Editing Paul Kelly Association

{{SHORTDESC:Italian-American Lower East Side organization led by Paul Kelly}}
{{Infobox criminal organization
| name = Paul Kelly Association
| also_known_as = Paul Kelly Club<br>Paul Kelly gang
| image = Paul Kelly McClures Magazine 1909.jpg
| image_alt = Contemporary magazine photograph of Paul Kelly
| caption = Paul Kelly in a photograph published by ''McClure's Magazine'' in 1909
| founder = Francesco Paolo “Paul Kelly” Vaccarelli
| founding_location = Lower East Side, Manhattan, New York City
| headquarters = Mulberry Street north of Broome Street {{small|(early)}}<br>57–59 Great Jones Street {{small|(by 1905)}}<br>338 Bowery {{small|(athletic-club address)}}
| territory = Lower East Side north of the historic Five Points intersection
| structure = Social and athletic association linked to cooperating neighborhood crews
| ethnicity = Primarily Italian-American
| activities = Election fraud<br>Hired violence and assault<br>Gang fighting<br>Protection of criminal businesses<br>Dances, picnics and ticket sales
| leader = Francesco Paolo “Paul Kelly” Vaccarelli
| notable_members = John “Kid Griffo” Cucco<br>Thomas “Eat-'em-up Jack” McManus
| allies = [[Five Points Gang]] crews<br>[[James Street Gang]] {{small|(affiliated under Johnny Torrio)}}
| rivals = [[Eastman Gang]]
| years_active = c. 1901–late 1905
| dissolved_date = Late 1905
| dissolution_cause = Little Naples shooting<br>Police closure pressure<br>Kelly's withdrawal to East Harlem
}}

The '''Paul Kelly Association''' was an Italian-American gang and social or athletic association active on Manhattan's Lower East Side from approximately 1901 until late 1905. It was led by Italian-born former boxer Francesco Paolo Vaccarelli, who used the name Paul Kelly. Contemporary newspapers called it the Paul Kelly Association, Paul Kelly Club or Paul Kelly gang; later writers frequently identified it with the [[Five Points Gang]].<ref name="Informer">[https://books.google.com/books?id=Bk3UEAAAQBAJ ''Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement''], October 2023, pp. 35–50, 77–84.</ref>

==Organization and territory==
Kelly was involved in prizefighting and gang activity by 1901. Newspapers in 1902–03 reported his association separately from the Five Points Italian gang, although the organizations cooperated against Monk Eastman's network.<ref name="EW1902">[https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030193/1902-09-30/ed-1/?sp=6 “Gangsters Battle in City Streets”], ''The Evening World'', September 30, 1902, p. 6.</ref><ref name="EW1903">[https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030193/1903-04-18/ed-1/?sp=8 “Gang Men to Fight Eastman”], ''The Evening World'', April 18, 1903, p. 8.</ref> A modern reconstruction in ''Informer'' places Kelly's territory primarily north of the historic Five Points intersection rather than inside the old neighborhood itself.<ref name="Informer" />

The association first operated above a Mulberry Street saloon north of Broome Street. By 1905 its center was Kelly's Brighton or New Brighton establishment—also called Little Naples—at 57–59 Great Jones Street, with an official athletic-club address at 338 Bowery.<ref name="Informer" /> Kelly's organization combined a social-club structure with cooperating neighborhood crews. Contemporary reports linked it to election repeating, paid violence, gang fighting and fundraising through dances, picnics and ticket sales.<ref>[https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030193/1903-10-23/ed-1/?sp=10 “Price List for Crime”], ''The Evening World'', October 23, 1903, p. 10.</ref><ref>[https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1903-10-11/ed-1/?sp=20 “Thus Does a Gang Grow Up”], ''The Sun'', October 11, 1903, p. 20.</ref>

==Composition and alliances==
The association was primarily Italian-American. The evidence reviewed does not support the familiar formula that Kelly founded a predominantly Irish gang or that his core organization had a settled Italian-Irish-Jewish membership balance. Jewish and Eastern European gangsters were especially prominent in the rival Eastman network, while individual crews and alliances crossed ethnic lines.<ref name="Informer" /> John “Kid Griffo” Cucco was a well-supported lieutenant, and the association paid for Thomas “Eat-'em-up Jack” McManus's funeral in 1905. Jack Sirocco and Johnny Torrio commanded allied or separately organized crews and should not automatically be treated as Kelly subordinates.<ref name="Informer" />

Biographers describe Torrio's [[James Street Gang]] as allied or affiliated with the Five Points network. Robert J. Schoenberg says Torrio “allied his James Streeters with the Five Points gang,” and John Kobler calls Torrio's organization an “affiliated gang.”<ref name="Schoenberg">Robert J. Schoenberg, [https://books.google.com/books?id=zTLSKm2cby0C&pg=PT31 ''Mr. Capone''] (William Morrow, 1992), chapter 2.</ref><ref name="Kobler">John Kobler, [https://books.google.com/books?id=79AhDnSpZhQC&pg=PA26 ''Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone''] (Da Capo Press edition), p. 26.</ref>

==Eastman conflict==
Contemporary newspapers document repeated fighting in 1902–03 between Kelly's association, cooperating Five Points crews and the [[Eastman Gang|Eastman network]]. Reports connected the conflict to territory, political work and hired violence. These accounts support a coalition of crews more strongly than Herbert Asbury's later depiction of a single centralized army.<ref name="EW1902" /><ref name="EW1903" /><ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1903/09/17/archives/an-east-side-vendetta-monk-eastmans-gang-run-riot-with-pistols-and.html “An East Side Vendetta”], ''The New York Times'', September 17, 1903.</ref>

==Decline==
In November 1905, gunmen attacked Little Naples. William Harrington was killed and Kelly was wounded. Police moved to close the Great Jones Street businesses, and Kelly abruptly left the association and Lower East Side gang life for East Harlem.<ref>[https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1905-11-24/ed-1/?sp=2 “One Dead in Gang Battle”], ''The Sun'', November 24, 1905, p. 2.</ref><ref>[https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030214/1905-11-23/ed-1/?sp=1 “Gangsters Shoot Up Kelly's Place”], ''New-York Tribune'', November 23, 1905, p. 1.</ref><ref name="Informer" /> This supports an organizational endpoint in late 1905, although former associates and the Five Pointers label persisted.

==Later Five Points narrative==
Herbert Asbury's 1928 account called Kelly “chieftain of the Five Pointers,” attributed approximately 1,500 members to him and described a large centralized territory and hierarchy.<ref name="Asbury">Herbert Asbury, [https://archive.org/details/the-gangs-of-new-york-herbert-asbury/page/n277/mode/2up ''The Gangs of New York''] (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928), pp. 272–296.</ref> Those details appeared more than two decades after Kelly's Lower East Side career and are not consistently corroborated by the contemporary reports. They are therefore treated as Asbury's later narrative rather than settled organizational facts.

==See also==
* [[Five Points Gang]]
* [[Five Points gangs]]
* [[James Street Gang]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly, Paul Association}}
[[Category:Former gangs in New York City]]
[[Category:Italian-American organized crime groups]]
[[Category:Lower East Side]]