Accused of murdering a fifteen-year-old boy during a drive by shooting, Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll (far right) and his mob yucked it up with reporters during the trial.
Location: 312 West 23rd Street
Status: Standing
By February of 1932, there wasn’t a soul in New York who didn’t want Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll on a slab in the morgue. The psychopathic egg had blow torched every bridge in gangland, and now Coll had to die
Powerful Enemies
During Prohibition’s heyday, Coll and his mob amassed a legendary list of underworld adversaries such as Lucky Luciano, Dutch Schultz and Owney Madden. First to join Coll’s list was the Beer Barron of the Bronx, Dutch Schultz, Coll’s former employer.
Paid to protect Dutch’s beer trucks, Coll, suffering from delusions of grandeur, decided to hijack the shipments instead. Schultz responded by putting the blast on Mad Dog’s kid brother and all out war erupted in the spring of 1931.
Now a Petland Discounts store, 312 West 23rd Street played host to Coll’s brutal machine gun murder.
Racketeer Without a Racket
Without a racket to fund his war against Dutch, the freelance gangster hatched the incredibly idiotic plan of kidnapping wealthy bootleggers like Big Frenchy DeMange, best friend of Hell’s Kitchen’s resident vice lord and owner of the Cotton Club, Owney Madden, whose nickname just happened to be “Killer.”
Coll made a clean sneak from the crime, shaking $50,000 out of Madden, but the Mad Dog wasn’t done by a long shot.
On July 28, Coll and his chopper squad loaded their tommy guns, jumped into a sedan and strafed the Helmar Social Club, headquarters of Schultz policy boss, Joey Rao. Machine gun gun bullets cut down five children, killing Michael Vengalli along with two Schultz heavies.
The Making of Mad Dog
In response to the brutal crime, New York Mayor Jimmy Walker dubbed Vincent Coll, “Mad Dog,” but Coll wasn’t finished alienating the powerful. In September of 1931, Salvatore Maranzano hired Coll to bump off Lucky Luciano.
However, Luciano’s men beat Coll to the punch, arriving a few minutes earlier to dispatch Maranzano. Coll walked away from the scene smiling and with yet another nemesis.
Mad Dog Coll
Joseph Bonnano noted in his autobiography, A Man of Honor,
“Luciano told me he was forced to strike against Maranzano after learning that Maranzano had hired Vincent Coll to kill Luciano.”—Joseph Bonnano
Owney Madden Puts Mad Dog Coll on the Spot
With the police hounding him and every mob in New York hunting him, Coll checked into the Cornish Arms Hotel on 23rd Street. On February 8, he walked into the London Chemist drugstore (now Pet Land Discounts) located at 312 West 23rd Street. Waiting for a phone call from Owney Madden to discuss a truce, Coll walked straight into an ambush.
Gangland put Mad Dog Coll on the spot at 312 West 23rd street at the London Chemists.
Phone Booth Massacre
When Coll entered a phone booth and spoke with Madden, the trap was sprung. Outside, a large limousine roared up to the curb, spilling out three gangsters.
The bullet riddled phone booth in which Mad Dog Coll was cut down. (Library of congress )
Two of the torpedoes covered the door, while a third drew a Thompson submachine gun from his trench coat, walked up to Coll’s phone booth and sprayed it with lead, killing the psychopathic, twenty three year old Coll instantly. According to the New York Evening Post:
“How many shots were fired is not known. Some witnesses said fifteen others said fifty. As the killer backed out of the store, the door of the booth opened slowly and Coll’s body pitched forward, three bullets in the head, three in the chest, one in the abdomen and eight and the arms and legs.”—New York Evening Post, 1932
The murder of Vincent Coll remains unsolved.
A New York City police officer standing in front of the drugstore where gangster Vincent Coll was murdered. (Photo Library of Congress.
Infamous New York 