Five Points, Manhattan
Encyclopedia
Five Points was a neighborhood in central lower Manhattan
in New York City
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
shell midden
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
slaughterhouse
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
Johan Willem Crolius
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
s bred in the stagnant pools
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
, the Old Brewery
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
, Dead Rabbits
and Bowery Boys
. According to Herbert Asbury's
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
s and jig
s with the African shuffle
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
(see Master Juba
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
and rock and roll
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
.
s such as cholera
, yellow fever
, typhus
and tuberculosis
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
and Abolitionism
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
to regain control of the city.
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
Gangs of New York is a 2002 historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. The film was inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1928 nonfiction book, The Gangs of New York. It was made in Cinecittà, Rome, distributed by Miramax Films and nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
in New York City
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
shell midden
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
slaughterhouse
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
Johan Willem Crolius
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
s bred in the stagnant pools
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
, the Old Brewery
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
, Dead Rabbits
and Bowery Boys
. According to Herbert Asbury's
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
s and jig
s with the African shuffle
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
(see Master Juba
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
and rock and roll
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
.
s such as cholera
, yellow fever
, typhus
and tuberculosis
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
and Abolitionism
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
to regain control of the city.
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
Gangs of New York is a 2002 historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. The film was inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1928 nonfiction book, The Gangs of New York. It was made in Cinecittà, Rome, distributed by Miramax Films and nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
in New York City
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
shell midden
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
slaughterhouse
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
Johan Willem Crolius
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
s bred in the stagnant pools
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
, the Old Brewery
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
, Dead Rabbits
and Bowery Boys
. According to Herbert Asbury's
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
s and jig
s with the African shuffle
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
(see Master Juba
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
and rock and roll
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
.
s such as cholera
, yellow fever
, typhus
and tuberculosis
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
and Abolitionism
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
to regain control of the city.
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
Gangs of New York is a 2002 historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. The film was inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1928 nonfiction book, The Gangs of New York. It was made in Cinecittà, Rome, distributed by Miramax Films and nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
in New York City
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
shell midden
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
slaughterhouse
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
Johan Willem Crolius
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
s bred in the stagnant pools
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
, the Old Brewery
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
, Dead Rabbits
and Bowery Boys
. According to Herbert Asbury's
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
s and jig
s with the African shuffle
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
(see Master Juba
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
and rock and roll
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
.
s such as cholera
, yellow fever
, typhus
and tuberculosis
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
and Abolitionism
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
to regain control of the city.
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
Gangs of New York is a 2002 historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. The film was inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1928 nonfiction book, The Gangs of New York. It was made in Cinecittà, Rome, distributed by Miramax Films and nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
in New York City
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
shell midden
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
slaughterhouse
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
Johan Willem Crolius
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
s bred in the stagnant pools
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
, the Old Brewery
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
, Dead Rabbits
and Bowery Boys
. According to Herbert Asbury's
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
s and jig
s with the African shuffle
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
(see Master Juba
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
and rock and roll
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
.
s such as cholera
, yellow fever
, typhus
and tuberculosis
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
and Abolitionism
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
to regain control of the city.
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
File:NYC1776.jpg|1776 British map showing the Collect Pond ("Fresh Water"), the canals used to drain the adjacent salt marsh
and the tanneries
on the eastern shore
File:1800-map-Five-Point-NYC.jpg|1800 map with an 1873 street plan overlay the location of future Five Points intersection at lower right of Collect Pond
File:1831-map-new-york-five-points.jpg|1831 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:1851-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1851 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:5pointe1853close-up.JPG|1853 map of Five Points intersection showing original street names
File:1902-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1902 map
Gangs of New York is a 2002 historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. The film was inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1928 nonfiction book, The Gangs of New York. It was made in Cinecittà, Rome, distributed by Miramax Films and nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
in New York City
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
shell midden
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
slaughterhouse
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
Johan Willem Crolius
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
s bred in the stagnant pools
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
, the Old Brewery
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
, Dead Rabbits
and Bowery Boys
. According to Herbert Asbury's
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
s and jig
s with the African shuffle
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
(see Master Juba
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
and rock and roll
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
.
s such as cholera
, yellow fever
, typhus
and tuberculosis
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
and Abolitionism
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
to regain control of the city.
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
File:NYC1776.jpg|1776 British map showing the Collect Pond ("Fresh Water"), the canals used to drain the adjacent salt marsh
and the tanneries
on the eastern shore
File:1800-map-Five-Point-NYC.jpg|1800 map with an 1873 street plan overlay the location of future Five Points intersection at lower right of Collect Pond
File:1831-map-new-york-five-points.jpg|1831 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:1851-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1851 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:5pointe1853close-up.JPG|1853 map of Five Points intersection showing original street names
File:1902-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1902 map
Gangs of New York is a 2002 historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. The film was inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1928 nonfiction book, The Gangs of New York. It was made in Cinecittà, Rome, distributed by Miramax Films and nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
in New York City
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
shell midden
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
slaughterhouse
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
Johan Willem Crolius
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
s bred in the stagnant pools
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
, the Old Brewery
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
, Dead Rabbits
and Bowery Boys
. According to Herbert Asbury's
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
s and jig
s with the African shuffle
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
(see Master Juba
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
and rock and roll
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
.
s such as cholera
, yellow fever
, typhus
and tuberculosis
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
and Abolitionism
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
to regain control of the city.
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
Gangs of New York is a 2002 historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. The film was inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1928 nonfiction book, The Gangs of New York. It was made in Cinecittà, Rome, distributed by Miramax Films and nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
in New York City
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
shell midden
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
slaughterhouse
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
Johan Willem Crolius
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
s bred in the stagnant pools
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
, the Old Brewery
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
, Dead Rabbits
and Bowery Boys
. According to Herbert Asbury's
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
s and jig
s with the African shuffle
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
(see Master Juba
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
and rock and roll
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
.
s such as cholera
, yellow fever
, typhus
and tuberculosis
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
and Abolitionism
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
to regain control of the city.
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
File:NYC1776.jpg|1776 British map showing the Collect Pond ("Fresh Water"), the canals used to drain the adjacent salt marsh
and the tanneries
on the eastern shore
File:1800-map-Five-Point-NYC.jpg|1800 map with an 1873 street plan overlay the location of future Five Points intersection at lower right of Collect Pond
File:1831-map-new-york-five-points.jpg|1831 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:1851-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1851 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:5pointe1853close-up.JPG|1853 map of Five Points intersection showing original street names
File:1902-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1902 map
Gangs of New York is a 2002 historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. The film was inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1928 nonfiction book, The Gangs of New York. It was made in Cinecittà, Rome, distributed by Miramax Films and nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
in New York City
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
shell midden
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
slaughterhouse
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
Johan Willem Crolius
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
s bred in the stagnant pools
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
, the Old Brewery
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
, Dead Rabbits
and Bowery Boys
. According to Herbert Asbury's
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
s and jig
s with the African shuffle
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
(see Master Juba
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
and rock and roll
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
.
s such as cholera
, yellow fever
, typhus
and tuberculosis
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
and Abolitionism
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
to regain control of the city.
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
File:NYC1776.jpg|1776 British map showing the Collect Pond ("Fresh Water"), the canals used to drain the adjacent salt marsh
and the tanneries
on the eastern shore
File:1800-map-Five-Point-NYC.jpg|1800 map with an 1873 street plan overlay the location of future Five Points intersection at lower right of Collect Pond
File:1831-map-new-york-five-points.jpg|1831 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:1851-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1851 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:5pointe1853close-up.JPG|1853 map of Five Points intersection showing original street names
File:1902-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1902 map
Gangs of New York is a 2002 historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. The film was inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1928 nonfiction book, The Gangs of New York. It was made in Cinecittà, Rome, distributed by Miramax Films and nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
File:African Burial Ground Manhattan.jpg|African Burial Ground
on the south shore of the Collect Pond-active until 1792, was the burial ground for New York City's free blacks and African slaves, located a short distance southwest of future Five Points intersection.
File:1741 Slave Revolt burned at the stake NYC.jpg|African American slave being burned at the stake after New York Conspiracy of 1741. 17 black men, two white men, and two white women were hanged at the gibbet
next to the Powderhouse on the narrow point of land between the Collect Pond and the Little Collect, 13 were burned at the stake a little east on Magazine
Street
Five Points (or The Five Points) was a neighborhood in central lower Manhattan
in New York City
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
shell midden
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
.Eugene L. Armbruster: The Ferry road on Long Island; pp. 5-6 (1919 reprint 2010) ASIN B004IPZE0E The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
was established.Evan T. Pritchard Native New Yorkers: the legacy of the Algonquin people of New York p.76
The pond was the main source of drinking water
for the City of New YorkJulia Solis: New York underground: the anatomy of a city p.76 and freshwater fish
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
slaughterhouse
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"),[New York Times:ABATTOIRS.; History of New-York Slaughter-Houses-Interesting and Curious Data. (1866)http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F2091FFC3859107B93C3A9178FD85F428684F9"] numerous tanneries
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
Johan Willem Crolius
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.Craftsmen In Clay
The contaminated wastewater
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.John Kieran A Natural History of New York p.31 ISBN 9780823210862
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
s bred in the stagnant pools
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.Tim Delaney: American Street Gangs p.39, p.290
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
, the Old Brewery
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
, Dead Rabbits
and Bowery Boys
. According to Herbert Asbury's
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
s and jig
s with the African shuffle
.Herbert Asbury: Gangs of New yorkMark Kurlansky: The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell p. 157 As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
(see Master Juba
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
and rock and roll
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
.
s such as cholera
, yellow fever
, typhus
and tuberculosis
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City.Stephanie True Peters: Cholera: Curse of the Nineteenth Century p.26 Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
and Abolitionism
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of IrishIn 1827 Britain repealed legislation controlling and restricting emigration from Ireland, and 20,000 Irish emigrated; by 1835 over 30,000 Irish arrived in New York annually (Burrows and Wallace 1999:543). Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft WeekBarnes 5 were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc) Foner, E. (1988). Reconstruction America's unfinished revolution, 1863-1877. The New American Nation series, p. 32, New York: Harper & Row
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
to regain control of the city.The Draft in the Civil WarThe Draft Riots, Part II NY Press
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park Columbus Park http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/M015/ that opened in 1897.
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
File:NYC1776.jpg|1776 British map showing the Collect Pond ("Fresh Water"), the canals used to drain the adjacent salt marsh
and the tanneries
on the eastern shore
File:1800-map-Five-Point-NYC.jpg|1800 map with an 1873 street plan overlay the location of future Five Points intersection at lower right of Collect Pond
File:1831-map-new-york-five-points.jpg|1831 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:1851-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1851 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:5pointe1853close-up.JPG|1853 map of Five Points intersection showing original street names
File:1902-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1902 map
Gangs of New York is a 2002 historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. The film was inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1928 nonfiction book, The Gangs of New York. It was made in Cinecittà, Rome, distributed by Miramax Films and nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
File:African Burial Ground Manhattan.jpg|African Burial Ground
on the south shore of the Collect Pond-active until 1792, was the burial ground for New York City's free blacks and African slaves, located a short distance southwest of future Five Points intersection.
File:1741 Slave Revolt burned at the stake NYC.jpg|African American slave being burned at the stake after New York Conspiracy of 1741. 17 black men, two white men, and two white women were hanged at the gibbet
next to the Powderhouse on the narrow point of land between the Collect Pond and the Little Collect, 13 were burned at the stake a little east on Magazine
Street
Five Points (or The Five Points) was a neighborhood in central lower Manhattan
in New York City
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
shell midden
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
.Eugene L. Armbruster: The Ferry road on Long Island; pp. 5-6 (1919 reprint 2010) ASIN B004IPZE0E The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
was established.Evan T. Pritchard Native New Yorkers: the legacy of the Algonquin people of New York p.76
The pond was the main source of drinking water
for the City of New YorkJulia Solis: New York underground: the anatomy of a city p.76 and freshwater fish
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
slaughterhouse
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"),[New York Times:ABATTOIRS.; History of New-York Slaughter-Houses-Interesting and Curious Data. (1866)http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F2091FFC3859107B93C3A9178FD85F428684F9"] numerous tanneries
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
Johan Willem Crolius
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.Craftsmen In Clay
The contaminated wastewater
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.John Kieran A Natural History of New York p.31 ISBN 9780823210862
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
s bred in the stagnant pools
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.Tim Delaney: American Street Gangs p.39, p.290
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
, the Old Brewery
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
, Dead Rabbits
and Bowery Boys
. According to Herbert Asbury's
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
s and jig
s with the African shuffle
.Herbert Asbury: Gangs of New yorkMark Kurlansky: The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell p. 157 As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
(see Master Juba
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
and rock and roll
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
.
s such as cholera
, yellow fever
, typhus
and tuberculosis
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City.Stephanie True Peters: Cholera: Curse of the Nineteenth Century p.26 Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
and Abolitionism
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of IrishIn 1827 Britain repealed legislation controlling and restricting emigration from Ireland, and 20,000 Irish emigrated; by 1835 over 30,000 Irish arrived in New York annually (Burrows and Wallace 1999:543). Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft WeekBarnes 5 were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc) Foner, E. (1988). Reconstruction America's unfinished revolution, 1863-1877. The New American Nation series, p. 32, New York: Harper & Row
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
to regain control of the city.The Draft in the Civil WarThe Draft Riots, Part II NY Press
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park Columbus Park http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/M015/ that opened in 1897.
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
File:NYC1776.jpg|1776 British map showing the Collect Pond ("Fresh Water"), the canals used to drain the adjacent salt marsh
and the tanneries
on the eastern shore
File:1800-map-Five-Point-NYC.jpg|1800 map with an 1873 street plan overlay the location of future Five Points intersection at lower right of Collect Pond
File:1831-map-new-york-five-points.jpg|1831 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:1851-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1851 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:5pointe1853close-up.JPG|1853 map of Five Points intersection showing original street names
File:1902-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1902 map
Gangs of New York is a 2002 historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. The film was inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1928 nonfiction book, The Gangs of New York. It was made in Cinecittà, Rome, distributed by Miramax Films and nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
File:African Burial Ground Manhattan.jpg|African Burial Ground
on the south shore of the Collect Pond-active until 1792, was the burial ground for New York City's free blacks and African slaves, located a short distance southwest of future Five Points intersection.
File:1741 Slave Revolt burned at the stake NYC.jpg|African American slave being burned at the stake after New York Conspiracy of 1741. 17 black men, two white men, and two white women were hanged at the gibbet
next to the Powderhouse on the narrow point of land between the Collect Pond and the Little Collect, 13 were burned at the stake a little east on Magazine
StreetDigital History: Title: Fear of Slave Revolts Author: Daniel Horsmanden
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/documents_p2.cfm?doc=231New York Times: COLONIAL NEW-YORK CITY; Burning of Negroes Amid the Hills of Five Points. GRIM RESULTS OF AN ALLEGED PLOT The Gibbet on Powder House Island Bore Strange Fruit for Many Months in the Year 1741.http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F6081FFD3A5D15738DDDAD0A94D9415B8585F0D3
File:Edward-mooney-house-18-bowery.jpg|Edward Mooney House
built between 1785 and 1789 by wealthy butcher Edward Mooney on the corner of The Bowery and Pell Street on land seized from James Delancey, a British loyalist
during the American Revolutionary War
File:Bulls Head Tavern New York City.jpg|The Bulls Head Tavern (c. 1755) located approximately at The Bowery and Canal Street served the thriving slaughterhouse and tannery
industry, the area was surrounded by holding pens with slaughterhouses along Mulberry Street
Paula Young Lee: Meat, modernity, and the rise of the slaughterhouse p.187
File:Five Points New York City 1852.jpg|A corner building which served as a grocery store and liquor store on Orange Street and Anthony Street at the southwest corner of Mulberry Bend in Five Points (c. 1852)
File:Five points Mulberry Bend.jpg|Five Points brick tenements began replacing older wooden buildings; the southwest corner of Mulberry Bend in Five Points with Orange Street running north
File:Bottle Alley Why'o Gang Headquarters.jpg|Bottle Alley located in Mulberry Bend just south of Bandit's Roost. A crime scene photograph
used in a murder trial. The X marks location where victim was found.
File:Five Points New York City C.1879.gif|Rear pre-Civil War Era tenements constructed of wood in Mulberry Bend
in the Five Points neighborhood.
