Researching organized crime in detroit's history

[terryh]

I have been interested in gangland dramas from the gangster era of the twenties and beyond since my ex turned me on to the microfilm room at the DPL and I scrolled onto black and white typo stories about the Collingwood Ave Massacre and Purple Gang. It is fun to read about the exploits and capers of the Giacalone brothers and the structure of the Detroit mafia family and how they interacted with black gangsters,Jewish and Italian partnerships in the handbooks and policy rackets etc.

Obviously there is the online archives of the newspapers and phone books and pictures at the Walter Reuther historical collection but how would a crime history researcher go about obtaining and reading full transcripts of trials, viewing mugshots and criminal histories of prohibition era gangsters?When the police museum was open at 1300 Beaubian I inquired about mugshots [[it would be cool to dig into some sixties and seventies era mugs as well) but that was awhile back and I do not recall the protracted process which included something about the Freedom Of Information Act.

I have always wanted to dig deeper and explore a house or abandoned store that at one time was owned or occupied by a Purple gang affiliated mobster and find some tangible piece of history like a ledger, policy racket tickets a stash of pistols or remnants of an alky still...

Some landmarks remain.Charles Leiter, an Oakland Sugar House gangster owned and operated Leiters Lounge on Baltimore for forty years.Him and his brother in law were busted selling bootleg liquor there in the forties and the place was connected to a bookmaking ring in the early seventies .The upstairs of the Scvitz bath house was rented to bookie Chickie Shermans crew in the seventies. Charlies spot is Northern Lights Lounge and the Scvitz is still in operation...