100 years ago in The Record
Saturday, Dec. 29, 1917
A Troy man is hospitalized with a bullet in his back tonight after a running gunfight in which “at least twenty” shots are fired. Tony Patsicelli of 1457 Fifth Avenue is expected to recover from the wound in “the fleshy part” of his back, according to doctors at Troy Hospital. Investigators believe that he was wounded in a shootout with three other men, but he refuses to cooperate with the authorities. Patsicelli is shot somewhere between Ralph Miller’s store at Fourth and Adams streets and the intersection of Liberty Street and the Church Street alley. He’s able to walk away from the encounter, but is arrested by police on Washington Street. “This section has been the scene of several Italian shooting affrays and it was near here that Policeman McMahon of the First precinct station was murdered [in 1910],” The Record notes. Ralph Miller claims that “he did not know the men nor did he know anything concerning the trouble,” but investigators believe that the trouble started in his store. “An argument started over some trivial matter and the men left the place,” our paper reports. Shortly after Patsicelli leaves Miller’s place, he starts chasing three other men up Fourth Street, following them as they turn into Washington Street and then into Church Street. Somewhere in the alley he turns back. “When he stopped his offensive drive the trio launched a counterattack,” our scribe writes in a parody of war reporting.
Three police officers responding to reports of shots fired see Patsicelli’s three antagonists running up the alley. Outside effective shooting range, the police give chase but lose track of their quarry after the trio turns west on Liberty. The detail comes across Patsicelli “some time later.”
Since Patsicelli, “with the reticence that characterizes so many of his countrymen,” refuses to cooperate, the only clues investigators have to work with are two hats found on Church Street, presumably belonging to the gunmen.
Unfair schedule
The Delaware & Hudson Railroad, now under federal administration, has postponed a schedule change designed to conserve coal after a protest from Troy mayor Cornelius F. Burns. The mayor tells The Record that a 1918 schedule submitted to the Chamber of Commerce earlier today eliminates a number of weekday trains serving Troy, when the D&H had stated earlier this weekend that service would be reduced only on Sundays. D& H vice president F. P. Gutelius agrees to the postponement according to the terms of an agreement by which the railroad will implement no schedule changes without consulting the mayor first.