File:Five Points House of Industry 1893.jpg|Five Points House of Industry at 155 Worth Street in 1893 opposite Paradise Square
File:Ragpickers Row Alleyway at 59 Baxter St Five Points NYC.jpg|Baxter Street Alley, Rag-Picker's Row" at 59 Baxter Street (c. 1898 Jacob Riis)
File:Barney Flynns bar in Edward Mooney House 1899.jpg|Barney Flynn's Old Tree House a bar in the Edward Mooney House in 1899 showing Chuck ConnorsCHUCK' CONNORS DIES ON BOWERY; Pneumonia Ends Career of the Famous Chinatown Guide and Inventor of Slang http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50B10F63C5B13738DDDA80994DD405B838DF1D3
File:Chinese theater - Doyers Street - Bain.jpg|Chinese Theatre 5-7 Doyers Street, scene of multiple murdersTHREE SHOT DEAD IN CHINESE THEATRE; Hip Sing Tongs Fire Upon the On Leong Tongs
File:NYC Mulberry Street 3g04637u.jpg|Mulberry Street
(c.1900) taken from west side of Mulberry north of Bayard Street looking toward Canal Street
File:The Tombs, New York City.png|New York Halls of Justice known as "The Tombs
"
File:Chinese Tuxedo Doyers Street 1901.jpg|Chinese Tuxedo restaurant at 2 Doyers Street
File:Church of the Transfiguration Five Points NYC.jpg|Church of the Transfiguration (built 1801 as Zion Protestant Episcopal Church bought 1853 by Catholic Archdiocese of New York) on the corner of Mott and Mosco Streets. The parish was founded by Padre Félix Varela y Morales
in 1827Church of Zion and St. Timothy (Protestant Episcopal) http://www.nycago.org/Organs/NYC/html/ZionStTimothyEpis.html
File:Black Horse Tavern Mulberry And Park St.jpg|The Black Horse Tavern on the corner of Mulberry and Park Street, the Church of the Transfiguration is in the background; picture is c.1895-1899
File:AlCaponemugshotCPD.jpg|Mugshot of Al Capone
-nicknamed "Scarface", was member of the Five Points Gang
along with Lucky Luciano
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
Collect Pond
The topographyTopography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
Spring (hydrosphere)
A spring—also known as a rising or resurgence—is a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground...
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
Valley
In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys...
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
Eastern oyster
The eastern oyster — also called Atlantic oyster or Virginia oyster — is a species of true oyster native to the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico coast of North America. It is also farmed in Puget Sound, Washington, where it is known as the Totten Inlet Virginica. Eastern oysters are and have...
shell midden
Midden
A midden, is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, sherds, lithics , and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation...
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
Freshwater fish
Freshwater fish are fish that spend some or all of their lives in freshwater, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 0.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, the most obvious being the difference in levels of salinity...
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
Nicholas Bayard
Colonel Nicholas Bayard was an official in the colony of New York. Bayard served as the sixteenth Mayor of New York City, from 1685 to 1686...
slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
Tanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
Johan Willem Crolius
Clarkson Crolius
Clarkson Crolius was an American businessman and politician.-Life:He was the son of Johannes Crolius and Maria Clarkson Crolius. His grandfather Johan Willem Crolius, a manufacturer of stoneware, is said to have come from Germany to New York City, and ran a pottery in Reade Street, near Broadway...
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
Wastewater
Wastewater is any water that has been adversely affected in quality by anthropogenic influence. It comprises liquid waste discharged by domestic residences, commercial properties, industry, and/or agriculture and can encompass a wide range of potential contaminants and concentrations...
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
Water pollution
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant was a French-born American architect and civil engineer best known for designing the layout of the streets of Washington, D.C..-Early life:...
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
Methane
Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
Decomposition
Decomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death...
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
Mud
Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
s bred in the stagnant pools
Water stagnation
Water stagnation occurs when water stops flowing. Stagnant water can be a major environmental hazard.-Dangers:Malaria and dengue are among the main dangers of stagnant water, which can become a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that transmit these diseases.Stagnant or Stailment water can be...
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
The Slum
At Five Points’ "height," only certain areas of London’s East EndEast End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
Child mortality
Child mortality, also known as under-5 mortality, refers to the death of infants and children under the age of five. In 2010, 7.6 million children under five died , down from 8.1 million in 2009, 8.8 million in 2008, and 12.4 million in 1990. About half of child deaths occur in Africa....
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
Melting pot
The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
, the Old Brewery
Old Brewery
The Old Brewery was the name given to Coulthard's Brewery built in 1792 in lower central Manhattan on land that was then on the outskirts of New York City after its conversion to a tenement following the Panic of 1837....
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
Roach Guards
The Roach Guards were an Irish street gang in New York City's Five Points neighborhood during the early 19th century. Originally formed to protect New York liquor merchants in Five Points, the gang soon began committing robbery and murder....
, Dead Rabbits
Dead Rabbits
The Dead Rabbits were a gang in New York City in the 1850s, and originally were a part of the Roach Guards. Daniel Cassidy claimed that the name has a second meaning rooted in Irish American vernacular of NYC in 1857 and that the word "Rabbit" is the phonetic corruption of the Irish word ráibéad,...
and Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
. According to Herbert Asbury's
Herbert Asbury
Herbert Asbury was an American journalist and writer who is best known for his true crime books detailing crime during the 19th and early 20th century such as Gem of the Prairie, Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld and The Gangs of New York...
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
Reel (dance)
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
s and jig
Jig
The Jig is a form of lively folk dance, as well as the accompanying dance tune, originating in England in the 16th century and today most associated with Irish dance music and Scottish country dance music...
s with the African shuffle
Shuffle (disambiguation)
The terms shuffle or shuffling may refer to any of the following:-Randomization:* shuffling — the arbitrary reordering of items, especially a deck of cards, to introduce an element of chance in their selection...
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
Creole music
Creole music applies to two genres of music from south Louisiana: Creole folk and Creole. Creole folk dates from the 18th century or before, and it consists primarily of folk songs. Many were published, and some found their way into works by Louisiana composers such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk,...
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
Music of Andalusia
The Music of Andalusia is very diverse and includes many external influences such as Arabic, Romani, Sephardic, Roman, and Christian.-Influence of Andalusian music:...
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
(see Master Juba
Master Juba
Master Juba was an African American dancer active in the 1840s. He was one of the first black performers in the United States to play onstage for white audiences and the only one of the era to tour with a white minstrel group...
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
Chinatown, Manhattan
Manhattan's Chinatown , home to one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere, is located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
.
Charles Dickens Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic... described Five Points in 1842 in his book American Notes for General Circulation American Notes American Notes for General Circulation is a travelogue by Charles Dickens detailing his trip to North America from January to June, 1842. While there he acted as a critical observer of these societies almost as if returning a status report on their progress... : "What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies behind this tottering flight of steps? Let us go on again, and plunge into the Five Points." "This is the place; these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruit as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and all the world over." "Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken forays. Many of these pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright instead of going on all fours, and why they talk instead of grunting?" |
Infectious diseases
Infectious diseaseInfectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
s such as cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
, typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
Riots
Anti-abolitionist riots of 1834: Also known as the Farren Riots, occurred in New York City over a series of four nights, beginning on July 7, 1834. Their deeper origins lay in the combination of anti-Catholic nativismNativism
Nativism may refer to:* Nativism or political nativism, a term used by scholars to refer to ethnocentric beliefs relating to immigration and nationalism; antiforeignism...
and Abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
St. Philip's Episcopal Church (Harlem, New York)
St. Philip's Church also known as St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church, is a historic Episcopal church located at 204 West 134th Street, just west of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard ) in Harlem, New York, New York. It was founded in 1809 by Free Africans worshiping at Trinity Church, Wall...
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
New York City Police Riot
The New York City Police Riot of 1857, known at the time as the Great Police Riot, was a conflict which occurred between the recently dissolved New York Municipal Police and the newly formed Metropolitan Police on June 16, 1857...
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
Astor Place Riot
The Astor Place Riot occurred on May 10, 1849 at the now-demolished Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City and left at least 25 dead and more than 120 injured...
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
New York Draft Riots
The New York City draft riots were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself...
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
Charles W. Sandford
Major-General Charles W. Sandford was an American militia and artillery officer, lawyer and businessman. He was a senior officer in the New York State Militia for over thirty years and commanded the First Division in every major civil disturbance in New York City up until the American Civil War,...
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
Gettysburg Campaign
The Gettysburg Campaign was a series of battles fought in June and July 1863, during the American Civil War. After his victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved north for offensive operations in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The...
to regain control of the city.
Social reformation
Various efforts by different charitable organizatons and individuals most Christian themed attempted to ameliorate the suffering of the poor in Five Points. Padre Felix VarelaFélix Varela
Félix Varela y Morales was a notable figure in the Roman Catholic Church in both Cuba and the United States.-Life:Varela was born in Havana, Cuba and died in St. Augustine, Florida, United States...
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
Slum clearance
The first call for clearing the slums of Five Points through wholesale demolition came in 1831 from merchants who maintained businesses in close proximity to the Five Points neighborhood. Slum clearance efforts (promoted in particular by Jacob RiisJacob Riis
Jacob August Riis was a Danish American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific...
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York was an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s...
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend was an area in the notorious Five Points neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. It was bound by Bayard Street in the north, Cross Street in the south, Orange Street on the west and Mulberry Street on the east. The "Bend" in the street layout was due to the original topography of the area...
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
 "That the place known as "Five points" has long been notorious... as being the nursery where every species of vice is conceived and matured; that it is infested by a class of the most abandoned and desperate character.... "[They] are abridged from enjoying themselves in their sports, from the apprehension... that they may be enticed from the path of rectitude, by being familiarized with vice; and thus advancing step by step, be at last swallowed up in this sink of pollution, this vortex of irremediable infamy. "In conclusion your Committee remark, that this hot–bed of infamy, this modern Sodom Sodom and Gomorrah Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources.... , is situated in the very heart of your City, and near the centre of business and of respectable population.... Remove this nucleus—scatter its present population over a larger surface—throw open this part of your city to the enterprise of active and respectable men, and you will have effected much for which good men will be grateful." - "Petition to Have the Five Points Opened," Board of Assistant Aldermen documents (24 October 1831), Municipal Archives, City of New York. |
Modern era
What was Five Points is today covered in part in the west and south by large city, state and federal administration buildings and courthouses known collectively as Civic Center, ManhattanCivic Center, Manhattan
Civic Center is a neighborhood in downtown Manhattan covering the area around New York City Hall. It is bounded on the west by Broadway, on the north by Chinatown, on the east by the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge, and on the south by the Financial District.As in other civic centers, it is the...
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
Foley Square
Foley Square is a street intersection and green space in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City and – by extension – the surrounding area, which is dominated by civic buildings. The space is bordered by Worth Street, Centre Street and Lafayette Street and lies...
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
The Tombs
"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
Maps
The physical layout of the Five Points intersection changed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.Gangs of New York
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for the latter...
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw (actor)
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
Gallery
Five Points (or The Five Points) was a neighborhood in central lower ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
Collect Pond
The topographyTopography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
Spring (hydrosphere)
A spring—also known as a rising or resurgence—is a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground...
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
Valley
In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys...
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
Eastern oyster
The eastern oyster — also called Atlantic oyster or Virginia oyster — is a species of true oyster native to the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico coast of North America. It is also farmed in Puget Sound, Washington, where it is known as the Totten Inlet Virginica. Eastern oysters are and have...
shell midden
Midden
A midden, is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, sherds, lithics , and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation...
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
Freshwater fish
Freshwater fish are fish that spend some or all of their lives in freshwater, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 0.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, the most obvious being the difference in levels of salinity...
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
Nicholas Bayard
Colonel Nicholas Bayard was an official in the colony of New York. Bayard served as the sixteenth Mayor of New York City, from 1685 to 1686...
slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
Tanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
Johan Willem Crolius
Clarkson Crolius
Clarkson Crolius was an American businessman and politician.-Life:He was the son of Johannes Crolius and Maria Clarkson Crolius. His grandfather Johan Willem Crolius, a manufacturer of stoneware, is said to have come from Germany to New York City, and ran a pottery in Reade Street, near Broadway...
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
Wastewater
Wastewater is any water that has been adversely affected in quality by anthropogenic influence. It comprises liquid waste discharged by domestic residences, commercial properties, industry, and/or agriculture and can encompass a wide range of potential contaminants and concentrations...
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
Water pollution
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant was a French-born American architect and civil engineer best known for designing the layout of the streets of Washington, D.C..-Early life:...
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
Methane
Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
Decomposition
Decomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death...
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
Mud
Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
s bred in the stagnant pools
Water stagnation
Water stagnation occurs when water stops flowing. Stagnant water can be a major environmental hazard.-Dangers:Malaria and dengue are among the main dangers of stagnant water, which can become a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that transmit these diseases.Stagnant or Stailment water can be...
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
The Slum
At Five Points’ "height," only certain areas of London’s East EndEast End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
Child mortality
Child mortality, also known as under-5 mortality, refers to the death of infants and children under the age of five. In 2010, 7.6 million children under five died , down from 8.1 million in 2009, 8.8 million in 2008, and 12.4 million in 1990. About half of child deaths occur in Africa....
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
Melting pot
The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
, the Old Brewery
Old Brewery
The Old Brewery was the name given to Coulthard's Brewery built in 1792 in lower central Manhattan on land that was then on the outskirts of New York City after its conversion to a tenement following the Panic of 1837....
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
Roach Guards
The Roach Guards were an Irish street gang in New York City's Five Points neighborhood during the early 19th century. Originally formed to protect New York liquor merchants in Five Points, the gang soon began committing robbery and murder....
, Dead Rabbits
Dead Rabbits
The Dead Rabbits were a gang in New York City in the 1850s, and originally were a part of the Roach Guards. Daniel Cassidy claimed that the name has a second meaning rooted in Irish American vernacular of NYC in 1857 and that the word "Rabbit" is the phonetic corruption of the Irish word ráibéad,...
and Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
. According to Herbert Asbury's
Herbert Asbury
Herbert Asbury was an American journalist and writer who is best known for his true crime books detailing crime during the 19th and early 20th century such as Gem of the Prairie, Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld and The Gangs of New York...
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
Reel (dance)
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
s and jig
Jig
The Jig is a form of lively folk dance, as well as the accompanying dance tune, originating in England in the 16th century and today most associated with Irish dance music and Scottish country dance music...
s with the African shuffle
Shuffle (disambiguation)
The terms shuffle or shuffling may refer to any of the following:-Randomization:* shuffling — the arbitrary reordering of items, especially a deck of cards, to introduce an element of chance in their selection...
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
Creole music
Creole music applies to two genres of music from south Louisiana: Creole folk and Creole. Creole folk dates from the 18th century or before, and it consists primarily of folk songs. Many were published, and some found their way into works by Louisiana composers such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk,...
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
Music of Andalusia
The Music of Andalusia is very diverse and includes many external influences such as Arabic, Romani, Sephardic, Roman, and Christian.-Influence of Andalusian music:...
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
(see Master Juba
Master Juba
Master Juba was an African American dancer active in the 1840s. He was one of the first black performers in the United States to play onstage for white audiences and the only one of the era to tour with a white minstrel group...
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
Chinatown, Manhattan
Manhattan's Chinatown , home to one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere, is located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
.
Charles Dickens Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic... described Five Points in 1842 in his book American Notes for General Circulation American Notes American Notes for General Circulation is a travelogue by Charles Dickens detailing his trip to North America from January to June, 1842. While there he acted as a critical observer of these societies almost as if returning a status report on their progress... : "What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies behind this tottering flight of steps? Let us go on again, and plunge into the Five Points." "This is the place; these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruit as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and all the world over." "Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken forays. Many of these pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright instead of going on all fours, and why they talk instead of grunting?" |
Infectious diseases
Infectious diseaseInfectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
s such as cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
, typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
Riots
Anti-abolitionist riots of 1834: Also known as the Farren Riots, occurred in New York City over a series of four nights, beginning on July 7, 1834. Their deeper origins lay in the combination of anti-Catholic nativismNativism
Nativism may refer to:* Nativism or political nativism, a term used by scholars to refer to ethnocentric beliefs relating to immigration and nationalism; antiforeignism...
and Abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
St. Philip's Episcopal Church (Harlem, New York)
St. Philip's Church also known as St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church, is a historic Episcopal church located at 204 West 134th Street, just west of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard ) in Harlem, New York, New York. It was founded in 1809 by Free Africans worshiping at Trinity Church, Wall...
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
New York City Police Riot
The New York City Police Riot of 1857, known at the time as the Great Police Riot, was a conflict which occurred between the recently dissolved New York Municipal Police and the newly formed Metropolitan Police on June 16, 1857...
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
Astor Place Riot
The Astor Place Riot occurred on May 10, 1849 at the now-demolished Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City and left at least 25 dead and more than 120 injured...
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
New York Draft Riots
The New York City draft riots were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself...
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
Charles W. Sandford
Major-General Charles W. Sandford was an American militia and artillery officer, lawyer and businessman. He was a senior officer in the New York State Militia for over thirty years and commanded the First Division in every major civil disturbance in New York City up until the American Civil War,...
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
Gettysburg Campaign
The Gettysburg Campaign was a series of battles fought in June and July 1863, during the American Civil War. After his victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved north for offensive operations in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The...
to regain control of the city.
