Local 107 union hall, on Spring Garden Street in Philadelphia, stands in Frank Sheeran’s account as more than a union meeting place: it became the physical center of a struggle over who would control Local 107, its jobs, and its relationship to the competing factions around it. A killing associated with the hall in 1964 was followed by a large rally and a gun battle in 1967; the building then burned, with no culprit identified. Its story tracks the way labor politics, factional power, and street violence converged at one contested site.

A Hall at the Center of Local Conflict

The hall appears in Sheeran’s recollection as the headquarters of a union local whose internal divisions had consequences beyond union procedure. The conflict involved organizers, business agents, local officers, and rival groups seeking influence over union positions. By 1967, tensions had intensified after a series of firings. One faction, led by Joey McGreal and supported by a crew described as muscle, wanted to take over Local 107 and secure its union jobs. Sheeran says the purpose was to use those positions to pressure trucking companies and enrich the faction.

The building’s location on Spring Garden Street made the contest visible in the surrounding neighborhood. During the September rally, people moved along the street outside the hall, shouting and fighting, while thousands gathered. The dispute was not confined to a closed meeting or a contest for office: the hall and the street around it became the setting where opposing claims to union authority were publicly tested.

The 1964 Killing and Disputed Motives

The hall was associated with violence before the 1967 confrontation. Sheeran recalls that John Gorey and his girlfriend Rita were shot at the union hall in 1964. Gorey was connected to the Voice of Teamsters Local 107, a dissident group, and the FBI’s explanation, as Sheeran describes it, was that he had been killed for being a rebel. Sheeran disputes that account. He argues that Gorey was not a leading figure in the Voice and that, if silencing the organization had been the purpose, its head, Charlie Meyers, would have been a more consequential target.

Sheeran also rejects the idea that there was corruption for the Voice to expose, saying corruption was already commonly known. He offers no settled alternative explanation for the killing. Instead, he describes several possibilities in the general world of gambling debts: a debtor might be punished for defiance or disrespect, owe too much to negotiate, exhaust the patience of those negotiating with him, or be made an example to other customers. He also says a debtor might ordinarily be beaten rather than killed. These possibilities remain speculation, not a resolution of what happened to Gorey and Rita; in Sheeran’s account, the hall’s earlier association with the shooting adds a history of unresolved violence to the later union battle.

Rally and Gun Battle in 1967

In September 1967, McGreal’s faction held a large rally in front of the hall. Sheeran estimates that about 3,000 people from different factions were present. People shouted and walked back and forth outside, and fistfights broke out. McGreal’s supporters included Robert “Lonnie” DeGeorge and Charles Amoroso. Sheeran describes their aim as intimidating the organizers, business agents, and local officers into leaving their positions and surrendering the building. Mounted police struggled to manage the crowd that night.

Sheeran says he was not at the rally. The following morning, Fitz called him at home and instructed him to get the situation under control, anticipating that the crowd might return. Sheeran understood this as a demand for force. He called Angelo Bruno and borrowed several men, including Joseph Ciancaglini and Rocco Turra. He placed men inside the hall to watch from the windows and others on the street. With his back to the building, he watched two groups approach each other from opposite ends of Spring Garden Street: McGreal’s people from one direction and men loyal to the local from the other.

Gunfire began suddenly. Sheeran recalls that the first shot came from behind him and passed close to his head. He rejects the claim that he signaled for the shooting to start or pointed out DeGeorge as a target. In the confusion, he says, people could not establish who was shooting at whom or who fired first. The mounted police who had been present the previous night had not yet arrived. The hall thus became both a position to defend and the backdrop to a battle whose beginning and responsibility remained disputed.

Injuries, Investigation, and the Building’s Destruction

Joseph Ciancaglini was hit twice in the abdomen. Sheeran pulled him into a car and took him to a doctor, who urged immediate hospital treatment because he expected the wounds to be fatal. Sheeran then brought Ciancaglini to St. Agnes Hospital, across from the doctor’s office, and rattled the garbage cans until someone came out to receive him. Ciancaglini survived.

Sheeran went into hiding in an apartment over a bar in Newport, Delaware, and later returned to Philadelphia to surrender. The district attorney’s office issued a warrant; Ciancaglini and two other men were arrested as well. All three were tried within six weeks and acquitted. Sheeran, however, remained in jail for four months before being released on his own bail. He says he received no help from Fitz, and that his imprisonment cost him the chance to campaign in a Local 326 election in Wilmington, which he lost by only a few votes.

The legal consequences tied to the gun battle continued for years. Prosecutors pursued a first-degree murder case against Sheeran over DeGeorge, although a senior prosecutor told Arlen Specter that the evidence did not even support manslaughter. Sheeran says the charges remained in the system from 1967 to 1972. At a later court proceeding, he emphasized the imbalance in delay: the Commonwealth had sought 68 postponements, while he had requested none. He also says no guns were found and that, given the number of people present and the volume of shooting, it was impossible to establish who had shot whom.

Around the same period, the union hall burned to the ground. Sheeran says those involved suspected either the Voice or McGreal’s faction, but never learned who was responsible. Soon after the fire, Local 107 president Mike Hession stepped down; Sheeran attributes the resignation to the strain of the conflict. With the building gone and responsibility for its destruction undetermined, the hall’s final place in the narrative is as a site where factional struggle left consequences that outlasted the physical structure: injuries, arrests, prosecutions, imprisonment, and the loss of a center of local union life.