Today's special - Robbery and Murder

We close out August with a look back to this date in 1928. Hours after it had been robbed of $4,000, John’s Lunchroom, which doubled as a saloon, was busy with about twenty patrons. One of those was James “Lefty” Doyle.

As Doyle enjoyed his food and drink, a man wearing a gray suit and brown slouch hat entered. He calmly surveyed the lunchroom and, when he spotted Lefty, he pulled out a gun and opened fire.

Everyone ran for cover as Lefty fell with a bullet in the back. Though frightened, the other patrons had nothing to worry about as the gunman was a crack shot. His next bullet also hit Doyle in the body. This shot was followed up with two more to the head.

His job complete, the killer pocketed his pistol and looked about the room before calmly walking out.

Sitting ducks

Today marks the seventy-seventh anniversary of the passing of Frank Dolak and Benny Holinksy. Who were they you ask? Well they were part of a gang of Bronx kidnappers who thought they would make some quick dough by kidnapping a bookie named Bart Salvo and ransoming him back to his outfit. Unfortunately for the gang they either didn’t know or care that Salvo was a connected mob guy.

To make a long story short, Salvo was snatched and ransomed and then it was retribution time. Flush with cash the gang was planning their next move. Dolak and Holinsky picked up a third member of the gang named Miller and they went for what would prove to be a oneway ride for our protaganists. Holinsky was at the wheel, Miller was riding shotgun and Dolak was in the rear.

After a bit Holinksy announced that they were being tailed by whom he thought were cops, but were in fact gun toting gangsters sent to kill them. Holinksy pulled over to see if the cops were indeed following them. A fatal error.

Seizing the opportunity the gangster car pulled up alongside and out jumped three men armed with pistols. Miller saw what was happening right away. He jumped out his door, on the sidewalk, got up and took off as one of the gunmen fired some shots in his direction. Holinsky and Dolak were trapped in their seats and the two remaining gunmen pumped bullet after bullet into their bodies. They lingered in the hospital a few hours before expiring.

The full story behind the kidnapping and other depredations of Holinksy & Dolak’s gang can be found in Bad Seeds in the Big Apple.

Warning! Hot stuff here.

Amorous guys in suits deux. Don't look at this smut while at work...unless of course you're already at work then don't get caught.

Five to one, baby

It was at 10:30p.m. on this date back in 1924 it was, when in the old Whitehand territory of Brooklyn known as Irishtown, now called Dumbo, thirty-four year old Felix Deegan was drunk and arguing with five guys.*

A beat cop came along and shooed the men away the and told Deegan to go home. An hour later the same officer responded to four gunshots and found Deegan sprawled on the sidewalk with two bullets in his head and two in his chest. Seeing the five men escaping in a taxi the cop commandeered another and gave chase but, alas, the gangsters escaped.

Deegan died during the ambulance ride to the hospital. Even though a .38 was found on his body and his family admitted that he was most likely killed in a gang feud, they denied he was a gangster. In fact he had just passed examinations and was awaiting an appointment in either the police or fire department.

*I have to doubt this portion of the story. Whoever heard of Irish guys getting drunk and arguing?

Ars Gratia Artis

Another dame with a Thompson. I guess this one is unfazed by crime. Her man is mortally wounded, police bullets are raining in and she looks like she's watching a seventy-three year old man change into a bathing suit.

Diamond wasn't Harry's best friend

10:00 p.m. tonight will mark the 82nd anniversary that Greene County, NY inn-keeper Harry Western received a phone call from Legs Diamond. Mr. Legs was in the process of monopolizing the Catskills beer and alky racket and Western wasn't playing ball. Western was at his inn, called the Chateau, near Lake Katrine when the call came saying get on over to Acra (Legs's house) pronto. Harry got in his car and headed over. Nobody ever saw Harry again. They saw his car with some blood in it, but nobody ever saw Harry again. One of Diamond's associates went to jail because he was caught with the blood stained car, but nobody ever saw Harry again. Authorities and the public  knew that Harry was killed by Diamond, but nobody ever saw Harry again. Nobody ever paid for what was done to Harry because, as they say,  no body no case. But some of the old timers say, especially after a few Ballantines, that some nights, especially on August 22, some people have seen a spectral figure wandering the cat roads of Greene County looking for his car. But the way I figures it, it can't be Harry cause nobody ever saw Harry again.

Gangster cinema

Came across this pic from an early 70s movie called The Grissom Gang. Anyone ever see it? Dames with Thompsons can't be all bad.

Working hard with your money

Things have been quiet at the Institute lately, namely because we were on a weeklong fact finding mission to Michigan. Have to use up those grant dollars somehow. So what facts did your hard earned tax dollars unearth? Many.
1) Sam Adams, Smithwicks and Leinenkugel summer shandy are available in and around Detroit; even found Pabst Blue Ribbon in a bottle. (For that last tidbit, the Fed should double next years money)
2) Detroit coneys are the best food in the world.
3) The Lincoln that President Kennedy was killed in is about eight feet away from the mens room in the Henry Ford Museum. Doesn't seem right. Look at car, review Zapruder film in head, meditate on significance of artifact in front of you, take twelve steps and relieve yourself.
4) And speaking of cars, there is a reason Detroit (ok, maybe the outskirts) is still the motor city,
5) On August 14, 1930, Gennaro Mangiapane, a fugitive from New York City, was driving along a Detroit thoroughfare with a pal when said pal whipped out a pistol and drilled Gennaro in the head. The pal then leapt from the car as the recently deceased Gennaro crashed into the curb.

They're dead...uh, they're all messed up.

This morning I ran into Mark the IT guy on the elevator. He said that our post from last Friday, Amorous Guys in Suits, has, to date, brought in forty-seven million hits from, presumably, the stay-at-home-mom market we've been trying to break into. Great news said I, adding, I wish there was some other niche market we could try to scam our way into penetrate. Mark said, "What about zombies?" I said, "What about them."Mark said, "They're big." I said, "I guess, depending on the size of the person who died." Mark said, "No I mean market wise, zombies are big." "Oh," Said I, "Run with it."
Welcome to this weeks edition of Walking Dead Guys in Suits.

Vacancy

 Vincent Pisano and Oresta DeRobertis were former members of the “Forty Thieves”, a gang that operated in the Gowanus area of Brooklyn. Back on this day in 1934 they were living in a small boarding house in that area. Each had a room on the top floor. At 4:00 a.m. two killers, each armed with a revolver,  gained entrance to the house. They ascended the stairs and then split up. they had been there before and knew which rooms were occupied by the former gang members. One entered Pisano’s room and the other DeRobertis’s. All the inhabitants of the boarding house were awakened moments later when the gunmen simultaneously emptied their pistols into their targets. Five of the six bullets fired at Pisano lodged in his abdomen while three out of the six fired at DeRobertis pierced his head.

Has it been a hundred and eleven years already???!!

Happy birfday to me!! Now get in here and eat some cake...unless I don't like youse then eat this .45 hollowpoint bullet...just kidding, have cake, really. By the way, I'd never say youse or birfday in real life. I talked like a poyfict gentleman.

Prepare the cold shower

As President and Grand Pooba of the DGIS Institute it is my job to insure that visitors receive quality, original content whilst also pleasing the shareholders, all while trying to appear sober. After many meetings and much market research, it was determined that, how did that guy in accounting put it, oh yeah, sex sells.  And the biggest thing now is, how did those snickering interns refer to it? Oh yeah, "mommy porn". So to attract a new readership without alienating our normal visitors, please enjoy this special edition of Amorous Guys in Suits.