Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set (11 page)

In 1935, Johnson and St. Clair caught a break, when Luciano, tired of the murderous Schultz's unpredictable violence, had Schultz gunned down in a New Jersey steakhouse. Luciano gave Schultz's numbers rackets to “Trigger” Mike Coppola, a captain in what was later to be called the “Genovese Crime Family.”

However,  Luciano, remembering Johnson's capabilities, cut a deal with Johnson, allowing Johnson and St. Clair to keep their independent Harlem numbers business intact. This made Johnson an instant hero to the black people in Harlem, and it also gave Johnson respect and credibility with the Italian mob. Soon, St. Clair opted for retirement, and she turned over her number business to Johnson.

With the backing of the Italian mob, Johnson became “The Man” in Harlem. Johnson rubbed elbows with many Harlem celebrities, including Bill "
Bojangles" Robinson, Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, and World Middleweight Champion Sugar Ray Robinson. Johnson was also the uncrowned “Crime Boss of Harlem,” and no one could run an illegal operation in Harlem without clearing it with Johnson first and cutting him in for a piece of the pie.

From 1940 until 1968, Johnson acted as a “middleman,” between the Genovese Crime Family, who operated out of Italian Harlem (the area surrounding East 116
th
Street), and the black gangsters operating out of the main section of Harlem. Johnson brokered numerous drug deals between black drug dealers and the Italian suppliers, who were importing the drugs from overseas. Johnson was also known as a “persuader,” or a high-level gangster, who could settle mob disputes before they erupted into violence. It is estimated that during the time he was in power in Harlem, Johnson brokered deals, mostly drug affairs, involving tens of millions of dollars with the Genovese Crime Family.

In 1952, Johnson was indicted for conspiracy to sell heroin. He was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison. While he was at Alcatraz, it was rumored Johnson helped three fellow inmates escape. Although he stood put himself, Johnson was said to have arranged to have a boat to pick up the three escapees, once they slipped out of prison and made it to San Francisco Bay.

Johnson was released from prison in 1963, and when he returned to Harlem, the local folk threw him a ticker tape parade. In December 1965, Johnson led a sit-down strike in a police station, refusing to leave, as a protest against the cops conducting unreasonable surveillances on his crew. Johnson was charged with "refusal to leave a police station," but at trial he was found not guilty.

On July 7, 1968, Johnson, under indictment  by the feds for drug conspiracy, was at Wells Restaurant in Harlem at 2 a.m., munching on a meal of chicken legs and hominy grits, washed down by coffee. Suddenly, Johnson grabbed his chest, and he toppled to the floor.

With two lifelong friends at his side,  Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson died of a heart attack at the age of 63, forever to be known as the “Harlem Godfather.”

K
aplan, Nathan (Kid Dropper)

Nathan Kaplan was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1891. Kaplan took to the streets as a youth, and soon he became engaged in petty swindles, such as the “dropper” scheme.

When no one was watching, Kaplan would conveniently “drop” a wallet full of counterfeit money on the sidewalk. Then he would immediately “find” the wallet, and look for a sucker, whom he told, “Lookit, I don't have time to locate the owner. You take the wallet and find the owner. Give me half of what you think the reward money will be.”

Dupes constantly fell for this scheme, hence Kaplan was given the nickname “Kid Dropper.”

Because of his expertise in making an illegal buck, Dropper joined Paul Kelly's (Paolo Vaccarelli) Five Points Gang, which was quite unusual for the Jewish Dropper, since the vast majority  of Kelly's gang members were of Italian descent.

Yet, Dropper did not last too long with the Five Pointers. In 1911, he was arrested for armed robbery and sentenced to seven years in Sing
Sing Prison. By the time Dropper was released in 1917, Kelly's gang had been disbanded. Dropper, considered a minor criminal before he went to jail, fancied himself as successor to Kelly, and he grabbed Kelly's labor rackets business.

In his past life, Dropper was a habitual wearer of slovenly attire, in other words, he dressed like a bum. Now as a boss, Dropper started to dress accordingly. He threw away his normal rags, and started prancing around the streets in loud checkered suits, pointed shoes, shirts and ties with loud colors and outlandish designs, and a straw hat or a derby tilted rakishly over one eye.

