Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set (5 page)

As Monday morning drew near, the poor slum-living Irish began planning how to voice their displeasure, and it wouldn't be pleasant. At 6 a.m. Monday, men and women started spilling out of the downtown slums, and they began their resolute march to the north. At every street corner, more discontents joined their forces, and the group became so huge it split into two groups. It was estimated that eventually 50,000 to 70,000 people took part in the four-day Draft Riots, and the New York City Metropolitan Police had only 3,000 men to combat the rioters.

As the rioters moved north along Fifth and Sixth Avenues, they turned east and made a beeline toward the main draft office, at 46
th
Street and Third Avenue. Police Superintendent John A. Kennedy, realizing trouble was brewing, dispatched 60 police officers to guard the Third Avenue Draft Office, and another 69 to guard the draft office at Broadway and 29
th
Street.

The rioters on Third Avenue were led by the volunteer firemen attached to Engine Company 33, known as The Black Joke. They consisted of members of the Plug Uglies street gang, who by now had stopped traffic completely and were pulling people out of their carts. Signs in the crowd were held saying “NO DRAFT!!”, when suddenly someone in the crowd shot a pistol up into the air, and the riots commenced.

The mob threw bricks and stones at the draft office, breaking all the windows in the building. Then they surged forward, thousands of them, while 60 cops tried in vain to hold them back. The rioters stepped over the now-battered and unconscious policemen, and as draft officials jumped out the rear windows of the building, the mob set fire to the Third Avenue Draft Office.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Kennedy had left Police Headquarters at 300 Mulberry Street, wearing civilian clothes as a disguise. He took a horse carriage to 46
th
Street and Lexington Avenue, but when he saw the smoke, he jumped out of the carriage and proceeded on foot.

Kennedy was immediately recognized, and beaten to a bloody pulp, until he was unconscious. A Good Samaritan named John Egan saved Kennedy, when he announced to the mob that Kennedy was dead. Kennedy was covered with a gunny sack and put into a wagon, which drove him to Police Headquarters. When he was examined by doctors, Kennedy was found to have 72 bruises on his body and over two dozen cuts.

The rioters then attacked the Colored Orphans Asylum, on Fifth Avenue and 46
th
Street. As the rioters stormed the building, 50 matrons and attendants snuck 200 Negro children out a secret back exit. The mob rushed in, stole blankets, toys, and bedding, and then set fire to the building. One young Negro girl, who was accidentally left behind, was found hiding under a bed. She was dragged out and savagely beaten to death.

All throughout the streets of New York City, angry Irish mobs chased Negroes, whom they blamed for the drafts in the first place. The Negroes who were caught, were beaten to death and sometimes hanged. As their bodies hung from trees and rafters, mad Irish woman, glee in their eyes, stabbed the dead Negroes' bodies, while they danced under lit torches, and sang obscene songs.

Finally, Mayor George Updyke wired the War Department in Washington D.C. for help. During the next three days of unspeakable mayhem, hundreds of buildings were burned down, innumerable business looted, and Negroes were killed for no other reason than for the color of their skin. When the order was given, the United States Militia, armed, trained, and 10,000 strong, stormed New York City to quell the riots.

On Tuesday, July 14, New York Governor Horatio Seymour stood on the steps of City Hall, and said to the assembled crowd “I have received a dispatch from Washington that the draft is now suspended.”

Governor Seymour was booed and jeered, and the riots continued for two more days.

It is impossible to estimate how many people were killed in the four-day riots. The New York Post reported that, under the blanket of darkness, the bodies of dead rioters were shipped across the East River, and quietly buried in Brooklyn. Police Superintendent Kennedy put the total dead at 1,155, but that did not include those buried secretly at night. Of the tens of thousands of rioters involved, and despite the brutal murders of scores of Negroes, only 19 people were tried and convicted of any crimes. The average prison sentence was a mere five years.

Diarist George Templeton Strong summed up the disgrace of the 1863 New York City Civil War Draft Riots, when he wrote “This is a nice town to call itself a center of civilization.”

C
ole - Vincent “Mad Dog”

He was known throughout the underworld as the “Mad Mick,” but when he gunned down five children in Harlem, Vincent Cole forever became known as “Mad Dog” Cole.

