Mersher Miller
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Mersher Miller
Mersher Miller, commonly known as Mersher The Strong Arm, ( fl. 1900–1912) was an American saloon keeper and underworld figure in New York's Lower East Side at the start of the 20th century. Owner of a popular Norfolk Street beer house, his bar was later the scene of a gun battle when Johnny Spanish attempted to rob the bar and its patrons. Asbury, Herbert. ''The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the New York Underworld''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928. (p. 242) In April 1912, Spanish entered the bar and approached Miller's brother who was acting as bartender for the night. Spanish asked where Miller was, his brother said he had left for the day and Spanish demanded $10 from the till. When Miller's brother refused, Spanish left saying he would return later that night. Believing like most of the city that Spanish had fled New York and was in hiding from the police and Kid Dropper, Miller's brother was unaware of his identity and was informed by a patron who suggest ...
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Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an immigrant, working-class neighborhood, it began rapid gentrification in the mid-2000s, prompting the National Trust for Historic Preservation to place the neighborhood on their list of America's Most Endangered Places in 2008. The Lower East Side is part of Manhattan Community District 3, and its primary ZIP Code is 10002. It is patrolled by the 7th Precinct of the New York City Police Department. Boundaries The Lower East Side is roughly bounded by East 14th Street on the north, by the East River to the east, by Fulton and Franklin Streets to the south, and by Pearl Street and Broadway to the west. This more extensive definition of the neighborhood includes Chinatown, the East Village, and Little Italy. A less extensive def ...
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Johnny Spanish
Johnny Spanish (1889 – July 29, 1919) was an American gangster who was a rival of former partner "Kid Dropper" Nathan Kaplan during a garment workers' strike which later become known as the Second Labor Sluggers War in 1919. He became involved in labor racketeering, holdups of saloons and other businesses, and murder before organizing his own gang. Biography Born in 1889 as Giovanni Mistretta on the Lower East Side, he claimed to be related to Valeriano Weyler, the last governor of Spanish-ruled Cuba. In reality, he was born to an Italian father and Spanish mother, anglicizing the name to John Mestrett. He became involved in labor racketeering and murder, allegedly involved in a killing at age seventeen, before organizing a crew of thugs allied with the Five Points Gang. Spanish soon became notorious for his daring holdups of saloons and other businesses, particularly in his robbery of a Norfolk Street saloon owned by Mersher the Strong Arm. Spanish, who had earlier boast ...
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Floruit
''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicating the time when someone flourished. Etymology and use la, flōruit is the third-person singular perfect active indicative of the Latin verb ', ' "to bloom, flower, or flourish", from the noun ', ', "flower". Broadly, the term is employed in reference to the peak of activity for a person or movement. More specifically, it often is used in genealogy and historical writing when a person's birth or death dates are unknown, but some other evidence exists that indicates when they were alive. For example, if there are wills attested by John Jones in 1204, and 1229, and a record of his marriage in 1197, a record concerning him might be written as "John Jones (fl. 1197–1229)". The term is often used in art history when dating the career ...
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Herbert Asbury
Herbert Asbury (September 1, 1891 – February 24, 1963) was an American journalist and writer best known for his books detailing crime during the 19th and early-20th centuries, such as ''Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld'', ''The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld'', ''Sucker's Progress: An Informal History of Gambling in America'' and ''The Gangs of New York''. ''The Gangs of New York'' was later adapted for film as Martin Scorsese's ''Gangs of New York'' (2002). However, the film adaptation of ''Gangs of New York'' was so loose that ''Gangs'' was nominated for "Best Original Screenplay" rather than as a screenplay adapted from another work. Early life Born in Farmington, Missouri, he was raised in a highly religious family which included several generations of devout Methodist preachers. His great-great uncle was Francis Asbury, the first bishop of the Methodist Church to be ordained in the United States. Wh ...
