They would come over to our street and charge us. We might scatter, up roofs, down cellars, anywhere. We’d get our ammunition there. Then they would go back to the other end of the street and give us a chance to get together again. We would come out one after another—they would never charge us until we were all out there and ready. Then we would charge them—we had a good charge. They might break up, and then we would go back to our end of the street and wait for them to get together again….. It always ended up by us chasing them back to their street. We didn’t rally them there. We never went looking for trouble. We only rallied on our own street, but we always won there.

You know, the Nortons were a finer bunch. We were the best street in Cornerville. We didn’t lush [steal from a drunk] or get in crap games. Sometimes we stole into shows free, but what do you expect? …. The Tylers were a tougher bunch. They’d steal, and they organized crap games. We used to rally the Tylers. After a while it died down, and later the Tylers and the Nortons merged. Their champion fighter was Johnny DiCausa, and their champion runner was Mike Torre. I was champion everything for our gang. When we got together, I had to race Mike around the block. They timed us. He made it in 26 seconds. Then I ran it. When I came down the street, I could hear them yelling, “Come on, Doc, come on, Doc!” I made it in 26 seconds too. So nothing was settled. They used to argue, “Johnny can lick him.” “No, Doc can lick him.” And we would look each other over, but we didn’t fight. I guess we respected each other….. Johnny went into the ring later, and he did pretty well. Mike was a champion runner on St. Patrick’s College track team.

We didn’t have many rallies between gangs. There was a lot of mutual respect…..

We didn’t go out to kill them. We didn’t want to hurt anybody. It was just fun….. I don’t remember that anybody ever got hit on the head with a bottle. Maybe on the leg or in the back, but not on the head. The only time anybody ever got hurt was when Charlie got that tin can in his eye. We were rallying the King Streets on the playground. We charged, and Charlie got ahead of us. When he got into King Street, somebody threw this can, and the open end caught him right in the eye. The rally stopped. They were scared when they saw blood coming from his eye….. We took Charlie home. I remember him screaming while the doctor worked on his eye. That made an impression on us. It never occurred to us before that somebody might be permanently injured in a rally….. After that, there weren’t any more rallies. I don’t remember ever seeing one after that….. And, then, we were getting older, around seventeen or eighteen. And I got going with the bigger fellows and didn’t see my boys so much. They accepted me as one of them. That was a great honor. But when I didn’t see my boys so much any more, our gang broke up.

At two stages in his career Doc participated in the activities of the Norton Street Settlement House. According to his story:

I used to go into the settlement when I was a small boy, but then I broke away. I went back in on account of the Sunset Dramatic Club. They were the pet club in there. They had been giving plays for a long time, and they had a lot of prestige. Lou Danaro used to tell me how hard it was to act and how much training you needed. Danny tried to steam me up to go in there and show them up. He had a lot of faith in me. He’ll back me up in anything that requires brains. Danny and I got together, and we figured how I would get into that club. You had to have a unanimous vote. Some of the members knew me, and some of them didn’t, but I managed to get around, and I was voted in. After a while I had the lead in a couple of their big plays, and all the boys from the corner came in to see them.

At that time we had two members of each club on the house council. I represented the Sunsets, and I was president of the council one year. I was very active then, and we raised money for a new amplifier for the house.

About that time, Tom Marino’s crowd came in. They called themselves “the Corner Bums.” There were a hundred of them, and I think they came in because they didn’t have any place to meet at that time. They had it in for the Sunsets because the Sunsets were the pet club of the social workers. We could do anything we wanted to in that place….. One time Joe Cardio went into Tom Marino’s store to get some cream for the club’s coffee. When they told him they didn’t have any, he snapped his fingers and stamped his foot and said, “Aw, shucks!” All the boys were around, and, when they heard that, they couldn’t get over it. They called the Sunsets the Cream Puffs from then on. I used to argue with them about it. At that time I used to hang around that corner as much as anywhere, and I fitted with the Corner Bums, so they would call us “the Cream Puffs—with one exception.” I told them there were plenty of exceptions, but I couldn’t make them change…..

When the Bums got in there, they wanted to run the place. They started buying up votes so they could elect the president to the house council. They took girls out and bought them sodas. They really had a big campaign. Miss Baldwin wanted me to run for president again, because she thought I had done a good job, but I refused to run. The Sunsets put up Ted Riccio, and the Bums put up Fred Mantia. Ted was snowed under, but after the election they told me that if I had run again, they wouldn’t have put up anybody to oppose me…..

The Bums were really out to tip the joint. They had no respect for the social workers. I heard Guy Polletti talking to Mr. Ramsay in the hall one day. He was really obscene. Ramsay had to take it. What could he do? …. Then they were always calling up the police station and telling them, “There’s a riot in the Norton Street Settlement. Send the riot squad down right away.” A couple of cops would come down and joke with the boys, because they were good friends, but it looked bad for the settlement….. One night the Bums put on a cabaret party, and they spiked the punch. They had two bowls of punch, one for the social workers and one for the party. But a couple of the girls got drunk, and Miss Baldwin found out about that other punch bowl. She started an argument, and Guy Polletti told her to get out. He called her a ^_______. I saw her going down the stairs crying…..

That was pretty bad. At that time I was Kid Galahad, and I took it upon myself to defend the settlement. They were all in Marino’s store one night when I went in to argue with them. There was Guy Polletti—he was a heavyweight fighter. There was Fred Mantia—he was a light-heavyweight, and he had done pretty well in the ring. They were all talking, but I interrupted them. I said, “Wait a minute, listen to me!” And then I gave it to them. They argued back, and they had a good argument. They had plenty to say about the social workers. “They’re a bunch of snobs.” “They’re high-toned.” “Who do they think they are in t...