A. Jones is Samuel Jones, a lawyer sometimes called Father of the New York Bar. He owned the land on which Great Jones Street now runs and bequeathed the property to the city with the caveat that any street that ran through the land be named for him. In 1789 a street was opened there, but New York already had a Jones Street in Greenwich Village. So the new street was named Great Jones Street because it was wider than the norm. In his desire to be remembered, Jones may have linked himself with a different aspect of the city's culture. The word “jonesin(g)” (an intense craving for a drug) is rumored to have originated from the addicts that frequented Great Jones Alley (just off Great Jones Street, parallel to Lafayette Street) in the 1960’s. This rumor may not be too far off, as Great Jones Street has seen its share of illegal activities. According to Herbert Asbury’s book Gangs of New York (and confirmed by the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation), 57 Great Jones Street was once the headquarters for gangster Paul Kelly. Indeed, a November 1905 New York Timesarticle reports the murder of a man in a fight at Paul Kelly’s saloon “Little Naples” on 57 Great Jones.