For more than two decades, mob boss Joseph Andriacchi was reported by law enforcement organizations and the Chicago Crime Commission to be a high-ranking member of the Chicago Outfit criminal organization.
Unlike some other past Chicago Outfit members, however, Andriacchi also had a legitimate career as a builder and developer, which led to his nickname, “The Builder.”
“Joseph Andriacchi had a long, successful career at the top of the Chicago Outfit, and he also had a long, successful career in construction, developing mixed-use buildings,” said John Binder, an author and expert on the Chicago Outfit.
Andriacchi, 91, died on Aug. 10 in Elmwood Park, according to a probate case filed with Cook County. Previously a resident of River Forest, Andriacchi was living in Elmwood Park at the time of his death.
Andriacchi was a Chicago native whose father, Bruno, raised the family on Ohio Street in the West Town neighborhood. He was a cousin of Chicago Outfit member Joey “The Clown” Lombardo.
For much of his adult life, Andriacchi operated completely out of the spotlight. He was charged with burglary in Michigan in 1965, according to the Chicago Crime Commission, and later served some time in prison.
In 1990, the Chicago Crime Commission published a report identifying Andriacchi as a member of the Chicago Outfit. In the mid-1990s, the Illinois Police and Sheriff’s News published an organizational tree of the Chicago Outfit, putting Lombardo on top but alleging that Andriacchi was Lombardo’s underboss for day-to-day operations. In 1997, the Tribune reported that Andriacchi was overseeing the Outfit’s North Side crew.
A decade later, the Tribune reported that mobster Frank Calabrese Sr. had identified Andriacchi on an undercover prison recording as the boss of the Outfit’s Elmwood Park crew. Andriacchi never was among those charged in the federal Operation Family Secrets investigation in 2005, which ultimately solved 15 unsolved gangland slayings and put several Outfit figures behind bars for life.
In 2009, Andriacchi was identified as one of the 16 mobsters that the FBI had considered as a threat to mob assassin Nick Calabrese, who as a government witness had helped convict numerous Outfit leaders in the Family Secrets trial.
“People didn’t know a lot (about) him, but he was considered a high-ranking mobster,” said retired WBBM-Ch. 2 reporter John Drummond, 94, a longtime crime expert. “He never was charged with or indicted for anything — he was behind the scenes, calling a lot of shots under the radar. There was some talk at one time when everybody else (in the Outfit) was incarcerated, that he was running the show.”
Andriacchi was one of the developers of the five-story Park Place on North Avenue mixed-use retail and condominium building on North Avenue in Elmwood Park, which was completed a little more than a decade and a half ago. He also developed some condominium units in Elmwood Park, including two projects on 77th Court that he named after his wife.
Andriacchi also was one of the owners of the Rosebud restaurant building on West Taylor Street in Little Italy, according to a 2023 court case.
Andriacchi’s wife, Silvana, died in 2008. Survivors include a daughter, Angela Corvo; and a son, Joseph A. Andriacchi.
Information on services was not available.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