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Kid Dropper
"Kid Dropper" Nathan Caplin or Kaplan (August 3, 1891 – August 28, 1923), also known as Jack the Dropper, was an American gangster who controlled labor racketeering and extortion in New York City during the post-World War I period into the early years of Prohibition in the early 1920s. Biography One of seven children, Kaplan was born in New York's Lower East Side on August 3, 1891. Kaplan began committing petty theft at an early age and later becoming a skilled sneak thief and pushcart extortionist, later becoming known for his skill with the " drop swindle". He was originally a member of the Paul Kelly's Five Points Gang. Around 1910, Kaplan had formed his own gang (associated with the Five Points Gang) briefly feuding with rival gang member Johnny Spanish until his arrest the following year for robbery for which he was sentenced to seven years in Sing Sing prison. Upon his release in 1918, Kaplan became involved in "labor slugging", providing muscle to either side in the ...
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Ice Box
An icebox (also called a cold closet) is a compact non-mechanical refrigerator which was a common early-twentieth-century kitchen appliance before the development of safely powered refrigeration devices. Before the development of electric refrigerators, iceboxes were referred to by the public as "refrigerators". Only after the invention of the modern day electric refrigerator did early non-electric refrigerators become known as iceboxes. The terms ''ice box'' and ''refrigerator'' were used interchangeably in advertising as long ago as 1848. Origin The first recorded use of refrigeration technology dates back to 1775 BC in the Sumerian city of Terqa. It was there that the region's King, Zimri-lim, began the construction of an elaborate ice house fitted with a sophisticated drainage system and shallow pools to freeze water in the night. Using ice for cooling and preservation was nothing new at this point, but these ice houses paved the way for their smaller counterpart, the ice ...
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Year Of Birth Missing
A year or annus is the orbital period of a planetary body, for example, the Earth, moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by change in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the planet, four seasons are generally recognized: spring, summer, autumn and winter. In tropical and subtropical regions, several geographical sectors do not present defined seasons; but in the seasonal tropics, the annual wet and dry seasons are recognized and tracked. A calendar year is an approximation of the number of days of the Earth's orbital period, as counted in a given calendar. The Gregorian calendar, or modern calendar, presents its calendar year to be either a common year of 365 days or a leap year of 366 days, as do the Julian calendars. For the Gregorian calendar, the average length of the calendar ...
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Year Of Death Missing
A year or annus is the orbital period of a planetary body, for example, the Earth, moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by change in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the planet, four seasons are generally recognized: spring, summer, autumn and winter. In tropical and subtropical regions, several geographical sectors do not present defined seasons; but in the seasonal tropics, the annual wet and dry seasons are recognized and tracked. A calendar year is an approximation of the number of days of the Earth's orbital period, as counted in a given calendar. The Gregorian calendar, or modern calendar, presents its calendar year to be either a common year of 365 days or a leap year of 366 days, as do the Julian calendars. For the Gregorian calendar, the average length of the calendar year (t ...
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Criminals From New York City
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Cane and Conoghan (editors), '' The New Oxford Companion to Law'', Oxford University Press, 2008 (), p. 263Google Books). though statutory definitions have been provided for certain purposes. The most popular view is that crime is a category created by law; in other words, something is a crime if declared as such by the relevant and applicable law. One proposed definition is that a crime or offence (or criminal offence) is an act harmful not only to some individual but also to a community, society, or the state ("a public wrong"). Such acts are forbidden and punishable by law. The notion that acts such as murder, rape, and theft are to be prohibited exists worldwide. What precisely is a criminal offence is defined by the criminal law of ...
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Jewish American Gangsters
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The people of the Kingdom of Israel and the ethnic and religious group known as the Jewish people that descended from them have been subjected to a number of forced migrations in their history" and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, "Historically, the religious and ethnic dimensions of Jewish identity have been closely interwoven. In fact, so closely bound are they, that the traditional Jewish lexicon hardly distinguishes between the two concepts. Jewish religious practice, by definition, was observed exclusively by the Jewish people, and notions of Jewish peoplehood, nation, and community were suffused with faith in the Jewish God, the practice of Jewish (religious) la ...
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People From The Lower East Side
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, or legal responsibility. The defining features of personhood and, consequently, what makes a person count as a person, differ widely among cultures and contexts. In addition to the question of personhood, of what makes a being count as a person to begin with, there are further questions about personal identity and self: both about what makes any particular person that particular person instead of another, and about what makes a person at one time the same person as they were or will be at another time despite any intervening changes. The plural form "people" is often used to refer to an entire nation or ethnic group (as in "a people"), and this was the original meaning of the word; it subsequently acquired its use as a plural form of p ...
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