Social reformation
Various efforts by different charitable organizatons and individuals most Christian themed attempted to ameliorate the suffering of the poor in Five Points. Padre Felix VarelaFélix Varela
Félix Varela y Morales was a notable figure in the Roman Catholic Church in both Cuba and the United States.-Life:Varela was born in Havana, Cuba and died in St. Augustine, Florida, United States...
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
Slum clearance
The first call for clearing the slums of Five Points through wholesale demolition came in 1831 from merchants who maintained businesses in close proximity to the Five Points neighborhood. Slum clearance efforts (promoted in particular by Jacob RiisJacob Riis
Jacob August Riis was a Danish American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific...
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York was an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s...
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend was an area in the notorious Five Points neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. It was bound by Bayard Street in the north, Cross Street in the south, Orange Street on the west and Mulberry Street on the east. The "Bend" in the street layout was due to the original topography of the area...
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
| "That the place known as "Five points" has long been notorious... as being the nursery where every species of vice is conceived and matured; that it is infested by a class of the most abandoned and desperate character.... "[They] are abridged from enjoying themselves in their sports, from the apprehension... that they may be enticed from the path of rectitude, by being familiarized with vice; and thus advancing step by step, be at last swallowed up in this sink of pollution, this vortex of irremediable infamy. "In conclusion your Committee remark, that this hot–bed of infamy, this modern Sodom Sodom and Gomorrah Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources.... , is situated in the very heart of your City, and near the centre of business and of respectable population.... Remove this nucleus—scatter its present population over a larger surface—throw open this part of your city to the enterprise of active and respectable men, and you will have effected much for which good men will be grateful." - "Petition to Have the Five Points Opened," Board of Assistant Aldermen documents (24 October 1831), Municipal Archives, City of New York. |
Modern era
What was Five Points is today covered in part in the west and south by large city, state and federal administration buildings and courthouses known collectively as Civic Center, ManhattanCivic Center, Manhattan
Civic Center is a neighborhood in downtown Manhattan covering the area around New York City Hall. It is bounded on the west by Broadway, on the north by Chinatown, on the east by the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge, and on the south by the Financial District.As in other civic centers, it is the...
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
Foley Square
Foley Square is a street intersection and green space in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City and – by extension – the surrounding area, which is dominated by civic buildings. The space is bordered by Worth Street, Centre Street and Lafayette Street and lies...
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
The Tombs
"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
Maps
The physical layout of the Five Points intersection changed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.Gangs of New York
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for the latter...
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw (actor)
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
Gallery
Five Points (or The Five Points) was a neighborhood in central lower ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
Collect Pond
The topographyTopography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
Spring (hydrosphere)
A spring—also known as a rising or resurgence—is a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground...
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
Valley
In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys...
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
Eastern oyster
The eastern oyster — also called Atlantic oyster or Virginia oyster — is a species of true oyster native to the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico coast of North America. It is also farmed in Puget Sound, Washington, where it is known as the Totten Inlet Virginica. Eastern oysters are and have...
shell midden
Midden
A midden, is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, sherds, lithics , and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation...
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
Freshwater fish
Freshwater fish are fish that spend some or all of their lives in freshwater, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 0.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, the most obvious being the difference in levels of salinity...
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
Nicholas Bayard
Colonel Nicholas Bayard was an official in the colony of New York. Bayard served as the sixteenth Mayor of New York City, from 1685 to 1686...
slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
Tanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
Johan Willem Crolius
Clarkson Crolius
Clarkson Crolius was an American businessman and politician.-Life:He was the son of Johannes Crolius and Maria Clarkson Crolius. His grandfather Johan Willem Crolius, a manufacturer of stoneware, is said to have come from Germany to New York City, and ran a pottery in Reade Street, near Broadway...
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
Wastewater
Wastewater is any water that has been adversely affected in quality by anthropogenic influence. It comprises liquid waste discharged by domestic residences, commercial properties, industry, and/or agriculture and can encompass a wide range of potential contaminants and concentrations...
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
Water pollution
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant was a French-born American architect and civil engineer best known for designing the layout of the streets of Washington, D.C..-Early life:...
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
Methane
Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
Decomposition
Decomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death...
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
Mud
Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
s bred in the stagnant pools
Water stagnation
Water stagnation occurs when water stops flowing. Stagnant water can be a major environmental hazard.-Dangers:Malaria and dengue are among the main dangers of stagnant water, which can become a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that transmit these diseases.Stagnant or Stailment water can be...
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
The Slum
At Five Points’ "height," only certain areas of London’s East EndEast End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
Child mortality
Child mortality, also known as under-5 mortality, refers to the death of infants and children under the age of five. In 2010, 7.6 million children under five died , down from 8.1 million in 2009, 8.8 million in 2008, and 12.4 million in 1990. About half of child deaths occur in Africa....
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
Melting pot
The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
, the Old Brewery
Old Brewery
The Old Brewery was the name given to Coulthard's Brewery built in 1792 in lower central Manhattan on land that was then on the outskirts of New York City after its conversion to a tenement following the Panic of 1837....
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
Roach Guards
The Roach Guards were an Irish street gang in New York City's Five Points neighborhood during the early 19th century. Originally formed to protect New York liquor merchants in Five Points, the gang soon began committing robbery and murder....
, Dead Rabbits
Dead Rabbits
The Dead Rabbits were a gang in New York City in the 1850s, and originally were a part of the Roach Guards. Daniel Cassidy claimed that the name has a second meaning rooted in Irish American vernacular of NYC in 1857 and that the word "Rabbit" is the phonetic corruption of the Irish word ráibéad,...
and Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
. According to Herbert Asbury's
Herbert Asbury
Herbert Asbury was an American journalist and writer who is best known for his true crime books detailing crime during the 19th and early 20th century such as Gem of the Prairie, Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld and The Gangs of New York...
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
Reel (dance)
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
s and jig
Jig
The Jig is a form of lively folk dance, as well as the accompanying dance tune, originating in England in the 16th century and today most associated with Irish dance music and Scottish country dance music...
s with the African shuffle
Shuffle (disambiguation)
The terms shuffle or shuffling may refer to any of the following:-Randomization:* shuffling — the arbitrary reordering of items, especially a deck of cards, to introduce an element of chance in their selection...
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
Creole music
Creole music applies to two genres of music from south Louisiana: Creole folk and Creole. Creole folk dates from the 18th century or before, and it consists primarily of folk songs. Many were published, and some found their way into works by Louisiana composers such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk,...
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
Music of Andalusia
The Music of Andalusia is very diverse and includes many external influences such as Arabic, Romani, Sephardic, Roman, and Christian.-Influence of Andalusian music:...
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
(see Master Juba
Master Juba
Master Juba was an African American dancer active in the 1840s. He was one of the first black performers in the United States to play onstage for white audiences and the only one of the era to tour with a white minstrel group...
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
Chinatown, Manhattan
Manhattan's Chinatown , home to one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere, is located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
.
Charles Dickens Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic... described Five Points in 1842 in his book American Notes for General Circulation American Notes American Notes for General Circulation is a travelogue by Charles Dickens detailing his trip to North America from January to June, 1842. While there he acted as a critical observer of these societies almost as if returning a status report on their progress... : "What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies behind this tottering flight of steps? Let us go on again, and plunge into the Five Points." "This is the place; these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruit as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and all the world over." "Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken forays. Many of these pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright instead of going on all fours, and why they talk instead of grunting?" |
Infectious diseases
Infectious diseaseInfectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
s such as cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
, typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
Riots
Anti-abolitionist riots of 1834: Also known as the Farren Riots, occurred in New York City over a series of four nights, beginning on July 7, 1834. Their deeper origins lay in the combination of anti-Catholic nativismNativism
Nativism may refer to:* Nativism or political nativism, a term used by scholars to refer to ethnocentric beliefs relating to immigration and nationalism; antiforeignism...
and Abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
St. Philip's Episcopal Church (Harlem, New York)
St. Philip's Church also known as St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church, is a historic Episcopal church located at 204 West 134th Street, just west of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard ) in Harlem, New York, New York. It was founded in 1809 by Free Africans worshiping at Trinity Church, Wall...
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
New York City Police Riot
The New York City Police Riot of 1857, known at the time as the Great Police Riot, was a conflict which occurred between the recently dissolved New York Municipal Police and the newly formed Metropolitan Police on June 16, 1857...
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
Astor Place Riot
The Astor Place Riot occurred on May 10, 1849 at the now-demolished Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City and left at least 25 dead and more than 120 injured...
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
New York Draft Riots
The New York City draft riots were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself...
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
Charles W. Sandford
Major-General Charles W. Sandford was an American militia and artillery officer, lawyer and businessman. He was a senior officer in the New York State Militia for over thirty years and commanded the First Division in every major civil disturbance in New York City up until the American Civil War,...
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
Gettysburg Campaign
The Gettysburg Campaign was a series of battles fought in June and July 1863, during the American Civil War. After his victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved north for offensive operations in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The...
to regain control of the city.
Social reformation
Various efforts by different charitable organizatons and individuals most Christian themed attempted to ameliorate the suffering of the poor in Five Points. Padre Felix VarelaFélix Varela
Félix Varela y Morales was a notable figure in the Roman Catholic Church in both Cuba and the United States.-Life:Varela was born in Havana, Cuba and died in St. Augustine, Florida, United States...
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
Slum clearance
The first call for clearing the slums of Five Points through wholesale demolition came in 1831 from merchants who maintained businesses in close proximity to the Five Points neighborhood. Slum clearance efforts (promoted in particular by Jacob RiisJacob Riis
Jacob August Riis was a Danish American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific...
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York was an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s...
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend was an area in the notorious Five Points neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. It was bound by Bayard Street in the north, Cross Street in the south, Orange Street on the west and Mulberry Street on the east. The "Bend" in the street layout was due to the original topography of the area...
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
| "That the place known as "Five points" has long been notorious... as being the nursery where every species of vice is conceived and matured; that it is infested by a class of the most abandoned and desperate character.... "[They] are abridged from enjoying themselves in their sports, from the apprehension... that they may be enticed from the path of rectitude, by being familiarized with vice; and thus advancing step by step, be at last swallowed up in this sink of pollution, this vortex of irremediable infamy. "In conclusion your Committee remark, that this hot–bed of infamy, this modern Sodom Sodom and Gomorrah Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources.... , is situated in the very heart of your City, and near the centre of business and of respectable population.... Remove this nucleus—scatter its present population over a larger surface—throw open this part of your city to the enterprise of active and respectable men, and you will have effected much for which good men will be grateful." - "Petition to Have the Five Points Opened," Board of Assistant Aldermen documents (24 October 1831), Municipal Archives, City of New York. |
Modern era
What was Five Points is today covered in part in the west and south by large city, state and federal administration buildings and courthouses known collectively as Civic Center, ManhattanCivic Center, Manhattan
Civic Center is a neighborhood in downtown Manhattan covering the area around New York City Hall. It is bounded on the west by Broadway, on the north by Chinatown, on the east by the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge, and on the south by the Financial District.As in other civic centers, it is the...
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
Foley Square
Foley Square is a street intersection and green space in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City and – by extension – the surrounding area, which is dominated by civic buildings. The space is bordered by Worth Street, Centre Street and Lafayette Street and lies...
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
The Tombs
"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
Maps
The physical layout of the Five Points intersection changed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.Gangs of New York
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for the latter...
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw (actor)
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
Gallery
Five Points (or The Five Points) was a neighborhood in central lower ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
Collect Pond
The topographyTopography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
Spring (hydrosphere)
A spring—also known as a rising or resurgence—is a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground...
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
Valley
In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys...
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
Eastern oyster
The eastern oyster — also called Atlantic oyster or Virginia oyster — is a species of true oyster native to the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico coast of North America. It is also farmed in Puget Sound, Washington, where it is known as the Totten Inlet Virginica. Eastern oysters are and have...
shell midden
Midden
A midden, is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, sherds, lithics , and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation...
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
Freshwater fish
Freshwater fish are fish that spend some or all of their lives in freshwater, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 0.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, the most obvious being the difference in levels of salinity...
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
Nicholas Bayard
Colonel Nicholas Bayard was an official in the colony of New York. Bayard served as the sixteenth Mayor of New York City, from 1685 to 1686...
slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
Tanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
Johan Willem Crolius
Clarkson Crolius
Clarkson Crolius was an American businessman and politician.-Life:He was the son of Johannes Crolius and Maria Clarkson Crolius. His grandfather Johan Willem Crolius, a manufacturer of stoneware, is said to have come from Germany to New York City, and ran a pottery in Reade Street, near Broadway...
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
Wastewater
Wastewater is any water that has been adversely affected in quality by anthropogenic influence. It comprises liquid waste discharged by domestic residences, commercial properties, industry, and/or agriculture and can encompass a wide range of potential contaminants and concentrations...
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
Water pollution
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant was a French-born American architect and civil engineer best known for designing the layout of the streets of Washington, D.C..-Early life:...
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
Methane
Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
Decomposition
Decomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death...
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
Mud
Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
s bred in the stagnant pools
Water stagnation
Water stagnation occurs when water stops flowing. Stagnant water can be a major environmental hazard.-Dangers:Malaria and dengue are among the main dangers of stagnant water, which can become a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that transmit these diseases.Stagnant or Stailment water can be...
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
The Slum
At Five Points’ "height," only certain areas of London’s East EndEast End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
Child mortality
Child mortality, also known as under-5 mortality, refers to the death of infants and children under the age of five. In 2010, 7.6 million children under five died , down from 8.1 million in 2009, 8.8 million in 2008, and 12.4 million in 1990. About half of child deaths occur in Africa....
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
Melting pot
The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
, the Old Brewery
Old Brewery
The Old Brewery was the name given to Coulthard's Brewery built in 1792 in lower central Manhattan on land that was then on the outskirts of New York City after its conversion to a tenement following the Panic of 1837....
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
Roach Guards
The Roach Guards were an Irish street gang in New York City's Five Points neighborhood during the early 19th century. Originally formed to protect New York liquor merchants in Five Points, the gang soon began committing robbery and murder....
, Dead Rabbits
Dead Rabbits
The Dead Rabbits were a gang in New York City in the 1850s, and originally were a part of the Roach Guards. Daniel Cassidy claimed that the name has a second meaning rooted in Irish American vernacular of NYC in 1857 and that the word "Rabbit" is the phonetic corruption of the Irish word ráibéad,...
and Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
. According to Herbert Asbury's
Herbert Asbury
Herbert Asbury was an American journalist and writer who is best known for his true crime books detailing crime during the 19th and early 20th century such as Gem of the Prairie, Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld and The Gangs of New York...
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
Reel (dance)
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
s and jig
Jig
The Jig is a form of lively folk dance, as well as the accompanying dance tune, originating in England in the 16th century and today most associated with Irish dance music and Scottish country dance music...
s with the African shuffle
Shuffle (disambiguation)
The terms shuffle or shuffling may refer to any of the following:-Randomization:* shuffling — the arbitrary reordering of items, especially a deck of cards, to introduce an element of chance in their selection...
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
Creole music
Creole music applies to two genres of music from south Louisiana: Creole folk and Creole. Creole folk dates from the 18th century or before, and it consists primarily of folk songs. Many were published, and some found their way into works by Louisiana composers such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk,...
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
Music of Andalusia
The Music of Andalusia is very diverse and includes many external influences such as Arabic, Romani, Sephardic, Roman, and Christian.-Influence of Andalusian music:...
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
(see Master Juba
Master Juba
Master Juba was an African American dancer active in the 1840s. He was one of the first black performers in the United States to play onstage for white audiences and the only one of the era to tour with a white minstrel group...
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
Chinatown, Manhattan
Manhattan's Chinatown , home to one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere, is located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
.
Charles Dickens Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic... described Five Points in 1842 in his book American Notes for General Circulation American Notes American Notes for General Circulation is a travelogue by Charles Dickens detailing his trip to North America from January to June, 1842. While there he acted as a critical observer of these societies almost as if returning a status report on their progress... : "What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies behind this tottering flight of steps? Let us go on again, and plunge into the Five Points." "This is the place; these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruit as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and all the world over." "Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken forays. Many of these pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright instead of going on all fours, and why they talk instead of grunting?" |
Infectious diseases
Infectious diseaseInfectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
s such as cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
, typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
Riots
Anti-abolitionist riots of 1834: Also known as the Farren Riots, occurred in New York City over a series of four nights, beginning on July 7, 1834. Their deeper origins lay in the combination of anti-Catholic nativismNativism
Nativism may refer to:* Nativism or political nativism, a term used by scholars to refer to ethnocentric beliefs relating to immigration and nationalism; antiforeignism...
and Abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
St. Philip's Episcopal Church (Harlem, New York)
St. Philip's Church also known as St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church, is a historic Episcopal church located at 204 West 134th Street, just west of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard ) in Harlem, New York, New York. It was founded in 1809 by Free Africans worshiping at Trinity Church, Wall...
