Paul Kelly (1876 - 1936), born Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli, was a Sicilian American New York criminal who founded the Five Points Gang, one of the last dominant street gangs in New York history and recruited many of the most prominent criminals of the early 20th century, including Johnny Torrio, Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel and Frankie Yale. His year of birth is not reliably known. Some reports have him born in 1871 (as well his death in 1927), however his gravestone in Calvary Cemetery says he was born December 23, 1876 and died April 3, 1936. There are some doubts that the site is actually his grave.
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Biography
Early life
Born Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli in Sicily, he adopted an Irish surname when he began professional boxing after emigrating to New York in the early 1890s. Using money gained from prizefighting he began operating several bordellos in the Italian district east of the Bowery where he later opened several athletic clubs as a front for the local street gangs that began to come under his control.
Five Points Gang
Offering his services to Tammany Hall politician "Big" Tim Sullivan, Kelly's gang helped re-elect Tammany Hall incumbent Tom Foley against Paddy Divver, a local saloon owner campaigning to keep the red light districts out of the Fourth Ward during the 1901 Second Assembly District primary elections, forming one of the earliest and longest lasting partnerships between politics and organized crime. Throughout the election day on September 17 Kelly's gang of over 1,500 men openly assaulted Divver supporters, blocked polling booths, and committed numerous acts of voter fraud easily winning the election for Foley. Kelly later gained control of the vice districts of the Fourth and Sixth Wards, including prostitution, gaining a virtual monopoly in the Five Points.
In 1903 Kelly was arrested for assault and robbery and served nine months in jail. On release, Kelly formed the Paul Kelly Association, a new athletic club which he used to recruit younger criminals for his organization. The headquarters were located at 24 Stanton Street.
He soon after opened The New Brighton Athletic Club, a two story cafe and dance hall at 57 Great Jones Street (between Lafayette and Bowery) Kelly charmed socialites and other prominent citizens who frequented his club. Always well dressed, Kelly spoke French, Italian, and Spanish fluently and his educated and sophisticated nature impressed many of New York's elite. During that time Kelly's organization expanded into other parts of Manhattan and parts of New Jersey. However Kelly's image alienated many top gunmen who later left for the Monk Eastman Gang, such as "Kid Twist" Max Zwerbach and Richie Fitzpatrick. Others, such as Johnny Spanish, later left to go out on their own.
Rivalry with Monk Eastman
Kelly's main rival was Monk Eastman, whose gang of over 2,000 gunmen controlled New York's East Side. Eastman, an old-fashioned thug of the 19th century, was the complete opposite of the cultured Kelly, whom Eastman intensely disliked. While both gangs were under the control of Tammany Hall the two constantly fought over control of the "neutral" territory along the Bowery.
Paul Kelly's Five Points Gang controlled the area to the west of the Bowery, and the Eastmans, everything to the east. But a neutral territory was ordered by Tammany hall to be off-limits. Both gangs continued to disrespect the borders and Tammany Hall called both men to a sit-down meeting, where a prize fight was set up to settle the score once and for all. The winner would take control of the prized neutral territory, and the war will end. Both parties agreed, then met for a punishing slug-fest; however the fight ended in a draw, and the two parties went right back to war.
Eastman slipped up when he was arrested for robbing a man on the West Side who was being tailed by detectives. Eastman was arrested for robbery, and Tammany Hall, now eager to end the warfare between its two affiliated gangs, declined to provide protection. Eastman was sentenced to 10 years in Sing Sing Prison.
Kelly's downfall
With Eastman's arrest, Kelly completely controlled New York. However, members of the Five Points Gang continued to resent Kelly's behavior and in November 1908, Kelly's former lieutenants, Razor Riley and James T. "Biff" Ellison, now members of the Gopher Gang, attempted to assassinate Kelly. Walking into Kelly's New Brighton headquarters Riley and Ellison began firing. Kelly, drinking with bodyguards Bill Harrington and Rough House Hogan, returned fire. Harrington was killed protecting Kelly. After several minutes, Riley and Ellison escaped and, a wounded Kelly was taken to a private hospital before he could be arrested. Kelly turned himself in a month later, but charges were dropped due to Kelly's political connections. Ellison was later arrested in 1911 and sent to prison where he went insane, eventually dying in an asylum. Riley was found by police, dead from pneumonia, in his basement hideout in Chinatown. The negative publicity caused the New Brighton to be closed down by Police Commissioner William McAdoo for the protection of its socialite regulars, beginning the end of Paul Kelly's dominance in the New York underworld.
Final years
Tammany Hall also put pressure on Kelly to lower his profile as it sought to clean up the Bowery. After Kelly closed the New Brighton, he moved operations to the Italian immigrant communities in Harlem and Brooklyn. He also retained ties to his old neighborhood, becoming a vice president of the International Longshoremen's Association under the name Paul Vaccarelli, with his base in the Chelsea area. He was expelled from the ILA in 1919, but returned to it later that year after assuming leadership of a spontaneous port wide strike begun in protest against a five cent an hour wage increase agreed to by the leadership of the International Union. With the support of Mayor John F. Hylan, he was appointed to a commission created to resolve the strike, which he ended without obtaining any concessions for the strikers.
He became a labor racketeer, providing muscle in labor disputes during the 1920s, until his death from natural causes around 1936.
In popular culture
- Paul Kelly is a minor character in the 1994 novel The Alienist by Caleb Carr.
Further reading
- Kimeldorf, Howard, Reds or Rackets? The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront, University of California Press, 1988.
- Ferrara, Eric. Gangsters, Murderers & Weirdos of the Lower East Side; a self-guided walking tour, 2008
External links
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