Leonard Kaplan may have never lived in Fall River, but he sure did leave his mark here and is still remembered fondly to this day.
Born in Providence, “Low Price Lenny” opened his first Army/Navy store called the “Gob Shops” in 1954 in Fall River after serving in the Korean War.
He later opened other Gob Shops locations in Somerset and Rhode Island, but Fall River still felt like home, especially when hearing him play his famous kazoo on radio spots on WSAR or the store that was always going out of business (GOB), a joke that lasted for decades.
Kaplan ran the Gob Shops for 44 years before its closure in 1998. He also started the Ms. Senior Sweetheart Pageant in 1978 where it ran for 36 years. He was a very active member in the Fall River community and was particularly involved with children and the elderly. He was Chairman of the Board of the Police Athletic League for years, and gave his time to Greater Fall River Re-Creation, Golden Gloves, and the United Way.
On November 8th of 2017, then-Governor Charlie Baker signed Senate Bill 2098 to designate a bridge in his honor. The foot bridge off Davol Street connecting the parking lot of the visitor’s center at Heritage State Park to Battleship Cove was then designated as the Leonard “Lenny” Kaplan Memorial Bridge.
Kaplan passed away on August 1st of 2021 at the age of 91.
You can’t convince me that Lenny wasn’t Fall River. We didn’t need him to live here. We needed him to show up, and he did that for half a century. The bridge is the official marker. The kazoo we can still hear.
