The scene of the crimes

Last week’s photograph of a Gowanus diner led me to a story about its proprietor, Michael Tolopka, being robbed of $240 at 4th Avenue and Union Street. My friend Slywy snagged the Daily News article with more details:

[Daily News, November 11, 1941.]

Tolopka was robbed outside a bar and grill. There was only one such establishment at the intersection of 4th Avenue and Union Street: the College Restaurant.

[224 4th Avenue, Gowanus, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Between 1930 and 1944, at least five other Brooklyn restaurants had the word college in their names, each establishment apparently independent of the others. My guess is that the name of the College Inn restaurant in Chicago’s Hotel Sherman inspired copycats.

In 1961, the College Restaurant on 4th Avenue was the scene of a crime far more spectacular than the Tolopka robbery.

[Brooklyn Daily, October 6, 1961. Click for a larger view.]

In June 1961, Joseph Magnasco (b. 1925), was among those convicted of hijacking a truckful of linen. He was shot and killed before being sentenced. A Getty-owned photograph shows a priest administering last rites to the dead Magnasco on the sidewalk. All the hijacking convictions were later reversed.

This Wikipedia article, though it doesn’t mention Magnasco, gives some context for his killing: a battle between the Gallo and Profaci crime families. A 1961 newspaper article calls Magnasco a “top level Gallo mobster.” A 1963 article identifies Magnasco as a “Gallo henchman”; another calls him a “Gallo mobster.”

And there’s a complication: Magnasco seems to have defected from the Profaci family.

[Newsday, October 5, 1961. Click for larger views.]

Magnasco’s killing appears to have gone unsolved.

Joseph Magnasco previously made the news in 1947, when he attempted to rob a railroad-station safe in Lynnbrook, Long Island. An May 19 article from the Nassau Daily Review-Star reports that “Woman Routs Thug Saving $1,600 At Railroad Station.” Magnasco attempted to take money from an open safe and fought with a female ticket agent before fleeing. A May 20 article reports that a police officer noticed a man walking along a road with a bloody handkerchief around one hand. That was Magnasco. The officer was rewarded with a day off to go fishing. Magnasco later pleaded guilty to possession of an automatic pistol. It’s not clear that he faced any other charges.

[Nassau Daily Review-Star, May 20, 1947.]

Here’s a better likeness, most likely a mug shot from a later arrest:

[Joseph Magnasco, n.d.]

There’s just one Joseph Magnasco in the 1940 census who was born in 1925. He was a fifteen-year-old resident of The Children’s Village, a home for orphans and troubled boys in Dobbs Ferry, New York. From the Children’s Village website:

1958: The Children’s Village was officially designated a Residential Treatment Center. This came as the culmination of the evolution from an orphanage to a residential school for troubled boys to a true clinical program capable of meeting the needs of seriously disturbed children.

I wonder if this Joseph — who must be the one I’m writing about — was the son of Pietro Magnasco, a Brooklyn union organizer and racketeer who was arrested for murder in January 1930 and was shot to death in May 1930. With each man, a five-month gap between arrest and murder. Pretty eerie.

On a happier note, notice the sign over the College Restaurant: the Scuola Gratuita di Italiano e di Musica. I hope I’m reading the small words correctly.

Also on a happier note, Taheni, a Mediterranean grill, now occupies the first floor at 224.

I would still like to know what Michael Tolopka was doing with $1240 in cash in his pockets.

Thanks to Brian, Slywy, Brooklyn Newsstand, and NYS Historic Newspapers.

*

A few more details: There’s just the one Joseph Magnasco in the Social Security Death Index. Find a Grave reveals an interesting detail: Magnasco served as a corporal in the Marine Corps Reserve in World War II.

A little more: I found Joseph Magnasco in the 1950 census (it’s impossible to link directly to the relevant page). He was then living in a basement apartment at 100 Garfield Place, Park Slope, Brooklyn, with Urbano DeSantis, sixty-three, a bricklayer; Christine DeSantis, forty-five, Urbano’s wife; and Angelo DeSantis, thirty, their son, a photographer. Magnasco, twenty-five, also identified as a son, is listed as unemployed but looking for work. My guess for now is that Christine is his mother, remarried. The distance from the College Restaurant to Garfield Place: three-tenths of a mile.

*

Here’s Christine Magnasco in the 1940 census, thirty-five, widowed, neither working nor looking for work, living in an apartment at 59 Lincoln Place, Park Slope. A puzzle: she’s listed as the head of a household of nine, yet she’s the only person listed at this address. Perhaps she was managing a household of several generations.

*

Just one more bit, again moving backwards: this article identifies the body found on a New Jersey farm in May 1930 as Peter Magnaro. At least that was the name on his driver’s license.

[“Brooklyn Man Is Found Slain on Jersey Farm.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 23, 1930. Click for a larger view.]

So: Peter Magnaro, killed in a bootlegging war, was Pietro Magnasco, husband of Christine, father of Joseph. I’m closing the case.

Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)