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
New York City Police Riot
The New York City Police Riot of 1857, known at the time as the Great Police Riot, was a conflict which occurred between the recently dissolved New York Municipal Police and the newly formed Metropolitan Police on June 16, 1857...
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
Astor Place Riot
The Astor Place Riot occurred on May 10, 1849 at the now-demolished Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City and left at least 25 dead and more than 120 injured...
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
New York Draft Riots
The New York City draft riots were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself...
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
Charles W. Sandford
Major-General Charles W. Sandford was an American militia and artillery officer, lawyer and businessman. He was a senior officer in the New York State Militia for over thirty years and commanded the First Division in every major civil disturbance in New York City up until the American Civil War,...
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
Gettysburg Campaign
The Gettysburg Campaign was a series of battles fought in June and July 1863, during the American Civil War. After his victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved north for offensive operations in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The...
to regain control of the city.
Social reformation
Various efforts by different charitable organizatons and individuals most Christian themed attempted to ameliorate the suffering of the poor in Five Points. Padre Felix VarelaFélix Varela
Félix Varela y Morales was a notable figure in the Roman Catholic Church in both Cuba and the United States.-Life:Varela was born in Havana, Cuba and died in St. Augustine, Florida, United States...
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
Slum clearance
The first call for clearing the slums of Five Points through wholesale demolition came in 1831 from merchants who maintained businesses in close proximity to the Five Points neighborhood. Slum clearance efforts (promoted in particular by Jacob RiisJacob Riis
Jacob August Riis was a Danish American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific...
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York was an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s...
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend was an area in the notorious Five Points neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. It was bound by Bayard Street in the north, Cross Street in the south, Orange Street on the west and Mulberry Street on the east. The "Bend" in the street layout was due to the original topography of the area...
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
| "That the place known as "Five points" has long been notorious... as being the nursery where every species of vice is conceived and matured; that it is infested by a class of the most abandoned and desperate character.... "[They] are abridged from enjoying themselves in their sports, from the apprehension... that they may be enticed from the path of rectitude, by being familiarized with vice; and thus advancing step by step, be at last swallowed up in this sink of pollution, this vortex of irremediable infamy. "In conclusion your Committee remark, that this hot–bed of infamy, this modern Sodom Sodom and Gomorrah Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources.... , is situated in the very heart of your City, and near the centre of business and of respectable population.... Remove this nucleus—scatter its present population over a larger surface—throw open this part of your city to the enterprise of active and respectable men, and you will have effected much for which good men will be grateful." - "Petition to Have the Five Points Opened," Board of Assistant Aldermen documents (24 October 1831), Municipal Archives, City of New York. |
Modern era
What was Five Points is today covered in part in the west and south by large city, state and federal administration buildings and courthouses known collectively as Civic Center, ManhattanCivic Center, Manhattan
Civic Center is a neighborhood in downtown Manhattan covering the area around New York City Hall. It is bounded on the west by Broadway, on the north by Chinatown, on the east by the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge, and on the south by the Financial District.As in other civic centers, it is the...
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
Foley Square
Foley Square is a street intersection and green space in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City and – by extension – the surrounding area, which is dominated by civic buildings. The space is bordered by Worth Street, Centre Street and Lafayette Street and lies...
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
The Tombs
"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
Maps
The physical layout of the Five Points intersection changed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.Gangs of New York
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for the latter...
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw (actor)
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
Gallery
Five Points (or The Five Points) was a neighborhood in central lower ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
Collect Pond
The topographyTopography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
Spring (hydrosphere)
A spring—also known as a rising or resurgence—is a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground...
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
Valley
In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys...
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
Eastern oyster
The eastern oyster — also called Atlantic oyster or Virginia oyster — is a species of true oyster native to the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico coast of North America. It is also farmed in Puget Sound, Washington, where it is known as the Totten Inlet Virginica. Eastern oysters are and have...
shell midden
Midden
A midden, is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, sherds, lithics , and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation...
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
Freshwater fish
Freshwater fish are fish that spend some or all of their lives in freshwater, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 0.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, the most obvious being the difference in levels of salinity...
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
Nicholas Bayard
Colonel Nicholas Bayard was an official in the colony of New York. Bayard served as the sixteenth Mayor of New York City, from 1685 to 1686...
slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
Tanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
Johan Willem Crolius
Clarkson Crolius
Clarkson Crolius was an American businessman and politician.-Life:He was the son of Johannes Crolius and Maria Clarkson Crolius. His grandfather Johan Willem Crolius, a manufacturer of stoneware, is said to have come from Germany to New York City, and ran a pottery in Reade Street, near Broadway...
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
Wastewater
Wastewater is any water that has been adversely affected in quality by anthropogenic influence. It comprises liquid waste discharged by domestic residences, commercial properties, industry, and/or agriculture and can encompass a wide range of potential contaminants and concentrations...
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
Water pollution
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant was a French-born American architect and civil engineer best known for designing the layout of the streets of Washington, D.C..-Early life:...
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
Methane
Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
Decomposition
Decomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death...
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
Mud
Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
s bred in the stagnant pools
Water stagnation
Water stagnation occurs when water stops flowing. Stagnant water can be a major environmental hazard.-Dangers:Malaria and dengue are among the main dangers of stagnant water, which can become a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that transmit these diseases.Stagnant or Stailment water can be...
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
The Slum
At Five Points’ "height," only certain areas of London’s East EndEast End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
Child mortality
Child mortality, also known as under-5 mortality, refers to the death of infants and children under the age of five. In 2010, 7.6 million children under five died , down from 8.1 million in 2009, 8.8 million in 2008, and 12.4 million in 1990. About half of child deaths occur in Africa....
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
Melting pot
The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
, the Old Brewery
Old Brewery
The Old Brewery was the name given to Coulthard's Brewery built in 1792 in lower central Manhattan on land that was then on the outskirts of New York City after its conversion to a tenement following the Panic of 1837....
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
Roach Guards
The Roach Guards were an Irish street gang in New York City's Five Points neighborhood during the early 19th century. Originally formed to protect New York liquor merchants in Five Points, the gang soon began committing robbery and murder....
, Dead Rabbits
Dead Rabbits
The Dead Rabbits were a gang in New York City in the 1850s, and originally were a part of the Roach Guards. Daniel Cassidy claimed that the name has a second meaning rooted in Irish American vernacular of NYC in 1857 and that the word "Rabbit" is the phonetic corruption of the Irish word ráibéad,...
and Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
. According to Herbert Asbury's
Herbert Asbury
Herbert Asbury was an American journalist and writer who is best known for his true crime books detailing crime during the 19th and early 20th century such as Gem of the Prairie, Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld and The Gangs of New York...
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
Reel (dance)
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
s and jig
Jig
The Jig is a form of lively folk dance, as well as the accompanying dance tune, originating in England in the 16th century and today most associated with Irish dance music and Scottish country dance music...
s with the African shuffle
Shuffle (disambiguation)
The terms shuffle or shuffling may refer to any of the following:-Randomization:* shuffling — the arbitrary reordering of items, especially a deck of cards, to introduce an element of chance in their selection...
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
Creole music
Creole music applies to two genres of music from south Louisiana: Creole folk and Creole. Creole folk dates from the 18th century or before, and it consists primarily of folk songs. Many were published, and some found their way into works by Louisiana composers such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk,...
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
Music of Andalusia
The Music of Andalusia is very diverse and includes many external influences such as Arabic, Romani, Sephardic, Roman, and Christian.-Influence of Andalusian music:...
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
(see Master Juba
Master Juba
Master Juba was an African American dancer active in the 1840s. He was one of the first black performers in the United States to play onstage for white audiences and the only one of the era to tour with a white minstrel group...
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
Chinatown, Manhattan
Manhattan's Chinatown , home to one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere, is located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
.
Charles Dickens Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic... described Five Points in 1842 in his book American Notes for General Circulation American Notes American Notes for General Circulation is a travelogue by Charles Dickens detailing his trip to North America from January to June, 1842. While there he acted as a critical observer of these societies almost as if returning a status report on their progress... : "What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies behind this tottering flight of steps? Let us go on again, and plunge into the Five Points." "This is the place; these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruit as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and all the world over." "Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken forays. Many of these pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright instead of going on all fours, and why they talk instead of grunting?" |
Infectious diseases
Infectious diseaseInfectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
s such as cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
, typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
Riots
Anti-abolitionist riots of 1834: Also known as the Farren Riots, occurred in New York City over a series of four nights, beginning on July 7, 1834. Their deeper origins lay in the combination of anti-Catholic nativismNativism
Nativism may refer to:* Nativism or political nativism, a term used by scholars to refer to ethnocentric beliefs relating to immigration and nationalism; antiforeignism...
and Abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
St. Philip's Episcopal Church (Harlem, New York)
St. Philip's Church also known as St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church, is a historic Episcopal church located at 204 West 134th Street, just west of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard ) in Harlem, New York, New York. It was founded in 1809 by Free Africans worshiping at Trinity Church, Wall...
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
New York City Police Riot
The New York City Police Riot of 1857, known at the time as the Great Police Riot, was a conflict which occurred between the recently dissolved New York Municipal Police and the newly formed Metropolitan Police on June 16, 1857...
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
Astor Place Riot
The Astor Place Riot occurred on May 10, 1849 at the now-demolished Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City and left at least 25 dead and more than 120 injured...
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
New York Draft Riots
The New York City draft riots were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself...
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
Charles W. Sandford
Major-General Charles W. Sandford was an American militia and artillery officer, lawyer and businessman. He was a senior officer in the New York State Militia for over thirty years and commanded the First Division in every major civil disturbance in New York City up until the American Civil War,...
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
Gettysburg Campaign
The Gettysburg Campaign was a series of battles fought in June and July 1863, during the American Civil War. After his victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved north for offensive operations in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The...
to regain control of the city.
Social reformation
Various efforts by different charitable organizatons and individuals most Christian themed attempted to ameliorate the suffering of the poor in Five Points. Padre Felix VarelaFélix Varela
Félix Varela y Morales was a notable figure in the Roman Catholic Church in both Cuba and the United States.-Life:Varela was born in Havana, Cuba and died in St. Augustine, Florida, United States...
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
Slum clearance
The first call for clearing the slums of Five Points through wholesale demolition came in 1831 from merchants who maintained businesses in close proximity to the Five Points neighborhood. Slum clearance efforts (promoted in particular by Jacob RiisJacob Riis
Jacob August Riis was a Danish American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific...
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York was an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s...
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend was an area in the notorious Five Points neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. It was bound by Bayard Street in the north, Cross Street in the south, Orange Street on the west and Mulberry Street on the east. The "Bend" in the street layout was due to the original topography of the area...
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
| "That the place known as "Five points" has long been notorious... as being the nursery where every species of vice is conceived and matured; that it is infested by a class of the most abandoned and desperate character.... "[They] are abridged from enjoying themselves in their sports, from the apprehension... that they may be enticed from the path of rectitude, by being familiarized with vice; and thus advancing step by step, be at last swallowed up in this sink of pollution, this vortex of irremediable infamy. "In conclusion your Committee remark, that this hot–bed of infamy, this modern Sodom Sodom and Gomorrah Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources.... , is situated in the very heart of your City, and near the centre of business and of respectable population.... Remove this nucleus—scatter its present population over a larger surface—throw open this part of your city to the enterprise of active and respectable men, and you will have effected much for which good men will be grateful." - "Petition to Have the Five Points Opened," Board of Assistant Aldermen documents (24 October 1831), Municipal Archives, City of New York. |
Modern era
What was Five Points is today covered in part in the west and south by large city, state and federal administration buildings and courthouses known collectively as Civic Center, ManhattanCivic Center, Manhattan
Civic Center is a neighborhood in downtown Manhattan covering the area around New York City Hall. It is bounded on the west by Broadway, on the north by Chinatown, on the east by the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge, and on the south by the Financial District.As in other civic centers, it is the...
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
Foley Square
Foley Square is a street intersection and green space in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City and – by extension – the surrounding area, which is dominated by civic buildings. The space is bordered by Worth Street, Centre Street and Lafayette Street and lies...
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
The Tombs
"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
Maps
The physical layout of the Five Points intersection changed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.File:NYC1776.jpg|1776 British map showing the Collect Pond ("Fresh Water"), the canals used to drain the adjacent salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
and the tanneries
Tannery
Tannery may refer to:* Tannery , a facility where the tanning process is applied to hide to produce leather* Paul Tannery , a French mathematician and historian of mathematics...
on the eastern shore
File:1800-map-Five-Point-NYC.jpg|1800 map with an 1873 street plan overlay the location of future Five Points intersection at lower right of Collect Pond
File:1831-map-new-york-five-points.jpg|1831 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:1851-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1851 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:5pointe1853close-up.JPG|1853 map of Five Points intersection showing original street names
File:1902-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1902 map
Gangs of New York
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for the latter...
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw (actor)
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
Gallery
Five Points (or The Five Points) was a neighborhood in central lower ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
Collect Pond
The topographyTopography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
Spring (hydrosphere)
A spring—also known as a rising or resurgence—is a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground...
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
Valley
In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys...
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
Eastern oyster
The eastern oyster — also called Atlantic oyster or Virginia oyster — is a species of true oyster native to the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico coast of North America. It is also farmed in Puget Sound, Washington, where it is known as the Totten Inlet Virginica. Eastern oysters are and have...
shell midden
Midden
A midden, is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, sherds, lithics , and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation...
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
Freshwater fish
Freshwater fish are fish that spend some or all of their lives in freshwater, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 0.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, the most obvious being the difference in levels of salinity...
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
Nicholas Bayard
Colonel Nicholas Bayard was an official in the colony of New York. Bayard served as the sixteenth Mayor of New York City, from 1685 to 1686...
slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
Tanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
Johan Willem Crolius
Clarkson Crolius
Clarkson Crolius was an American businessman and politician.-Life:He was the son of Johannes Crolius and Maria Clarkson Crolius. His grandfather Johan Willem Crolius, a manufacturer of stoneware, is said to have come from Germany to New York City, and ran a pottery in Reade Street, near Broadway...
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
Wastewater
Wastewater is any water that has been adversely affected in quality by anthropogenic influence. It comprises liquid waste discharged by domestic residences, commercial properties, industry, and/or agriculture and can encompass a wide range of potential contaminants and concentrations...
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
Water pollution
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant was a French-born American architect and civil engineer best known for designing the layout of the streets of Washington, D.C..-Early life:...
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
Methane
Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
Decomposition
Decomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death...
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
Mud
Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
s bred in the stagnant pools
Water stagnation
Water stagnation occurs when water stops flowing. Stagnant water can be a major environmental hazard.-Dangers:Malaria and dengue are among the main dangers of stagnant water, which can become a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that transmit these diseases.Stagnant or Stailment water can be...
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
The Slum
At Five Points’ "height," only certain areas of London’s East EndEast End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
Child mortality
Child mortality, also known as under-5 mortality, refers to the death of infants and children under the age of five. In 2010, 7.6 million children under five died , down from 8.1 million in 2009, 8.8 million in 2008, and 12.4 million in 1990. About half of child deaths occur in Africa....
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
Melting pot
The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
, the Old Brewery
Old Brewery
The Old Brewery was the name given to Coulthard's Brewery built in 1792 in lower central Manhattan on land that was then on the outskirts of New York City after its conversion to a tenement following the Panic of 1837....
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
Roach Guards
The Roach Guards were an Irish street gang in New York City's Five Points neighborhood during the early 19th century. Originally formed to protect New York liquor merchants in Five Points, the gang soon began committing robbery and murder....
, Dead Rabbits
Dead Rabbits
The Dead Rabbits were a gang in New York City in the 1850s, and originally were a part of the Roach Guards. Daniel Cassidy claimed that the name has a second meaning rooted in Irish American vernacular of NYC in 1857 and that the word "Rabbit" is the phonetic corruption of the Irish word ráibéad,...
and Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
. According to Herbert Asbury's
Herbert Asbury
Herbert Asbury was an American journalist and writer who is best known for his true crime books detailing crime during the 19th and early 20th century such as Gem of the Prairie, Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld and The Gangs of New York...
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
Reel (dance)
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
s and jig
Jig
The Jig is a form of lively folk dance, as well as the accompanying dance tune, originating in England in the 16th century and today most associated with Irish dance music and Scottish country dance music...
s with the African shuffle
Shuffle (disambiguation)
The terms shuffle or shuffling may refer to any of the following:-Randomization:* shuffling — the arbitrary reordering of items, especially a deck of cards, to introduce an element of chance in their selection...
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
Creole music
Creole music applies to two genres of music from south Louisiana: Creole folk and Creole. Creole folk dates from the 18th century or before, and it consists primarily of folk songs. Many were published, and some found their way into works by Louisiana composers such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk,...
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
Music of Andalusia
The Music of Andalusia is very diverse and includes many external influences such as Arabic, Romani, Sephardic, Roman, and Christian.-Influence of Andalusian music:...
