Paul Kelly
Paul Kelly Social Club
Paolo Vaccarelli, born in 1877, had first come to public attention as a prizefighter, winning his most celebrated victory over the champion boxer, George Dixon. Vaccarelli, at the suggestion of his manager, changed his name during his boxing career to Paul Kelly. He eventually retired from the ring, opening a dance-hall and saloon at 57 Great Jones Street that attracted a clientele of small-time crooks.
A gang, known as the Paul Kelly Social Club, quickly coalesced around its eponymous leader, wreaking havoc and mayhem within the streets around Kelly’s saloon and in the Italian district in Harlem centered on 115th Street and Second Avenue.
Felix Bigvino, the leader of the gang in its Harlem outpost, was a notorious criminal with more than one hundred followers. Bigvino’s career reached its zenith in July 1903 when he led his acolytes, armed with knives and guns, in an attack on the police station on East 104th Street.
See: “Rioters Mob a Car,” New-York Tribune, 9 July 1903 “Can’t Locate Paul Kelly,” The Sun (New York), 25 November 1905.