Nathan Kaplan: Paul Kelly’s Jewish successor
It was in 1891 at Manhattan’s Lower East Side that Nathan Kaplan was given birth. At a very young age, he hit the streets to get engaged in petty crimes, swindlers like the ‘dropper’ scheme. He would simply drop a wallet full of fake money and have an innocent, but greedy person to have it against half of the money as reward, which did click huge for Kaplan. It is for this reason, he had earned the name ‘Kid Dropper’.
His life as a mafia
His expertise led him to join the Five Point Gang of Paolo Vacarelli (Paul Kelly), something unusual for Dropper, since he was of Jewish origin, while the gang was of Italian descent. But he got arrested in 1911 for robbery, sent for seven year at Sing Sing Prison. Kelly’s gang had disbanded by the time of his release in 1917. He presumed himself to be the successor to Kelly and started to take over the latter’s labor racket business.
His rise as a mobster
He preferred to wear slovenly attire like dressing as a bum until his being imprisoned. But after becoming the boss of the gang, he dressed accordingly and started to wear loud checkered suits, shirts, ties having loud colors, pointed shoes, outlandish designs, straw hat and the like. He gathered low level gangsters, which he called ‘Rough Jack Dropper Riders’. But soon he had come cross roads with Joseph Weyler, a Kelly gangster of Spanish origin, who always wanted to control over Kelly’s rackets. But with his death, Dropper regained charge of the gang and the racketeering efforts.
He was held responsible for over 20 murders between 1920 & 1923. However, he had again to face competition from Jacob Orgen or Little Augie as he was nicknamed, who was eager to control all the illegal activities of Doppler and had engaged the best killers in his gang like Gurrah Shapiro, Louis Buchalter and Jack Diamond. Manhattan from 1922 to 1923 was turning into a shooting arena for both the parties involved, resulting in 23 murders including that of an innocent man.
He was charged for having concealed weapons and got arrested in 1923, but later he got released outside of Essex Market Court. He had provided with tight police security because of rumors of his being murdered, when released from Court. But, Louis Kushner, an aide of Little Augie shot him in the head twice and killed him.