Vincent Cole was born on July 20, 1908, in Gweedore, a small town in County Donegal, Ireland. When he was an infant, Cole's parents relocated to America; settling in a cold-water flat in the Bronx. After five of his siblings died, from either accidents or disease, his father left the family, never to be seen again.

Cole's mother died from pneumonia when he was seven, and Cole and his older brother Peter were taken by the state of New York and put in the Mount
Loretto Orphanage, in Staten Island. The Cole brothers stood at the orphanage for three years, both being beaten repeatedly for insubordination. Finally, the Cole Brothers escaped, and insinuated themselves into New York's Hell's Kitchen, where they became members of the notorious street gang called The Gophers.

Soon, the Cole Brothers were working as go-fers for the infamous bootlegger Dutch Schultz.  They were paid a hundred bucks a week to do Schultz's dirty work, which included a few killings when requested. Finally, fed up with Schultz's known cheapness as far as paying his crew, Cole approached Schultz, and demanded he become a full partner.

“I ain't your nigger shoeshine boy,” Cole told Schultz. “I'll show you a thing or two.”

Cole started up a small gang, which included his brother Peter, and his girlfriend and future wife, Lottie
Kreisberger, who did little more than keep Cole company. Cole's first move on Schultz was a brazen daytime robbery of Schultz's Sheffield Dairy in the Bronx. Schultz was so angry at Cole's treachery, he thundered into the 42
nd
Precinct, and announced to a room full of cops, “I'll buy a house in Westchester for anyone in here who can kill that Mick (Cole).”

Cole then tried to lure Schultz's gang members into Cole's gang. Through an old school acquaintance named Mary Smith, the Cole brothers set up a meeting with one of Schultz's top boys, Vincent Barelli. At that meeting in a Bronx apartment, when Barelli rebuffed their advances, the Cole Brothers calmly shot him to death. Mary Smith, horrified at what she had just seen and unwittingly set up, tried to escape from the apartment. Cole chased her down, and shot her in the head, killing her in the middle of the street.

A few days later, members of Schultz's gang machine-gunned Peter Cole as he was driving in Harlem. The death of Peter Cole precipitated a large-scale war between Vincent Cole and Schultz, which resulted in at least 20 more killings.

Needing fast cash, Cole accepted an assignment from Italian Mob boss Salvatore Maranzano, to kill Lucky Luciano in Maranzano's midtown office. Maranzano paid Cole $25,000 up front, with another $25,000 due upon completion of his task.

Cole was in the lobby of Maranzano's office building, with a machine gun hidden under his coat and waiting for the elevator, when three men rushed out of the stairwell and plowed right into Cole. Knowing who Cole was, the men told Cole they had just killed Maranzano and for Cole to beat it before the cops arrived. Cole smiled, did an about-face, and he exited the building, whistling a happy tune, knowing he had just pocketed twenty-five grand for doing absolutely nothing.

To further inflate his bank account, Cole started kidnapping top aides of big-time gang leaders like Owney “The Killer” Madden, an Irishman himself. Madden paid Cole $35,000 for the return of his partner Big Frenchy DeMange, who was co-owner with Madden, in the Cotton Club in Harlem. Cole then kidnapped Madden's front man at the Stork Club, the very popular Sherman Billingsley. Again Madden paid the ransom, and Billingsley was soon back at the Stork Club, still in fine health.

Next on Cole's hit list was Joey Rao, Schultz's top numbers man in Harlem. Rao and a bunch of his boys were standing in front of their Helmar Social Club on East 107
th
Street, divvying out pennies to neighborhood kids, when Cole and his gang came barreling around the corner in a touring car. Cole let go with several blasts from a machine gun, missing Rao and his men completely, but instead striking five children. Little five-year old Michael Vengali took several bullets in the stomach, and he died before he could be rushed to the hospital.