Dropper soon compiled a motley crew of low-level gangsters. He called his gang, “The Rough Riders of Jack Dropper.” However, Dropper soon found himself in a war for control of Kelly’s old rackets with an old foe who had just been released from prison himself.

Before his incarceration, Dropper had made a very bad enemy in fellow Five Pointer Johnny Spanish, a Spanish Jew; real name Joseph Weyler. The two men had been pals, until 1911, when Spanish had to take it on the lam for a shooting which resulted in the death of an innocent eight-year-old girl. Spanish split town for a few months, and when he came back he found Dropper had stolen his girlfriend. Spanish, who carried four guns with him at all times, proceeded to pepper his former lover with multiple gunshots. Somehow the woman survived, but Spanish got seven years in prison for his actions.

When he was released in 1917, Spanish took dead aim at Dropper and every illegal activity Dropper controlled. Each man had approximately three dozen shooters under their wings, and these shooters went to work, resulting in the deaths of several men on both sides. The war ended, when Dropper got the drop on Spanish, so to speak, after he and two of his men ambushed Spanish as Spanish exited a restaurant at 19 Second Avenue. When the dust settled, Spanish was dead, and Dropper was now in charge of all the strong-arm tactics used by several unions to control their men.

Between 1920 and 1923, Dropper and his gang were responsible for more than 20 murders. However, in these rackets, when you kill one competitor, another one usually emerges from the shadows intent on doing to you what you did to the other guy, to gain control of whatever illegal activities you dominated. This person emerged in the name of  Jacob “Little Augie” Orgen.

Little Augie had in his stable a crew of every capable killers, which included Jack “Legs” Diamond, Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, and Gurrah Shapiro. In 1922 and 1923, Dropper's gang and Little Augie's gang turned Manhattan into one big shooting gallery. The result was 23 murders, including the death of one innocent man who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In 1923, Dropper was arrested on a concealed weapons charge. He was soon released outside the Essex Market Court, on Second Avenue and Second  Street. There were rumors that a death squad was  awaiting his release, so as he stepped into a waiting taxi, Dropper was surrounded by a phalanx of cops.

Dropper was sitting in the back seat of the taxi next to Detective Jesse Joseph, when a minor thug working for Little Augie, named Louis Kushner, rushed from behind the cab and shot Dropper through the closed window, twice in the head.

Dropper's wife rushed to her mortally wounded  husband, and said, “Nate! Nate! Tell me you were not what they say you were.”

Dropper gasped, and with his last breath he said, “They got me.”

Then he keeled sideways, dead, his head nestled on Detective Joseph's shoulder.

Kushner, restrained by several burly cops, was obviously proud of his handiwork. He smiled at the coppers, and snapped, “I got him! Now give me a cigarette!”

K
elly, Paul (Paulo Vaccarelli)

In the early 1900's, Paul Kelly was the most high-profile gangster in New York City. Real name Paulo Vaccarelli, Kelly was born in Sicily in 1879. He immigrated to America in the early 1890's, and soon became a bantamweight boxer of some repute. He changed his name from the Italian Vaccarelli to the Irish-sounding Kelly, in order to get more fights, at a time when being Italian in America was considered being a low-class citizen of ill repute.

Unlike most gangsters of his day, Kelly was an intelligent, erudite man, who could speak three languages. Kelly was a dapper dresser and an easy person to like, which is why he was able to recruit so many quality gangsters to work for him.

After Kelly retired from boxing, he formed the notorious Five Points Gang in Lower Manhattan. The 1,500-member Five Points Gang was the breeding ground for some of the most famous gangsters ever to set foot in America. Their members included Johnny Torrio and Al Capone (both of whom later emigrated to control Chicago), Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Lucky Luciano, and Frankie Yale.

While Kelly's gang was almost entirely comprised of Italians, his main nemesis was Monk Eastman, who headed a 2000-strong, mostly Jewish gang. Kelly and Eastman's crew fought often and violently. The dividing line between their territories was the Bowery. Kelly's domain was west of the Bowery, and Eastman ruled to the east of the Bowery. Everything else was neutral territory, and that's where the trouble began, resulting in disputes over who controlled what and where.

