Collins died of pneumonia in Boston, on November 23, 1995. Five days later, he was buried at St. Joseph Cemetery in West Roxbury following a funeral Mass at Boston's Holy Cross Cathedral celebrated by Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, Archbishop of Catholic Archdiocese of Boston (1984–2002). Obituaries of him published in "MIT Tech Talk" and by the Associated Press, as well as his entry in "The Encyclopedia of the Irish in America" (1999) published by the University of Notre Dame Press and written by a member of the Society of Jesus, do not mention that the Boston Housing Authority actively segregated the public housing developments in the city during his tenure, that his property tax assessor's office implemented racially discriminatory assessments, the Boston Police Department response to the Grove Hall riots, or that the Boston Banks Urban Renewal Group redlined Blue Hill Avenue, but the Associated Press obituary noted that the urban renewal policies Collins implemented in Boston were emulated across the United States. In 2004, the same year Illinois State Senator Barack Obama gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, the city government commissioned a mural of Collins on the exterior of Boston City Hall adjacent to Government Center station and dedicated City Hall Plaza to him as well. The caption engraved in the mural's marker does not mention the segregationist and racially discriminatory housing policies of the Collins mayoral administration or the Grove Hall riots either.