From
On the Lam in Chicago

By WILLIAM E. SCHMIDT

Start with the memories of Spike O’Donnell and Frank McErlane on the South Side. According to local historians and newspaper accounts, O’Donnell was standing in front of the old J. J. Weiss Drug Store, which is now a currency exchange, at the northwest corner of the intersection. Suddenly, McErlane – an ally of Al Capone – wheeled around the corner in an open touring car, hollered ’’Hel-lo, Spike,’’ and began to spit bullets from his Thompson submachine gun, a war surplus weapon better known as a Tommy gun.

Most of McErlane’s errant shots peppered the front of the drugstore, and a new facade covers the worst of the damage. But look closely at the first doorway on Western, immediately to the north of the currency exchange. The crater in the brick just to the left of the door, and the chips in the terra cotta, were probably made by McErlane’s machine gun, according to research by historians at the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.