Incensed at the killing of a child, the New York City newspapers ran frightening headlines about the “Baby Killer.” They dubbed Cole -- Vincent “Mad Dog” Cole. And like any “mad dog,” the public, and the underworld, demanded that Cole be put down. New York City Mayor James Walker offered a $10,000 reward for anyone who provided information that led to Cole's arrest. Madden and Schultz upped the ante, each offering $25,000 to any mug who could put the “Mad Dog” down with bullets.

Cole hid out in various parts of the Northeast, before finally returning to New York City with Lottie. They were holed up in the Cornish Arms Hotel on West 23
rd
Street, when the cops, acting on a tip, barged in and arrested Cole. Cole's trial was expected to be a slam-dunk for the prosecution, but the brilliant legal tactics of Cole's lawyer, Samuel Liebowitz, got Cole off the hook.

After his trial, Cole held court with the press outside the Criminal Courts Building.

He told the reporters, “I've been charged with all kinds of crimes, but baby-killing was the limit. I'd like nothing better than to lay my hands on the man who did this.”

Cole was back on the streets, but still a marked man by the mob. He married Lottie at City Hall, but they were constantly on the run, moving quickly from hideout to hideout.

On February 1, 1932, four men busted into a home in the north Bronx, guns blazing. They shot a table full of people playing cards. Two Cole gang members were killed (Fiorio Basile and Patsy Del Greco), and another one wounded. Also killed was Mrs. Emily Torrizello, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Another unidentified woman was wounded. Miraculously, two babies lying in their cribs were found unharmed. Luckily for Cole, he showed up at the house a half hour later, just as the police arrived.

As a result, Cole went on the run again. After hiding separately for a while, Cole wound up
back with Lottie at the Cornish Arms Hotel. Cole decided this was a good time to start kidnapping again, but this time with a twist. Cole phoned Madden, and told him he wanted $100,000,
not
to kidnap Madden.

“Imagine how the Dagos and Kikes is
gonna feel when they have to shell out a hundred grand to save your sorry ass,” Cole told Madden. “Pay me now, up front, and I'll save you the trouble.”

Madden said he needed some time to think it over.

On March 8, 1932, Madden phoned Cole, and told Cole to call him from the phone booth at the drug store across the street from his hotel. At 12:30 am, Cole strode into the New London Pharmacy on West 23
rd
Street, and he headed for the phone booth in the back. While he was talking to Madden on the phone, a man with a machine gun hidden under his coat, calmly walked to the back of the drug store and opened fire. The gunman riddled Cole's body with 15 bullets.

Hearing the commotion, Lottie arrived a few minutes later, to see her husband's dead tattered body. Lottie Cole refused to speak with the police, but she cried to someone standing nearby, that their life savings, at the time, was a measly hundred dollar bill, she had stuffed inside her bra.

This proved, without a shadow of a doubt, that Vincent “Mad Dog” Cole, despite his dreadful bite, had died doggone broke.

C
rowley - Francis “Two Gun”

They called him a “Half-Pint Moron,” and “The Puny Killer.” Yet for a short three-month span in 1931, Francis “Two Gun” Crowley was the most dangerous man in New York City.

Crowley was born in New York City, on October 13, 1912. His German mother was not married, and as soon as little Francis saw his first light of day his mother gave him up for adoption. It was rumored Crowley's father was a cop, which explained his hatred for anyone in a blue uniform. Crowley was brought up by a woman named Anna Crowley, and he took her name, calling her his only mother.

By the time Crowley was 18, despite the fact that he stood only 5-foot-3 inches and weighed 130 pounds, he was already a full-blown criminal and a murderer. Crowley teamed up with the hulking Rudolph “Fats”
Duringer (who was said to be the largest man ever to sit in Sing Sing's electric chair). Soon, the Mutt and Jeff crime team soon started terrorizing New York City.

On February 21, 1931, Crowley, Fats, and another unidentified male, burst into an America Legion Dance Hall in the Bronx. They were uninvited, and when a slew of Legionnaires tried to toss them out, Crowley began firing with two guns, which gave him his nickname “Two Gun” Crowley. No one was killed, but two men were injured, and Crowley was now hunted by the police for attempted murder. Crowley was cornered in an office building on Lexington Avenue, but he shot his way out of the arrest, plugging Detective Ferdinand
Schaedel in the process.