Both Kelly and Eastman worked for Tammany Hall as head-busters on Election Day, when
either one group, or the other, would stand guard at all the polling places, making sure that the Tammany Hall-backed candidate won the election. Finally, the two gangs became so out-of-control dangerous to the community, the Tammany Hall bosses ordered Eastman and Kelly to duke it out, mano a mano, with the winner getting control of the prized neutral territories.

The two men went at it for a full two hours, and even though the ex-boxer Kelly was 50 pounds lighter than the hulking Eastman, neither man was able to knock the other man out. The fight was ruled a draw, and Kelly and Eastman went back to their usual violent territorial disputes.

Kelly's base of operations was his fancy New Brighton Athletic Club on Great Jones Street, just north of Houston Street. In April 1905, police raided the club, and they arrested several members, including Kelly. Even though four policemen testified they had witnessed illegal activities in the club, due to the false testimony of a police captain named Burke and a Tammany Hall-appointed judge named Barlow, Kelly's case was summarily dismissed, to the roar of a cheering crowd of  hundreds of Kelly's supporters assembled in the courtroom.

In November 1908, Kelly's luck ran out, when two of his former henchmen, Biff Ellison and Razor Riley, barged into the New Brighton Athletic Club, with guns blazing. Kelly was sitting at a table with his two bodyguards, Bill Harrington and Rough House Hogan. Kelly dove under the table, but not before he was shot three times. Harrington took a bullet in the head, and he died instantly. Kelly fired back from under the table, and he injured both Ellison and Riley.

Even though he recovered from his injuries, Kelly's clout was never the same after the shooting incident. Within days, since Kelly's new-found notoriety had cost him the favor of Tammany Hall, police shut down the New Brighton Athletic Club. Kelly relocated to Italian Harlem, and he toned down his criminal activities, to a point. Kelly became intimately involved in union activities, some legal and some not-so-legal. Through intimidation and strong-arm tactics, Kelly was eventually elected vice president of the International Longshoremen Association.

Unlike his arch enemy Eastman, who was shot to death on the streets in 1920, Kelly died in 1936 of natural causes.

L
ansky, Meyer

Born
Majer Suchowlinki on July 4 1902, in Grodno, Poland, Meyer Lansky was considered one of the great masterminds of the modern day mob.

In 1911, Lansky's family immigrated to New York City, and they took up residence at 6 Columbia Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. As a boy, Lansky learned the trade of tool and die making. He also dabbled as an auto mechanic, and for a short time he worked in a factory. Tired of the 9-5 drag, Lansky hooked up with fellow Lower East
Sider, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel (no one called him Bugsy to his face), and they started an auto-theft racket. Siegel would steal the cars. Lansky would get them in good working order, and then sell them.

They soon formed the violent “Bugs and Meyer Mob,” which delved heavily in the illegal booze business. When Lansky and Siegel weren't hired as muscle to protect other bootlegger's shipments, they were hijacking liquor trucks themselves, sometimes even the trucks of the bootleggers whom they were supposed to be protecting.

The “Bugs and Meyer Mob” was also intimately involved in violent “schlammings” (beating up people for a fee) and a few murders, as long as the price was right. The murder business was so lucrative, several of  the “Bugs and Meyer Mob” alumni eventually became key members of “Murder Incorporated,” which terrorized the streets of New York City in the 1930's. These killers included Joe “Doc” Stacher, Joe Adonis, Abner “Longie” Zwillmen, and Arthur “Dutch Schultz” Flegenheimer.

As a young man, Lansky became fast friends with Italian mobster Lucky Luciano. Lansky and Luciano joined forces with men like Arnold “The Brain” Rothstein, and they began to run their crime enterprises like a business, with violence used only as a last resort.

In 1931, after the deaths of Mafia bosses Salvatore Maranzano and Joe “The Boss” Masseria (both were ordered killed by Luciano), Lansky and Luciano transformed the mob into one National Crime Syndicate, with men of assorted nationalities on their “Board of Directors.” Not only did this Crime Syndicate engage in illegal activities, such as gambling, hijackings, shakedowns, and loansharking, but they also controlled the labor unions, which oversaw the shipping and trucking industries, as well as public works projects. Lansky also partnered with mob boss Frank Costello, to corner the illegal slot-machine markets throughout the country.