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
(see Master Juba
Master Juba
Master Juba was an African American dancer active in the 1840s. He was one of the first black performers in the United States to play onstage for white audiences and the only one of the era to tour with a white minstrel group...
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
Chinatown, Manhattan
Manhattan's Chinatown , home to one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere, is located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
.
Charles Dickens Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic... described Five Points in 1842 in his book American Notes for General Circulation American Notes American Notes for General Circulation is a travelogue by Charles Dickens detailing his trip to North America from January to June, 1842. While there he acted as a critical observer of these societies almost as if returning a status report on their progress... : "What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies behind this tottering flight of steps? Let us go on again, and plunge into the Five Points." "This is the place; these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruit as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and all the world over." "Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken forays. Many of these pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright instead of going on all fours, and why they talk instead of grunting?" |
Infectious diseases
Infectious diseaseInfectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
s such as cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
, typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
Riots
Anti-abolitionist riots of 1834: Also known as the Farren Riots, occurred in New York City over a series of four nights, beginning on July 7, 1834. Their deeper origins lay in the combination of anti-Catholic nativismNativism
Nativism may refer to:* Nativism or political nativism, a term used by scholars to refer to ethnocentric beliefs relating to immigration and nationalism; antiforeignism...
and Abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
St. Philip's Episcopal Church (Harlem, New York)
St. Philip's Church also known as St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church, is a historic Episcopal church located at 204 West 134th Street, just west of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard ) in Harlem, New York, New York. It was founded in 1809 by Free Africans worshiping at Trinity Church, Wall...
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
New York City Police Riot
The New York City Police Riot of 1857, known at the time as the Great Police Riot, was a conflict which occurred between the recently dissolved New York Municipal Police and the newly formed Metropolitan Police on June 16, 1857...
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
Astor Place Riot
The Astor Place Riot occurred on May 10, 1849 at the now-demolished Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City and left at least 25 dead and more than 120 injured...
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
New York Draft Riots
The New York City draft riots were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself...
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
Charles W. Sandford
Major-General Charles W. Sandford was an American militia and artillery officer, lawyer and businessman. He was a senior officer in the New York State Militia for over thirty years and commanded the First Division in every major civil disturbance in New York City up until the American Civil War,...
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
Gettysburg Campaign
The Gettysburg Campaign was a series of battles fought in June and July 1863, during the American Civil War. After his victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved north for offensive operations in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The...
to regain control of the city.
Social reformation
Various efforts by different charitable organizatons and individuals most Christian themed attempted to ameliorate the suffering of the poor in Five Points. Padre Felix VarelaFélix Varela
Félix Varela y Morales was a notable figure in the Roman Catholic Church in both Cuba and the United States.-Life:Varela was born in Havana, Cuba and died in St. Augustine, Florida, United States...
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
Slum clearance
The first call for clearing the slums of Five Points through wholesale demolition came in 1831 from merchants who maintained businesses in close proximity to the Five Points neighborhood. Slum clearance efforts (promoted in particular by Jacob RiisJacob Riis
Jacob August Riis was a Danish American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific...
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York was an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s...
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend was an area in the notorious Five Points neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. It was bound by Bayard Street in the north, Cross Street in the south, Orange Street on the west and Mulberry Street on the east. The "Bend" in the street layout was due to the original topography of the area...
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
| "That the place known as "Five points" has long been notorious... as being the nursery where every species of vice is conceived and matured; that it is infested by a class of the most abandoned and desperate character.... "[They] are abridged from enjoying themselves in their sports, from the apprehension... that they may be enticed from the path of rectitude, by being familiarized with vice; and thus advancing step by step, be at last swallowed up in this sink of pollution, this vortex of irremediable infamy. "In conclusion your Committee remark, that this hot–bed of infamy, this modern Sodom Sodom and Gomorrah Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources.... , is situated in the very heart of your City, and near the centre of business and of respectable population.... Remove this nucleus—scatter its present population over a larger surface—throw open this part of your city to the enterprise of active and respectable men, and you will have effected much for which good men will be grateful." - "Petition to Have the Five Points Opened," Board of Assistant Aldermen documents (24 October 1831), Municipal Archives, City of New York. |
Modern era
What was Five Points is today covered in part in the west and south by large city, state and federal administration buildings and courthouses known collectively as Civic Center, ManhattanCivic Center, Manhattan
Civic Center is a neighborhood in downtown Manhattan covering the area around New York City Hall. It is bounded on the west by Broadway, on the north by Chinatown, on the east by the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge, and on the south by the Financial District.As in other civic centers, it is the...
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
Foley Square
Foley Square is a street intersection and green space in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City and – by extension – the surrounding area, which is dominated by civic buildings. The space is bordered by Worth Street, Centre Street and Lafayette Street and lies...
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
The Tombs
"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
Maps
The physical layout of the Five Points intersection changed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.File:NYC1776.jpg|1776 British map showing the Collect Pond ("Fresh Water"), the canals used to drain the adjacent salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
and the tanneries
Tannery
Tannery may refer to:* Tannery , a facility where the tanning process is applied to hide to produce leather* Paul Tannery , a French mathematician and historian of mathematics...
on the eastern shore
File:1800-map-Five-Point-NYC.jpg|1800 map with an 1873 street plan overlay the location of future Five Points intersection at lower right of Collect Pond
File:1831-map-new-york-five-points.jpg|1831 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:1851-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1851 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:5pointe1853close-up.JPG|1853 map of Five Points intersection showing original street names
File:1902-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1902 map
Gangs of New York
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for the latter...
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw (actor)
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
Gallery
Five Points (or The Five Points) was a neighborhood in central lower ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
Collect Pond
The topographyTopography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
Spring (hydrosphere)
A spring—also known as a rising or resurgence—is a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground...
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
Valley
In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys...
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
Eastern oyster
The eastern oyster — also called Atlantic oyster or Virginia oyster — is a species of true oyster native to the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico coast of North America. It is also farmed in Puget Sound, Washington, where it is known as the Totten Inlet Virginica. Eastern oysters are and have...
shell midden
Midden
A midden, is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, sherds, lithics , and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation...
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
Freshwater fish
Freshwater fish are fish that spend some or all of their lives in freshwater, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 0.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, the most obvious being the difference in levels of salinity...
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
Nicholas Bayard
Colonel Nicholas Bayard was an official in the colony of New York. Bayard served as the sixteenth Mayor of New York City, from 1685 to 1686...
slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
Tanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
Johan Willem Crolius
Clarkson Crolius
Clarkson Crolius was an American businessman and politician.-Life:He was the son of Johannes Crolius and Maria Clarkson Crolius. His grandfather Johan Willem Crolius, a manufacturer of stoneware, is said to have come from Germany to New York City, and ran a pottery in Reade Street, near Broadway...
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
Wastewater
Wastewater is any water that has been adversely affected in quality by anthropogenic influence. It comprises liquid waste discharged by domestic residences, commercial properties, industry, and/or agriculture and can encompass a wide range of potential contaminants and concentrations...
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
Water pollution
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant was a French-born American architect and civil engineer best known for designing the layout of the streets of Washington, D.C..-Early life:...
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
Methane
Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
Decomposition
Decomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death...
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
Mud
Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
s bred in the stagnant pools
Water stagnation
Water stagnation occurs when water stops flowing. Stagnant water can be a major environmental hazard.-Dangers:Malaria and dengue are among the main dangers of stagnant water, which can become a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that transmit these diseases.Stagnant or Stailment water can be...
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
The Slum
At Five Points’ "height," only certain areas of London’s East EndEast End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
Child mortality
Child mortality, also known as under-5 mortality, refers to the death of infants and children under the age of five. In 2010, 7.6 million children under five died , down from 8.1 million in 2009, 8.8 million in 2008, and 12.4 million in 1990. About half of child deaths occur in Africa....
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
Melting pot
The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
, the Old Brewery
Old Brewery
The Old Brewery was the name given to Coulthard's Brewery built in 1792 in lower central Manhattan on land that was then on the outskirts of New York City after its conversion to a tenement following the Panic of 1837....
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
Roach Guards
The Roach Guards were an Irish street gang in New York City's Five Points neighborhood during the early 19th century. Originally formed to protect New York liquor merchants in Five Points, the gang soon began committing robbery and murder....
, Dead Rabbits
Dead Rabbits
The Dead Rabbits were a gang in New York City in the 1850s, and originally were a part of the Roach Guards. Daniel Cassidy claimed that the name has a second meaning rooted in Irish American vernacular of NYC in 1857 and that the word "Rabbit" is the phonetic corruption of the Irish word ráibéad,...
and Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
. According to Herbert Asbury's
Herbert Asbury
Herbert Asbury was an American journalist and writer who is best known for his true crime books detailing crime during the 19th and early 20th century such as Gem of the Prairie, Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld and The Gangs of New York...
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
Reel (dance)
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
s and jig
Jig
The Jig is a form of lively folk dance, as well as the accompanying dance tune, originating in England in the 16th century and today most associated with Irish dance music and Scottish country dance music...
s with the African shuffle
Shuffle (disambiguation)
The terms shuffle or shuffling may refer to any of the following:-Randomization:* shuffling — the arbitrary reordering of items, especially a deck of cards, to introduce an element of chance in their selection...
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
Creole music
Creole music applies to two genres of music from south Louisiana: Creole folk and Creole. Creole folk dates from the 18th century or before, and it consists primarily of folk songs. Many were published, and some found their way into works by Louisiana composers such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk,...
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
Music of Andalusia
The Music of Andalusia is very diverse and includes many external influences such as Arabic, Romani, Sephardic, Roman, and Christian.-Influence of Andalusian music:...
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
(see Master Juba
Master Juba
Master Juba was an African American dancer active in the 1840s. He was one of the first black performers in the United States to play onstage for white audiences and the only one of the era to tour with a white minstrel group...
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
Chinatown, Manhattan
Manhattan's Chinatown , home to one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere, is located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
.
Charles Dickens Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic... described Five Points in 1842 in his book American Notes for General Circulation American Notes American Notes for General Circulation is a travelogue by Charles Dickens detailing his trip to North America from January to June, 1842. While there he acted as a critical observer of these societies almost as if returning a status report on their progress... : "What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies behind this tottering flight of steps? Let us go on again, and plunge into the Five Points." "This is the place; these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruit as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and all the world over." "Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken forays. Many of these pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright instead of going on all fours, and why they talk instead of grunting?" |
Infectious diseases
Infectious diseaseInfectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
s such as cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
, typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
Riots
Anti-abolitionist riots of 1834: Also known as the Farren Riots, occurred in New York City over a series of four nights, beginning on July 7, 1834. Their deeper origins lay in the combination of anti-Catholic nativismNativism
Nativism may refer to:* Nativism or political nativism, a term used by scholars to refer to ethnocentric beliefs relating to immigration and nationalism; antiforeignism...
and Abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
St. Philip's Episcopal Church (Harlem, New York)
St. Philip's Church also known as St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church, is a historic Episcopal church located at 204 West 134th Street, just west of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard ) in Harlem, New York, New York. It was founded in 1809 by Free Africans worshiping at Trinity Church, Wall...
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
New York City Police Riot
The New York City Police Riot of 1857, known at the time as the Great Police Riot, was a conflict which occurred between the recently dissolved New York Municipal Police and the newly formed Metropolitan Police on June 16, 1857...
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
Astor Place Riot
The Astor Place Riot occurred on May 10, 1849 at the now-demolished Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City and left at least 25 dead and more than 120 injured...
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
New York Draft Riots
The New York City draft riots were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself...
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
Charles W. Sandford
Major-General Charles W. Sandford was an American militia and artillery officer, lawyer and businessman. He was a senior officer in the New York State Militia for over thirty years and commanded the First Division in every major civil disturbance in New York City up until the American Civil War,...
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
Gettysburg Campaign
The Gettysburg Campaign was a series of battles fought in June and July 1863, during the American Civil War. After his victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved north for offensive operations in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The...
to regain control of the city.
Social reformation
Various efforts by different charitable organizatons and individuals most Christian themed attempted to ameliorate the suffering of the poor in Five Points. Padre Felix VarelaFélix Varela
Félix Varela y Morales was a notable figure in the Roman Catholic Church in both Cuba and the United States.-Life:Varela was born in Havana, Cuba and died in St. Augustine, Florida, United States...
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
Slum clearance
The first call for clearing the slums of Five Points through wholesale demolition came in 1831 from merchants who maintained businesses in close proximity to the Five Points neighborhood. Slum clearance efforts (promoted in particular by Jacob RiisJacob Riis
Jacob August Riis was a Danish American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific...
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York was an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s...
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend was an area in the notorious Five Points neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. It was bound by Bayard Street in the north, Cross Street in the south, Orange Street on the west and Mulberry Street on the east. The "Bend" in the street layout was due to the original topography of the area...
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
| "That the place known as "Five points" has long been notorious... as being the nursery where every species of vice is conceived and matured; that it is infested by a class of the most abandoned and desperate character.... "[They] are abridged from enjoying themselves in their sports, from the apprehension... that they may be enticed from the path of rectitude, by being familiarized with vice; and thus advancing step by step, be at last swallowed up in this sink of pollution, this vortex of irremediable infamy. "In conclusion your Committee remark, that this hot–bed of infamy, this modern Sodom Sodom and Gomorrah Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources.... , is situated in the very heart of your City, and near the centre of business and of respectable population.... Remove this nucleus—scatter its present population over a larger surface—throw open this part of your city to the enterprise of active and respectable men, and you will have effected much for which good men will be grateful." - "Petition to Have the Five Points Opened," Board of Assistant Aldermen documents (24 October 1831), Municipal Archives, City of New York. |
Modern era
What was Five Points is today covered in part in the west and south by large city, state and federal administration buildings and courthouses known collectively as Civic Center, ManhattanCivic Center, Manhattan
Civic Center is a neighborhood in downtown Manhattan covering the area around New York City Hall. It is bounded on the west by Broadway, on the north by Chinatown, on the east by the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge, and on the south by the Financial District.As in other civic centers, it is the...
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
Foley Square
Foley Square is a street intersection and green space in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City and – by extension – the surrounding area, which is dominated by civic buildings. The space is bordered by Worth Street, Centre Street and Lafayette Street and lies...
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
The Tombs
"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
Maps
The physical layout of the Five Points intersection changed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.Gangs of New York
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for the latter...
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw (actor)
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
Gallery
Five Points (or The Five Points) was a neighborhood in central lower ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
Collect Pond
The topographyTopography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
Spring (hydrosphere)
A spring—also known as a rising or resurgence—is a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground...
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
Valley
In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys...
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
Eastern oyster
The eastern oyster — also called Atlantic oyster or Virginia oyster — is a species of true oyster native to the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico coast of North America. It is also farmed in Puget Sound, Washington, where it is known as the Totten Inlet Virginica. Eastern oysters are and have...
shell midden
Midden
A midden, is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, sherds, lithics , and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation...
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
Freshwater fish
Freshwater fish are fish that spend some or all of their lives in freshwater, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 0.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, the most obvious being the difference in levels of salinity...
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
Nicholas Bayard
Colonel Nicholas Bayard was an official in the colony of New York. Bayard served as the sixteenth Mayor of New York City, from 1685 to 1686...
slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
Tanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
Johan Willem Crolius
Clarkson Crolius
Clarkson Crolius was an American businessman and politician.-Life:He was the son of Johannes Crolius and Maria Clarkson Crolius. His grandfather Johan Willem Crolius, a manufacturer of stoneware, is said to have come from Germany to New York City, and ran a pottery in Reade Street, near Broadway...
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
Wastewater
Wastewater is any water that has been adversely affected in quality by anthropogenic influence. It comprises liquid waste discharged by domestic residences, commercial properties, industry, and/or agriculture and can encompass a wide range of potential contaminants and concentrations...
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
Water pollution
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant was a French-born American architect and civil engineer best known for designing the layout of the streets of Washington, D.C..-Early life:...
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
Methane
Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
Decomposition
Decomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death...
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
Mud
Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
s bred in the stagnant pools
Water stagnation
Water stagnation occurs when water stops flowing. Stagnant water can be a major environmental hazard.-Dangers:Malaria and dengue are among the main dangers of stagnant water, which can become a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that transmit these diseases.Stagnant or Stailment water can be...
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
The Slum
At Five Points’ "height," only certain areas of London’s East EndEast End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
Child mortality
Child mortality, also known as under-5 mortality, refers to the death of infants and children under the age of five. In 2010, 7.6 million children under five died , down from 8.1 million in 2009, 8.8 million in 2008, and 12.4 million in 1990. About half of child deaths occur in Africa....
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
Melting pot
The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
, the Old Brewery
Old Brewery
The Old Brewery was the name given to Coulthard's Brewery built in 1792 in lower central Manhattan on land that was then on the outskirts of New York City after its conversion to a tenement following the Panic of 1837....
