Francis Crowley, nicknamed “Two Gun” because of the number of weapons he carried, had been in trouble with the law as a poor foster kid in Queens.
But he really amped up his bad-boy rep in February 1931, when he was 19, by shooting a couple of guys at a dance in the Bronx, then shooting a detective who tried to arrest him days later.
Over the next few months, Two Gun robbed a bank, burglarized the West 90th Street home of a wealthy real estate broker, and killed a dance-hall hostess.
His final crime: murdering a Long Island police officer. Days later, while hiding out with an accomplice in an Upper West Side apartment, hundreds of cops descended on the block, hell-bent on capturing Crowley.
After a two-hour gun and tear-gas battle at West End Avenue and 90th Street (above) witnessed by 15,000 New Yorkers, the police got their man. Crowley was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
His anti-police antics made him a popular national figure. But newspapers reported that he was a stupid street punk, “undersized, underchinned, underwitted” as a 1932 New York Times article states.
Only 20 when he was strapped into the chair at Sing Sing, his last words were reportedly, “You sons of bitches. Give my love to mother.”
Tags: Depression era New York, Francis Crowley, Francis Two Gun Crowley, Irish Gangsters in New York City, New York City in the 1930s, notorious gangsters, Sing Sing executions, Sing Sing prison, Upper West Side crime
May 4, 2010 at 4:04 pm |
Crowley was a real thug and sociopath. His life reads almost lke a cartoon character than a real person.