After living under dictatorship and through WWII in Italy, Peppino arrives in America in 1948 expecting to find streets "paved with gold." Instead he finds himself a foreigner, a Dago, living above a grocery shop with his parents and his Uncle Carlo, who sneaked in illegally through New York. He isn't prepared for the slush and bone chilling cold of a Chicago winter. When his old friend Dominic shows up, the temptation for the boys to connect with the "Outfit" who control the streets around Grand Avenue is fierce. They'd have money, a group to belong to, and life would be easy. Or would it?