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
Roach Guards
The Roach Guards were an Irish street gang in New York City's Five Points neighborhood during the early 19th century. Originally formed to protect New York liquor merchants in Five Points, the gang soon began committing robbery and murder....
, Dead Rabbits
Dead Rabbits
The Dead Rabbits were a gang in New York City in the 1850s, and originally were a part of the Roach Guards. Daniel Cassidy claimed that the name has a second meaning rooted in Irish American vernacular of NYC in 1857 and that the word "Rabbit" is the phonetic corruption of the Irish word ráibéad,...
and Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
. According to Herbert Asbury's
Herbert Asbury
Herbert Asbury was an American journalist and writer who is best known for his true crime books detailing crime during the 19th and early 20th century such as Gem of the Prairie, Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld and The Gangs of New York...
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
Reel (dance)
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
s and jig
Jig
The Jig is a form of lively folk dance, as well as the accompanying dance tune, originating in England in the 16th century and today most associated with Irish dance music and Scottish country dance music...
s with the African shuffle
Shuffle (disambiguation)
The terms shuffle or shuffling may refer to any of the following:-Randomization:* shuffling — the arbitrary reordering of items, especially a deck of cards, to introduce an element of chance in their selection...
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
Creole music
Creole music applies to two genres of music from south Louisiana: Creole folk and Creole. Creole folk dates from the 18th century or before, and it consists primarily of folk songs. Many were published, and some found their way into works by Louisiana composers such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk,...
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
Music of Andalusia
The Music of Andalusia is very diverse and includes many external influences such as Arabic, Romani, Sephardic, Roman, and Christian.-Influence of Andalusian music:...
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
(see Master Juba
Master Juba
Master Juba was an African American dancer active in the 1840s. He was one of the first black performers in the United States to play onstage for white audiences and the only one of the era to tour with a white minstrel group...
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
Chinatown, Manhattan
Manhattan's Chinatown , home to one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere, is located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
.
Charles Dickens Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic... described Five Points in 1842 in his book American Notes for General Circulation American Notes American Notes for General Circulation is a travelogue by Charles Dickens detailing his trip to North America from January to June, 1842. While there he acted as a critical observer of these societies almost as if returning a status report on their progress... : "What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies behind this tottering flight of steps? Let us go on again, and plunge into the Five Points." "This is the place; these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruit as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and all the world over." "Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken forays. Many of these pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright instead of going on all fours, and why they talk instead of grunting?" |
Infectious diseases
Infectious diseaseInfectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
s such as cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
, typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
Riots
Anti-abolitionist riots of 1834: Also known as the Farren Riots, occurred in New York City over a series of four nights, beginning on July 7, 1834. Their deeper origins lay in the combination of anti-Catholic nativismNativism
Nativism may refer to:* Nativism or political nativism, a term used by scholars to refer to ethnocentric beliefs relating to immigration and nationalism; antiforeignism...
and Abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
St. Philip's Episcopal Church (Harlem, New York)
St. Philip's Church also known as St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church, is a historic Episcopal church located at 204 West 134th Street, just west of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard ) in Harlem, New York, New York. It was founded in 1809 by Free Africans worshiping at Trinity Church, Wall...
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
New York City Police Riot
The New York City Police Riot of 1857, known at the time as the Great Police Riot, was a conflict which occurred between the recently dissolved New York Municipal Police and the newly formed Metropolitan Police on June 16, 1857...
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
Astor Place Riot
The Astor Place Riot occurred on May 10, 1849 at the now-demolished Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City and left at least 25 dead and more than 120 injured...
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
New York Draft Riots
The New York City draft riots were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself...
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
Charles W. Sandford
Major-General Charles W. Sandford was an American militia and artillery officer, lawyer and businessman. He was a senior officer in the New York State Militia for over thirty years and commanded the First Division in every major civil disturbance in New York City up until the American Civil War,...
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
Gettysburg Campaign
The Gettysburg Campaign was a series of battles fought in June and July 1863, during the American Civil War. After his victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved north for offensive operations in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The...
to regain control of the city.
Social reformation
Various efforts by different charitable organizatons and individuals most Christian themed attempted to ameliorate the suffering of the poor in Five Points. Padre Felix VarelaFélix Varela
Félix Varela y Morales was a notable figure in the Roman Catholic Church in both Cuba and the United States.-Life:Varela was born in Havana, Cuba and died in St. Augustine, Florida, United States...
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
Slum clearance
The first call for clearing the slums of Five Points through wholesale demolition came in 1831 from merchants who maintained businesses in close proximity to the Five Points neighborhood. Slum clearance efforts (promoted in particular by Jacob RiisJacob Riis
Jacob August Riis was a Danish American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific...
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York was an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s...
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend was an area in the notorious Five Points neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. It was bound by Bayard Street in the north, Cross Street in the south, Orange Street on the west and Mulberry Street on the east. The "Bend" in the street layout was due to the original topography of the area...
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
| "That the place known as "Five points" has long been notorious... as being the nursery where every species of vice is conceived and matured; that it is infested by a class of the most abandoned and desperate character.... "[They] are abridged from enjoying themselves in their sports, from the apprehension... that they may be enticed from the path of rectitude, by being familiarized with vice; and thus advancing step by step, be at last swallowed up in this sink of pollution, this vortex of irremediable infamy. "In conclusion your Committee remark, that this hot–bed of infamy, this modern Sodom Sodom and Gomorrah Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources.... , is situated in the very heart of your City, and near the centre of business and of respectable population.... Remove this nucleus—scatter its present population over a larger surface—throw open this part of your city to the enterprise of active and respectable men, and you will have effected much for which good men will be grateful." - "Petition to Have the Five Points Opened," Board of Assistant Aldermen documents (24 October 1831), Municipal Archives, City of New York. |
Modern era
What was Five Points is today covered in part in the west and south by large city, state and federal administration buildings and courthouses known collectively as Civic Center, ManhattanCivic Center, Manhattan
Civic Center is a neighborhood in downtown Manhattan covering the area around New York City Hall. It is bounded on the west by Broadway, on the north by Chinatown, on the east by the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge, and on the south by the Financial District.As in other civic centers, it is the...
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
Foley Square
Foley Square is a street intersection and green space in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City and – by extension – the surrounding area, which is dominated by civic buildings. The space is bordered by Worth Street, Centre Street and Lafayette Street and lies...
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
The Tombs
"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
Maps
The physical layout of the Five Points intersection changed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.File:NYC1776.jpg|1776 British map showing the Collect Pond ("Fresh Water"), the canals used to drain the adjacent salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
and the tanneries
Tannery
Tannery may refer to:* Tannery , a facility where the tanning process is applied to hide to produce leather* Paul Tannery , a French mathematician and historian of mathematics...
on the eastern shore
File:1800-map-Five-Point-NYC.jpg|1800 map with an 1873 street plan overlay the location of future Five Points intersection at lower right of Collect Pond
File:1831-map-new-york-five-points.jpg|1831 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:1851-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1851 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:5pointe1853close-up.JPG|1853 map of Five Points intersection showing original street names
File:1902-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1902 map
Gangs of New York
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for the latter...
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw (actor)
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
Gallery
Five Points (or The Five Points) was a neighborhood in central lower ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
Collect Pond
The topographyTopography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
Spring (hydrosphere)
A spring—also known as a rising or resurgence—is a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground...
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
Valley
In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys...
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
Eastern oyster
The eastern oyster — also called Atlantic oyster or Virginia oyster — is a species of true oyster native to the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico coast of North America. It is also farmed in Puget Sound, Washington, where it is known as the Totten Inlet Virginica. Eastern oysters are and have...
shell midden
Midden
A midden, is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, sherds, lithics , and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation...
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
. The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....
was established.
The pond was the main source of drinking water
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...
for the City of New York and freshwater fish
Freshwater fish
Freshwater fish are fish that spend some or all of their lives in freshwater, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 0.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, the most obvious being the difference in levels of salinity...
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
Nicholas Bayard
Colonel Nicholas Bayard was an official in the colony of New York. Bayard served as the sixteenth Mayor of New York City, from 1685 to 1686...
slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"), numerous tanneries
Tanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
Johan Willem Crolius
Clarkson Crolius
Clarkson Crolius was an American businessman and politician.-Life:He was the son of Johannes Crolius and Maria Clarkson Crolius. His grandfather Johan Willem Crolius, a manufacturer of stoneware, is said to have come from Germany to New York City, and ran a pottery in Reade Street, near Broadway...
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.
The contaminated wastewater
Wastewater
Wastewater is any water that has been adversely affected in quality by anthropogenic influence. It comprises liquid waste discharged by domestic residences, commercial properties, industry, and/or agriculture and can encompass a wide range of potential contaminants and concentrations...
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
Water pollution
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant was a French-born American architect and civil engineer best known for designing the layout of the streets of Washington, D.C..-Early life:...
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
Methane
Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
Decomposition
Decomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death...
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
Mud
Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
s bred in the stagnant pools
Water stagnation
Water stagnation occurs when water stops flowing. Stagnant water can be a major environmental hazard.-Dangers:Malaria and dengue are among the main dangers of stagnant water, which can become a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that transmit these diseases.Stagnant or Stailment water can be...
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.
The Slum
At Five Points’ "height," only certain areas of London’s East EndEast End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
Child mortality
Child mortality, also known as under-5 mortality, refers to the death of infants and children under the age of five. In 2010, 7.6 million children under five died , down from 8.1 million in 2009, 8.8 million in 2008, and 12.4 million in 1990. About half of child deaths occur in Africa....
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
Melting pot
The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
, the Old Brewery
Old Brewery
The Old Brewery was the name given to Coulthard's Brewery built in 1792 in lower central Manhattan on land that was then on the outskirts of New York City after its conversion to a tenement following the Panic of 1837....
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
Roach Guards
The Roach Guards were an Irish street gang in New York City's Five Points neighborhood during the early 19th century. Originally formed to protect New York liquor merchants in Five Points, the gang soon began committing robbery and murder....
, Dead Rabbits
Dead Rabbits
The Dead Rabbits were a gang in New York City in the 1850s, and originally were a part of the Roach Guards. Daniel Cassidy claimed that the name has a second meaning rooted in Irish American vernacular of NYC in 1857 and that the word "Rabbit" is the phonetic corruption of the Irish word ráibéad,...
and Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
. According to Herbert Asbury's
Herbert Asbury
Herbert Asbury was an American journalist and writer who is best known for his true crime books detailing crime during the 19th and early 20th century such as Gem of the Prairie, Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld and The Gangs of New York...
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
Reel (dance)
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
s and jig
Jig
The Jig is a form of lively folk dance, as well as the accompanying dance tune, originating in England in the 16th century and today most associated with Irish dance music and Scottish country dance music...
s with the African shuffle
Shuffle (disambiguation)
The terms shuffle or shuffling may refer to any of the following:-Randomization:* shuffling — the arbitrary reordering of items, especially a deck of cards, to introduce an element of chance in their selection...
. As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
Creole music
Creole music applies to two genres of music from south Louisiana: Creole folk and Creole. Creole folk dates from the 18th century or before, and it consists primarily of folk songs. Many were published, and some found their way into works by Louisiana composers such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk,...
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
Music of Andalusia
The Music of Andalusia is very diverse and includes many external influences such as Arabic, Romani, Sephardic, Roman, and Christian.-Influence of Andalusian music:...
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
(see Master Juba
Master Juba
Master Juba was an African American dancer active in the 1840s. He was one of the first black performers in the United States to play onstage for white audiences and the only one of the era to tour with a white minstrel group...
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
Chinatown, Manhattan
Manhattan's Chinatown , home to one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere, is located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
.
Charles Dickens Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic... described Five Points in 1842 in his book American Notes for General Circulation American Notes American Notes for General Circulation is a travelogue by Charles Dickens detailing his trip to North America from January to June, 1842. While there he acted as a critical observer of these societies almost as if returning a status report on their progress... : "What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies behind this tottering flight of steps? Let us go on again, and plunge into the Five Points." "This is the place; these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruit as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and all the world over." "Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken forays. Many of these pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright instead of going on all fours, and why they talk instead of grunting?" |
Infectious diseases
Infectious diseaseInfectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
s such as cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
, typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City. Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
Riots
Anti-abolitionist riots of 1834: Also known as the Farren Riots, occurred in New York City over a series of four nights, beginning on July 7, 1834. Their deeper origins lay in the combination of anti-Catholic nativismNativism
Nativism may refer to:* Nativism or political nativism, a term used by scholars to refer to ethnocentric beliefs relating to immigration and nationalism; antiforeignism...
and Abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of Irish Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
St. Philip's Episcopal Church (Harlem, New York)
St. Philip's Church also known as St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church, is a historic Episcopal church located at 204 West 134th Street, just west of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard ) in Harlem, New York, New York. It was founded in 1809 by Free Africans worshiping at Trinity Church, Wall...
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
New York City Police Riot
The New York City Police Riot of 1857, known at the time as the Great Police Riot, was a conflict which occurred between the recently dissolved New York Municipal Police and the newly formed Metropolitan Police on June 16, 1857...
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
Astor Place Riot
The Astor Place Riot occurred on May 10, 1849 at the now-demolished Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City and left at least 25 dead and more than 120 injured...
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
New York Draft Riots
The New York City draft riots were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself...
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
Charles W. Sandford
Major-General Charles W. Sandford was an American militia and artillery officer, lawyer and businessman. He was a senior officer in the New York State Militia for over thirty years and commanded the First Division in every major civil disturbance in New York City up until the American Civil War,...
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc)
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
Gettysburg Campaign
The Gettysburg Campaign was a series of battles fought in June and July 1863, during the American Civil War. After his victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved north for offensive operations in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The...
to regain control of the city.
Social reformation
Various efforts by different charitable organizatons and individuals most Christian themed attempted to ameliorate the suffering of the poor in Five Points. Padre Felix VarelaFélix Varela
Félix Varela y Morales was a notable figure in the Roman Catholic Church in both Cuba and the United States.-Life:Varela was born in Havana, Cuba and died in St. Augustine, Florida, United States...
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
Slum clearance
The first call for clearing the slums of Five Points through wholesale demolition came in 1831 from merchants who maintained businesses in close proximity to the Five Points neighborhood. Slum clearance efforts (promoted in particular by Jacob RiisJacob Riis
Jacob August Riis was a Danish American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific...
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York was an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s...
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend was an area in the notorious Five Points neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. It was bound by Bayard Street in the north, Cross Street in the south, Orange Street on the west and Mulberry Street on the east. The "Bend" in the street layout was due to the original topography of the area...
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park that opened in 1897.
| "That the place known as "Five points" has long been notorious... as being the nursery where every species of vice is conceived and matured; that it is infested by a class of the most abandoned and desperate character.... "[They] are abridged from enjoying themselves in their sports, from the apprehension... that they may be enticed from the path of rectitude, by being familiarized with vice; and thus advancing step by step, be at last swallowed up in this sink of pollution, this vortex of irremediable infamy. "In conclusion your Committee remark, that this hot–bed of infamy, this modern Sodom Sodom and Gomorrah Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources.... , is situated in the very heart of your City, and near the centre of business and of respectable population.... Remove this nucleus—scatter its present population over a larger surface—throw open this part of your city to the enterprise of active and respectable men, and you will have effected much for which good men will be grateful." - "Petition to Have the Five Points Opened," Board of Assistant Aldermen documents (24 October 1831), Municipal Archives, City of New York. |
Modern era
What was Five Points is today covered in part in the west and south by large city, state and federal administration buildings and courthouses known collectively as Civic Center, ManhattanCivic Center, Manhattan
Civic Center is a neighborhood in downtown Manhattan covering the area around New York City Hall. It is bounded on the west by Broadway, on the north by Chinatown, on the east by the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge, and on the south by the Financial District.As in other civic centers, it is the...
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
Foley Square
Foley Square is a street intersection and green space in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City and – by extension – the surrounding area, which is dominated by civic buildings. The space is bordered by Worth Street, Centre Street and Lafayette Street and lies...
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
The Tombs
"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
Maps
The physical layout of the Five Points intersection changed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.File:NYC1776.jpg|1776 British map showing the Collect Pond ("Fresh Water"), the canals used to drain the adjacent salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
and the tanneries
Tannery
Tannery may refer to:* Tannery , a facility where the tanning process is applied to hide to produce leather* Paul Tannery , a French mathematician and historian of mathematics...
on the eastern shore
File:1800-map-Five-Point-NYC.jpg|1800 map with an 1873 street plan overlay the location of future Five Points intersection at lower right of Collect Pond
File:1831-map-new-york-five-points.jpg|1831 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:1851-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1851 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:5pointe1853close-up.JPG|1853 map of Five Points intersection showing original street names
File:1902-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1902 map
Gangs of New York
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for the latter...
