After Dinner Smoked

It was about 6 o’clock in the evening of August 4, 1921 when New York City gangster Frank Lorella finished a sandwich and coffee at a Lower East Side food stand and walked to his car. Sliding into the driver's seat he lit a cigarette and released the break in preparation to pull out into traffic. Before he had a chance get moving, a “squat, swarthy man” appeared and opened fire with a .25 automatic pistol. The first shot missed Lorella, who ducked down in the front seat. At the sound of the gunfire pandemonium broke out on the street. The gunman, ignoring the mayhem, walked up to the car and fired four more times hitting Lorella in the throat, arm, side and heart, killing him. His mission complete, the killer escaped through a nearby tenement.

According to his police record, Lorella did a ten-month stretch starting on October10, 1910 and got another two years on July 30, 1913. He also did three years in New Jersey for burglary. He was last in police custody the previous April 16, when he was arrested for carrying a gun.

Frank Lorella

Sunday Night is Alright for Fighting

Ninety-five years ago tonight, a Sunday it was, a large group of guys and dolls were lining the stairwell of a lower eastside building waiting to get into a night club on the third floor. As the band was getting ready to play a couple of shots rang out and the throng of people ran out into the streets. One man, Michael Dimesci, ran across the street and dropped dead with a bullet in the heart.

Frankie Uale

The police sent officers to all the hospitals in the area to see if anyone else showed up. Within the hour Brooklyn mobster Frankie Uale stumbled into one with a bullet wound to the lung. Uale said he just happened to be walking by the club when the shooting took place and had no idea what it was about. Police later asserted that they believe the Brooklyn Mafioso was the intended target and that Dimesci may have been an innocent bystander.