Holy Name Cathedral

About this audio guide

This guide to Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago turns on October 11, 1926, when gunmen opened fire on a North Side Gang boss named Hymie Weiss right on the sidewalk outside, as he stepped out of the flower shop across the street that doubled as his headquarters. It traces the beer war that put him there, and an earlier killing at that same flower shop two years before, involving a boss who had once been an altar boy inside these walls. A priest gave Weiss last rites on the cathedral steps as he lay dying. Look at the cornerstone by the year 1874 as you pass it.