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw (actor)
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
Gallery
File:African Burial Ground Manhattan.jpg|African Burial Ground
African Burial Ground National Monument
African Burial Ground National Monument at Duane Street and African Burial Ground Way in Lower Manhattan preserves a site containing the remains of more than 400 Africans buried during the 17th and 18th centuries. Historians estimate there may have been 15,000-20,000 burials there...
on the south shore of the Collect Pond-active until 1792, was the burial ground for New York City's free blacks and African slaves, located a short distance southwest of future Five Points intersection.
File:1741 Slave Revolt burned at the stake NYC.jpg|African American slave being burned at the stake after New York Conspiracy of 1741. 17 black men, two white men, and two white women were hanged at the gibbet
Gibbet
A gibbet is a gallows-type structure from which the dead bodies of executed criminals were hung on public display to deter other existing or potential criminals. In earlier times, up to the late 17th century, live gibbeting also took place, in which the criminal was placed alive in a metal cage...
next to the Powderhouse on the narrow point of land between the Collect Pond and the Little Collect, 13 were burned at the stake a little east on Magazine
Magazine (artillery)
Magazine is the name for an item or place within which ammunition is stored. It is taken from the Arabic word "makahazin" meaning "warehouse".-Ammunition storage areas:...
Street
Five Points (or The Five Points) was a neighborhood in central lower Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
Collect Pond
The topographyTopography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
Spring (hydrosphere)
A spring—also known as a rising or resurgence—is a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground...
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
Valley
In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys...
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
Eastern oyster
The eastern oyster — also called Atlantic oyster or Virginia oyster — is a species of true oyster native to the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico coast of North America. It is also farmed in Puget Sound, Washington, where it is known as the Totten Inlet Virginica. Eastern oysters are and have...
shell midden
Midden
A midden, is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, sherds, lithics , and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation...
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
.Eugene L. Armbruster: The Ferry road on Long Island; pp. 5-6 (1919 reprint 2010) ASIN B004IPZE0E The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....
was established.Evan T. Pritchard Native New Yorkers: the legacy of the Algonquin people of New York p.76
The pond was the main source of drinking water
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...
for the City of New YorkJulia Solis: New York underground: the anatomy of a city p.76 and freshwater fish
Freshwater fish
Freshwater fish are fish that spend some or all of their lives in freshwater, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 0.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, the most obvious being the difference in levels of salinity...
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
Nicholas Bayard
Colonel Nicholas Bayard was an official in the colony of New York. Bayard served as the sixteenth Mayor of New York City, from 1685 to 1686...
slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"),[New York Times:ABATTOIRS.; History of New-York Slaughter-Houses-Interesting and Curious Data. (1866)http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F2091FFC3859107B93C3A9178FD85F428684F9"] numerous tanneries
Tanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
Johan Willem Crolius
Clarkson Crolius
Clarkson Crolius was an American businessman and politician.-Life:He was the son of Johannes Crolius and Maria Clarkson Crolius. His grandfather Johan Willem Crolius, a manufacturer of stoneware, is said to have come from Germany to New York City, and ran a pottery in Reade Street, near Broadway...
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.Craftsmen In Clay
The contaminated wastewater
Wastewater
Wastewater is any water that has been adversely affected in quality by anthropogenic influence. It comprises liquid waste discharged by domestic residences, commercial properties, industry, and/or agriculture and can encompass a wide range of potential contaminants and concentrations...
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
Water pollution
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant was a French-born American architect and civil engineer best known for designing the layout of the streets of Washington, D.C..-Early life:...
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.John Kieran A Natural History of New York p.31 ISBN 9780823210862
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
Methane
Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
Decomposition
Decomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death...
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
Mud
Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
s bred in the stagnant pools
Water stagnation
Water stagnation occurs when water stops flowing. Stagnant water can be a major environmental hazard.-Dangers:Malaria and dengue are among the main dangers of stagnant water, which can become a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that transmit these diseases.Stagnant or Stailment water can be...
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.Tim Delaney: American Street Gangs p.39, p.290
The Slum
At Five Points’ "height," only certain areas of London’s East EndEast End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
Child mortality
Child mortality, also known as under-5 mortality, refers to the death of infants and children under the age of five. In 2010, 7.6 million children under five died , down from 8.1 million in 2009, 8.8 million in 2008, and 12.4 million in 1990. About half of child deaths occur in Africa....
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
Melting pot
The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
, the Old Brewery
Old Brewery
The Old Brewery was the name given to Coulthard's Brewery built in 1792 in lower central Manhattan on land that was then on the outskirts of New York City after its conversion to a tenement following the Panic of 1837....
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
Roach Guards
The Roach Guards were an Irish street gang in New York City's Five Points neighborhood during the early 19th century. Originally formed to protect New York liquor merchants in Five Points, the gang soon began committing robbery and murder....
, Dead Rabbits
Dead Rabbits
The Dead Rabbits were a gang in New York City in the 1850s, and originally were a part of the Roach Guards. Daniel Cassidy claimed that the name has a second meaning rooted in Irish American vernacular of NYC in 1857 and that the word "Rabbit" is the phonetic corruption of the Irish word ráibéad,...
and Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
. According to Herbert Asbury's
Herbert Asbury
Herbert Asbury was an American journalist and writer who is best known for his true crime books detailing crime during the 19th and early 20th century such as Gem of the Prairie, Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld and The Gangs of New York...
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
Reel (dance)
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
s and jig
Jig
The Jig is a form of lively folk dance, as well as the accompanying dance tune, originating in England in the 16th century and today most associated with Irish dance music and Scottish country dance music...
s with the African shuffle
Shuffle (disambiguation)
The terms shuffle or shuffling may refer to any of the following:-Randomization:* shuffling — the arbitrary reordering of items, especially a deck of cards, to introduce an element of chance in their selection...
.Herbert Asbury: Gangs of New yorkMark Kurlansky: The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell p. 157 As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
Creole music
Creole music applies to two genres of music from south Louisiana: Creole folk and Creole. Creole folk dates from the 18th century or before, and it consists primarily of folk songs. Many were published, and some found their way into works by Louisiana composers such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk,...
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
Music of Andalusia
The Music of Andalusia is very diverse and includes many external influences such as Arabic, Romani, Sephardic, Roman, and Christian.-Influence of Andalusian music:...
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
(see Master Juba
Master Juba
Master Juba was an African American dancer active in the 1840s. He was one of the first black performers in the United States to play onstage for white audiences and the only one of the era to tour with a white minstrel group...
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
Chinatown, Manhattan
Manhattan's Chinatown , home to one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere, is located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
.
Charles Dickens Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic... described Five Points in 1842 in his book American Notes for General Circulation American Notes American Notes for General Circulation is a travelogue by Charles Dickens detailing his trip to North America from January to June, 1842. While there he acted as a critical observer of these societies almost as if returning a status report on their progress... : "What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies behind this tottering flight of steps? Let us go on again, and plunge into the Five Points." "This is the place; these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruit as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and all the world over." "Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken forays. Many of these pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright instead of going on all fours, and why they talk instead of grunting?"Charles Dickens: American Notes for General Circulation p.61 |
Infectious diseases
Infectious diseaseInfectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
s such as cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
, typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City.Stephanie True Peters: Cholera: Curse of the Nineteenth Century p.26 Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
Riots
Anti-abolitionist riots of 1834: Also known as the Farren Riots, occurred in New York City over a series of four nights, beginning on July 7, 1834. Their deeper originsEdwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace devote a chapter, "White, Green and Black", of Gotham: a history of New York City to 1898, 1999:542-62 to the riots (pp 556-59) and their causes. lay in the combination of anti-Catholic nativismNativism
Nativism may refer to:* Nativism or political nativism, a term used by scholars to refer to ethnocentric beliefs relating to immigration and nationalism; antiforeignism...
and Abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of IrishIn 1827 Britain repealed legislation controlling and restricting emigration from Ireland, and 20,000 Irish emigrated; by 1835 over 30,000 Irish arrived in New York annually (Burrows and Wallace 1999:543). Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
St. Philip's Episcopal Church (Harlem, New York)
St. Philip's Church also known as St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church, is a historic Episcopal church located at 204 West 134th Street, just west of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard ) in Harlem, New York, New York. It was founded in 1809 by Free Africans worshiping at Trinity Church, Wall...
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
New York City Police Riot
The New York City Police Riot of 1857, known at the time as the Great Police Riot, was a conflict which occurred between the recently dissolved New York Municipal Police and the newly formed Metropolitan Police on June 16, 1857...
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
Astor Place Riot
The Astor Place Riot occurred on May 10, 1849 at the now-demolished Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City and left at least 25 dead and more than 120 injured...
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
New York Draft Riots
The New York City draft riots were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself...
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
Charles W. Sandford
Major-General Charles W. Sandford was an American militia and artillery officer, lawyer and businessman. He was a senior officer in the New York State Militia for over thirty years and commanded the First Division in every major civil disturbance in New York City up until the American Civil War,...
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft WeekBarnes 5 were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc) Foner, E. (1988). Reconstruction America's unfinished revolution, 1863-1877. The New American Nation series, p. 32, New York: Harper & Row
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
Gettysburg Campaign
The Gettysburg Campaign was a series of battles fought in June and July 1863, during the American Civil War. After his victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved north for offensive operations in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The...
to regain control of the city.The Draft in the Civil WarThe Draft Riots, Part II NY Press
Social reformation
Various efforts by different charitable organizatons and individuals most Christian themed attempted to ameliorate the suffering of the poor in Five Points. Padre Felix VarelaFélix Varela
Félix Varela y Morales was a notable figure in the Roman Catholic Church in both Cuba and the United States.-Life:Varela was born in Havana, Cuba and died in St. Augustine, Florida, United States...
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
Slum clearance
The first call for clearing the slums of Five Points through wholesale demolition came in 1831 from merchants who maintained businesses in close proximity to the Five Points neighborhood. Slum clearance efforts (promoted in particular by Jacob RiisJacob Riis
Jacob August Riis was a Danish American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific...
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York was an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s...
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend was an area in the notorious Five Points neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. It was bound by Bayard Street in the north, Cross Street in the south, Orange Street on the west and Mulberry Street on the east. The "Bend" in the street layout was due to the original topography of the area...
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park Columbus Park http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/M015/ that opened in 1897.
| "That the place known as "Five points" has long been notorious... as being the nursery where every species of vice is conceived and matured; that it is infested by a class of the most abandoned and desperate character.... "[They] are abridged from enjoying themselves in their sports, from the apprehension... that they may be enticed from the path of rectitude, by being familiarized with vice; and thus advancing step by step, be at last swallowed up in this sink of pollution, this vortex of irremediable infamy. "In conclusion your Committee remark, that this hot–bed of infamy, this modern Sodom Sodom and Gomorrah Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources.... , is situated in the very heart of your City, and near the centre of business and of respectable population.... Remove this nucleus—scatter its present population over a larger surface—throw open this part of your city to the enterprise of active and respectable men, and you will have effected much for which good men will be grateful." - "Petition to Have the Five Points Opened," Board of Assistant Aldermen documents (24 October 1831), Municipal Archives, City of New York.Columbia University History Online :Petition to Have the Five Points Opened http://caho-test.cc.columbia.edu/dbq/11003.html#B |
Modern era
What was Five Points is today covered in part in the west and south by large city, state and federal administration buildings and courthouses known collectively as Civic Center, ManhattanCivic Center, Manhattan
Civic Center is a neighborhood in downtown Manhattan covering the area around New York City Hall. It is bounded on the west by Broadway, on the north by Chinatown, on the east by the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge, and on the south by the Financial District.As in other civic centers, it is the...
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
Foley Square
Foley Square is a street intersection and green space in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City and – by extension – the surrounding area, which is dominated by civic buildings. The space is bordered by Worth Street, Centre Street and Lafayette Street and lies...
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
The Tombs
"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
Maps
The physical layout of the Five Points intersection changed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.File:NYC1776.jpg|1776 British map showing the Collect Pond ("Fresh Water"), the canals used to drain the adjacent salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
and the tanneries
Tannery
Tannery may refer to:* Tannery , a facility where the tanning process is applied to hide to produce leather* Paul Tannery , a French mathematician and historian of mathematics...
on the eastern shore
File:1800-map-Five-Point-NYC.jpg|1800 map with an 1873 street plan overlay the location of future Five Points intersection at lower right of Collect Pond
File:1831-map-new-york-five-points.jpg|1831 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:1851-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1851 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:5pointe1853close-up.JPG|1853 map of Five Points intersection showing original street names
File:1902-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1902 map
Gangs of New York
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for the latter...
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw (actor)
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
Gallery
File:African Burial Ground Manhattan.jpg|African Burial Ground
African Burial Ground National Monument
African Burial Ground National Monument at Duane Street and African Burial Ground Way in Lower Manhattan preserves a site containing the remains of more than 400 Africans buried during the 17th and 18th centuries. Historians estimate there may have been 15,000-20,000 burials there...
on the south shore of the Collect Pond-active until 1792, was the burial ground for New York City's free blacks and African slaves, located a short distance southwest of future Five Points intersection.
File:1741 Slave Revolt burned at the stake NYC.jpg|African American slave being burned at the stake after New York Conspiracy of 1741. 17 black men, two white men, and two white women were hanged at the gibbet
Gibbet
A gibbet is a gallows-type structure from which the dead bodies of executed criminals were hung on public display to deter other existing or potential criminals. In earlier times, up to the late 17th century, live gibbeting also took place, in which the criminal was placed alive in a metal cage...
next to the Powderhouse on the narrow point of land between the Collect Pond and the Little Collect, 13 were burned at the stake a little east on Magazine
Magazine (artillery)
Magazine is the name for an item or place within which ammunition is stored. It is taken from the Arabic word "makahazin" meaning "warehouse".-Ammunition storage areas:...
Street
Five Points (or The Five Points) was a neighborhood in central lower Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. The former neighborhood known as Five Points is now split between the Civic Center- an area of city, state and federal court houses and administrative buildings, on the west and south and Chinatown on the east and north.
The name Five Points was derived from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco); from this intersection Anthony Street (now Worth) began and ran in a northwest direction, creating a triangular-shaped block thus the fifth "point". To the west of this "point" ran Little Water Street (which no longer exists) north to south, creating a triangular plot which would become known as Paradise Square or Paradise Park.
Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years.
Collect Pond
The topographyTopography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
of the area that would become Five Points was a major factor in the progression of the neighborhood from middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes built upon reclaimed land to a sprawling, disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
-ridden slum in a relatively short period of time.
The Collect Pond (or Fresh Water Pond) was a body of spring
Spring (hydrosphere)
A spring—also known as a rising or resurgence—is a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground...
fed fresh water, occupying approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and as deep as 60 feet (18 m). The pond was located in an inverted U-shaped valley
Valley
In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys...
with a linear portion in the north heading northwest to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
. The eastern and western sections of the valley were separated by a hill the Dutch called Kalck Hoek, (Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
meaning Chalk Hook), named for the numerous oyster
Eastern oyster
The eastern oyster — also called Atlantic oyster or Virginia oyster — is a species of true oyster native to the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico coast of North America. It is also farmed in Puget Sound, Washington, where it is known as the Totten Inlet Virginica. Eastern oysters are and have...
shell midden
Midden
A midden, is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, sherds, lithics , and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation...
s left by Native Americans. The elevation rose in the south, with Pot Bakers Hill dominating the south southwestern shore.
The Collect Pond was located in the eastern section of the valley, with Kalck Hoek to the west and Bayard Mount-at 110 ft. the tallest hill in lower Manhattan, to the northeast. A stream flowed north out of the pond and then northwest through a salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
(which, after being drained, became "Lispenard Meadows") to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
, and another stream, known as the Old Wreck Brook or the Old Kil flowed out from the southeast through Bestevaer Swamp (later Beekman's Swamp) called Bestevaer Kreupelbosch by the Dutch to the East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
.Eugene L. Armbruster: The Ferry road on Long Island; pp. 5-6 (1919 reprint 2010) ASIN B004IPZE0E The southwestern shore of the Collect Pond was the site of a Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
settlement known as Werpoes. A small band of Canarsie who were Munsee Indians, -the northernmost division of the Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
- occupied the site until the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....
was established.Evan T. Pritchard Native New Yorkers: the legacy of the Algonquin people of New York p.76
The pond was the main source of drinking water
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...
for the City of New YorkJulia Solis: New York underground: the anatomy of a city p.76 and freshwater fish
Freshwater fish
Freshwater fish are fish that spend some or all of their lives in freshwater, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 0.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, the most obvious being the difference in levels of salinity...
. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, various commercial enterprises were built along the shores of the Collect Pond, in order to use the water. These businesses included Coulthards Brewery, Nicholas Bayard's
Nicholas Bayard
Colonel Nicholas Bayard was an official in the colony of New York. Bayard served as the sixteenth Mayor of New York City, from 1685 to 1686...
slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...
on Mulberry Street (which was nicknamed "Slaughterhouse Street"),[New York Times:ABATTOIRS.; History of New-York Slaughter-Houses-Interesting and Curious Data. (1866)http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F2091FFC3859107B93C3A9178FD85F428684F9"] numerous tanneries
Tanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...
on the southeastern shore, and the pottery works of German immigrants
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
Johan Willem Crolius
Clarkson Crolius
Clarkson Crolius was an American businessman and politician.-Life:He was the son of Johannes Crolius and Maria Clarkson Crolius. His grandfather Johan Willem Crolius, a manufacturer of stoneware, is said to have come from Germany to New York City, and ran a pottery in Reade Street, near Broadway...
and Johan Remmey on Pot Bakers Hill on the south-southwestern shore.Craftsmen In Clay
The contaminated wastewater
Wastewater
Wastewater is any water that has been adversely affected in quality by anthropogenic influence. It comprises liquid waste discharged by domestic residences, commercial properties, industry, and/or agriculture and can encompass a wide range of potential contaminants and concentrations...
of these businesses flowed back into the pond, creating a severe pollution
Water pollution
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....
problem and environmental health hazard. Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant was a French-born American architect and civil engineer best known for designing the layout of the streets of Washington, D.C..-Early life:...
proposed cleaning the Collect Pond and making it a centerpiece of a recreational park, around which the residential areas of the city could grow. His proposal was rejected and it was decided to fill in the pond. This was done with fill partially obtained from leveling Bayards Mount and Kalck Hoek. The landfill was completed in 1811 and Middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
homes were soon built on the reclaimed land.John Kieran A Natural History of New York p.31 ISBN 9780823210862
The landfill was poorly done. The buried vegetation began to release methane
Methane
Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...
gas (a byproduct of decomposition
Decomposition
Decomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death...
) and the area, still in a natural depression, lacked adequate storm sewers. As a result, the ground gradually subsided. Houses shifted on their foundations, the unpaved streets were often buried in a foot of mud
Mud
Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...
mixed with human and animal excrement and mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
s bred in the stagnant pools
Water stagnation
Water stagnation occurs when water stops flowing. Stagnant water can be a major environmental hazard.-Dangers:Malaria and dengue are among the main dangers of stagnant water, which can become a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that transmit these diseases.Stagnant or Stailment water can be...
created by the poor drainage.
Most middle and upper class inhabitants fled the place, leaving the neighborhood open to poor immigrants that started arriving in the early 1820s. This influx reached a height in the 1840s, with large numbers of Irish fleeing starvation in the Irish Potato Famine.Tim Delaney: American Street Gangs p.39, p.290
The Slum
At Five Points’ "height," only certain areas of London’s East EndEast End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
vied with it in the western world for sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality
Child mortality
Child mortality, also known as under-5 mortality, refers to the death of infants and children under the age of five. In 2010, 7.6 million children under five died , down from 8.1 million in 2009, 8.8 million in 2008, and 12.4 million in 1990. About half of child deaths occur in Africa....
, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other classic ills of the urban destitute. However, it was the original American melting pot
Melting pot
The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...
, at first consisting primarily of newly emancipated African Americans (gradual emancipation led to the end of slavery in New York on July 4, 1827) and Irish, who had been a presence in the area since the 1600s.
The local politics of “the Old Sixth ward” (The Points’ primary municipal voting district), while not free of corruption, set important precedents for the election of non-Anglo-Saxons to key offices. Although the tensions between the African Americans and the Irish were legendary, their cohabitation in Five Points was the first large-scale instance of volitional racial integration in American history. In the end, the Five Points African American community moved to Manhattan's West Side and to the then-undeveloped north of the island.
Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
, the Old Brewery
Old Brewery
The Old Brewery was the name given to Coulthard's Brewery built in 1792 in lower central Manhattan on land that was then on the outskirts of New York City after its conversion to a tenement following the Panic of 1837....
, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years until its demolition in 1852.
Five Points was dominated by rival gangs like the Roach Guards
Roach Guards
The Roach Guards were an Irish street gang in New York City's Five Points neighborhood during the early 19th century. Originally formed to protect New York liquor merchants in Five Points, the gang soon began committing robbery and murder....
, Dead Rabbits
Dead Rabbits
The Dead Rabbits were a gang in New York City in the 1850s, and originally were a part of the Roach Guards. Daniel Cassidy claimed that the name has a second meaning rooted in Irish American vernacular of NYC in 1857 and that the word "Rabbit" is the phonetic corruption of the Irish word ráibéad,...
and Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
. According to Herbert Asbury's
Herbert Asbury
Herbert Asbury was an American journalist and writer who is best known for his true crime books detailing crime during the 19th and early 20th century such as Gem of the Prairie, Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld and The Gangs of New York...
book The Gangs of New York, police arrested 82,072 New Yorkers in 1862, or 10 percent of the city's population. In 1864, five police officers were murdered. To give a sense of the era, Asbury's book tells the story of a little girl who lived with 25 people in a small basement room and was stabbed to death for a penny she had begged. Asbury reports the girl's body lay in a corner for five days before her mother dug her a shallow grave in the floor.
Almack’s (also known as “Pete Williams’s Place”), an African American-owned dance hall located at 67 Orange St in Mulberry Bend (today’s Baxter St.), just south of its intersection with Bayard St., was home to a fusion of Irish reel
Reel (dance)
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
s and jig
Jig
The Jig is a form of lively folk dance, as well as the accompanying dance tune, originating in England in the 16th century and today most associated with Irish dance music and Scottish country dance music...
s with the African shuffle
Shuffle (disambiguation)
The terms shuffle or shuffling may refer to any of the following:-Randomization:* shuffling — the arbitrary reordering of items, especially a deck of cards, to introduce an element of chance in their selection...
.Herbert Asbury: Gangs of New yorkMark Kurlansky: The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell p. 157 As it happened in other parts of America where different ethnic groups merged, but mainly European and African as done earlier by the New Orleans
Creole music
Creole music applies to two genres of music from south Louisiana: Creole folk and Creole. Creole folk dates from the 18th century or before, and it consists primarily of folk songs. Many were published, and some found their way into works by Louisiana composers such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk,...
, Jamaican, Cuban and much earlier by Flamenco
Music of Andalusia
The Music of Andalusia is very diverse and includes many external influences such as Arabic, Romani, Sephardic, Roman, and Christian.-Influence of Andalusian music:...
musicians, this music and dance had spontaneously developed on the street from competition between African American and Irish American musicians and dancers, spilling into Almack's, where it gave rise in the short term to tap dance
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
(see Master Juba
Master Juba
Master Juba was an African American dancer active in the 1840s. He was one of the first black performers in the United States to play onstage for white audiences and the only one of the era to tour with a white minstrel group...
) and in the long term to a music hall genre that was a major precursor to American jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
. This ground is today occupied by Columbus Park, used primarily by residents of modern Chinatown
Chinatown, Manhattan
Manhattan's Chinatown , home to one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere, is located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
.
Charles Dickens Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic... described Five Points in 1842 in his book American Notes for General Circulation American Notes American Notes for General Circulation is a travelogue by Charles Dickens detailing his trip to North America from January to June, 1842. While there he acted as a critical observer of these societies almost as if returning a status report on their progress... : "What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies behind this tottering flight of steps? Let us go on again, and plunge into the Five Points." "This is the place; these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruit as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and all the world over." "Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken forays. Many of these pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright instead of going on all fours, and why they talk instead of grunting?"Charles Dickens: American Notes for General Circulation p.61 |
Infectious diseases
Infectious diseaseInfectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
s such as cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
, typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
plagued New York City since the Dutch colonial era. The poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded dwellings and lack of even rudimentary healthcare made impoverished areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points. In Juna 1832, an outbreak of cholera in Five Points spread rapidly throughout the crowded, unsanitary dwellings of the neighborhood before spreading to the rest of New York City.Stephanie True Peters: Cholera: Curse of the Nineteenth Century p.26 Cholera epidemics would break out again in subsequent years in 1849 and 1866. These epidemics were seen by some as resulting from the immorality of the residents of the slum:
Riots
Anti-abolitionist riots of 1834: Also known as the Farren Riots, occurred in New York City over a series of four nights, beginning on July 7, 1834. Their deeper originsEdwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace devote a chapter, "White, Green and Black", of Gotham: a history of New York City to 1898, 1999:542-62 to the riots (pp 556-59) and their causes. lay in the combination of anti-Catholic nativismNativism
Nativism may refer to:* Nativism or political nativism, a term used by scholars to refer to ethnocentric beliefs relating to immigration and nationalism; antiforeignism...
and Abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing numbers of IrishIn 1827 Britain repealed legislation controlling and restricting emigration from Ireland, and 20,000 Irish emigrated; by 1835 over 30,000 Irish arrived in New York annually (Burrows and Wallace 1999:543). Among the casualties of the riots was St. Philip's Episcopal Church
St. Philip's Episcopal Church (Harlem, New York)
St. Philip's Church also known as St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church, is a historic Episcopal church located at 204 West 134th Street, just west of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard ) in Harlem, New York, New York. It was founded in 1809 by Free Africans worshiping at Trinity Church, Wall...
an African American church at 122 Centre Street which was sacked and looted by the white mob.
Dead Rabbits Riot: The riot began when the Dead Rabbits destroyed the headquarters of the Bowery Boys
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang based north of the Five Points district of New York City in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points...
at 26 Bowery on July 4, 1857. The Bowery Boys retaliated which led to a large scale riot which waged back and forth on Bayard Street between the Bowery and Mulberry street. There would be further rioting on July 5. The Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits fought again in front of 40 and 42 Bowery Street (original buildings still extant in May 2011), erecting barricades in the street. On July 6 the Bowery Boys fought the Kerryonians (Irishmen from County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
) at Anthony and Centre Street.
Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force, brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police
New York City Police Riot
The New York City Police Riot of 1857, known at the time as the Great Police Riot, was a conflict which occurred between the recently dissolved New York Municipal Police and the newly formed Metropolitan Police on June 16, 1857...
, the fighting would spiral into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery
Bowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot
Astor Place Riot
The Astor Place Riot occurred on May 10, 1849 at the now-demolished Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City and left at least 25 dead and more than 120 injured...
in 1849, and the biggest scene of gang violence, unsurpassed until the New York Draft Riots
New York Draft Riots
The New York City draft riots were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself...
of 1863. Order was restored only by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford
Charles W. Sandford
Major-General Charles W. Sandford was an American militia and artillery officer, lawyer and businessman. He was a senior officer in the New York State Militia for over thirty years and commanded the First Division in every major civil disturbance in New York City up until the American Civil War,...
. Eight people were reported killed and at least 100 seriously injured although the number of killed and injured was probably much higher.
New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft WeekBarnes 5 were riots in response to the Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
which was signed into law in January 1863 and led to increased anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. Marxist historians such as Eric Foner theorize that the riots were led by "the Irish" who feared increased "competition" from emancipated southern blacks fleeing to the north for the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs they often were employed in (policemen, schoolteachers, leather workers, etc) Foner, E. (1988). Reconstruction America's unfinished revolution, 1863-1877. The New American Nation series, p. 32, New York: Harper & Row
In March 1863, stricter federal draft laws were enacted which exacerbated the already volatile situation. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to conscription and were required to register for the draft. Those eligible for military conscription had their names entered into a lottery which favored the more affluent who could hire a substitute to fulfill their military service or pay the federal government three hundred dollars to avoid enlistment. Blacks, were exempt from the draft as they were ruled not to be citizens by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford . The dwellings of African Americans were sacked and looted on various streets in Five Points.
President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg
Gettysburg Campaign
The Gettysburg Campaign was a series of battles fought in June and July 1863, during the American Civil War. After his victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved north for offensive operations in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The...
to regain control of the city.The Draft in the Civil WarThe Draft Riots, Part II NY Press
Social reformation
Various efforts by different charitable organizatons and individuals most Christian themed attempted to ameliorate the suffering of the poor in Five Points. Padre Felix VarelaFélix Varela
Félix Varela y Morales was a notable figure in the Roman Catholic Church in both Cuba and the United States.-Life:Varela was born in Havana, Cuba and died in St. Augustine, Florida, United States...
- a Cuban-born priest, established a Roman Catholic parish -The Church of the Immigrants-later changed to Church of the Transfiguration, in Five Points in 1827 to minister to the poor Irish Catholics. The parish relocated to the corner of Mott and Cross Street in 1853 when they purchased Zion Protestant Episcopal Church (c.1801) from the Episcopalian congregation.
Slum clearance
The first call for clearing the slums of Five Points through wholesale demolition came in 1831 from merchants who maintained businesses in close proximity to the Five Points neighborhood. Slum clearance efforts (promoted in particular by Jacob RiisJacob Riis
Jacob August Riis was a Danish American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific...
, famed author of How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York was an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s...
) succeeded in razing Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend was an area in the notorious Five Points neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. It was bound by Bayard Street in the north, Cross Street in the south, Orange Street on the west and Mulberry Street on the east. The "Bend" in the street layout was due to the original topography of the area...
one of the worst sections of the Five points neighborhood which was turned into a park designed by Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....
called Mulberry Bend Park now called Columbus Park Columbus Park http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/M015/ that opened in 1897.
| "That the place known as "Five points" has long been notorious... as being the nursery where every species of vice is conceived and matured; that it is infested by a class of the most abandoned and desperate character.... "[They] are abridged from enjoying themselves in their sports, from the apprehension... that they may be enticed from the path of rectitude, by being familiarized with vice; and thus advancing step by step, be at last swallowed up in this sink of pollution, this vortex of irremediable infamy. "In conclusion your Committee remark, that this hot–bed of infamy, this modern Sodom Sodom and Gomorrah Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources.... , is situated in the very heart of your City, and near the centre of business and of respectable population.... Remove this nucleus—scatter its present population over a larger surface—throw open this part of your city to the enterprise of active and respectable men, and you will have effected much for which good men will be grateful." - "Petition to Have the Five Points Opened," Board of Assistant Aldermen documents (24 October 1831), Municipal Archives, City of New York.Columbia University History Online :Petition to Have the Five Points Opened http://caho-test.cc.columbia.edu/dbq/11003.html#B |
Modern era
What was Five Points is today covered in part in the west and south by large city, state and federal administration buildings and courthouses known collectively as Civic Center, ManhattanCivic Center, Manhattan
Civic Center is a neighborhood in downtown Manhattan covering the area around New York City Hall. It is bounded on the west by Broadway, on the north by Chinatown, on the east by the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge, and on the south by the Financial District.As in other civic centers, it is the...
, plus Columbus Park, Collect Pond Park and Foley Square
Foley Square
Foley Square is a street intersection and green space in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City and – by extension – the surrounding area, which is dominated by civic buildings. The space is bordered by Worth Street, Centre Street and Lafayette Street and lies...
and various facilities of the New York City Department of Corrections clustering around lower Centre Street. The corrections facilities are the most direct link to the neighborhood's past, as the infamous Tombs Prison
The Tombs
"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
, in which many criminals from Five Points were incarcerated and quite a few executed, stood near the site of the current "City Prison Manhattan" at 125 White St. The northeastern and eastern portion of Five Points is now part of sprawling Chinatown. Many tenement buildings dating from the late 19th century still line the streets in this area.
The exact location of the former "five points" intersection itself is currently the intersection of Worth (Anthony) and Baxter (Orange). Mosco (Cross) no longer extends to that intersection, and the section of Baxter south of it no longer exists. Little Water Street no longer exists.
Maps
The physical layout of the Five Points intersection changed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.File:NYC1776.jpg|1776 British map showing the Collect Pond ("Fresh Water"), the canals used to drain the adjacent salt marsh
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
and the tanneries
Tannery
Tannery may refer to:* Tannery , a facility where the tanning process is applied to hide to produce leather* Paul Tannery , a French mathematician and historian of mathematics...
on the eastern shore
File:1800-map-Five-Point-NYC.jpg|1800 map with an 1873 street plan overlay the location of future Five Points intersection at lower right of Collect Pond
File:1831-map-new-york-five-points.jpg|1831 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:1851-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1851 map showing Five Points within the Sixth Ward
File:5pointe1853close-up.JPG|1853 map of Five Points intersection showing original street names
File:1902-map-Five Points-NYC.jpg|1902 map
Gangs of New York
The film begins in 1846 and quickly jumps to 1862. The two principal issues of the era in New York were Irish immigration to the city and the Federal government's execution of the ongoing Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The story follows gang leader William "The Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for the latter...
) in his roles as crime boss and political kingmaker under the helm of "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
). The film culminates in a violent confrontation between Cutting and his mob with the protagonist Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
) and his immigrant allies, which coincides with the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
In another film reference, in The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
, mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw (actor)
Robert Archibald Shaw was an English actor and novelist, remembered for his performances in The Sting , From Russia with Love , A Man for All Seasons , the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three , Black Sunday , The Deep and Jaws , where he played the shark hunter Quint.-Early life...
) is known to come from Five Points; as part of the plan to gain Lonnegan's confidence, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
) claims to be from the same neighborhood.
Gallery
File:African Burial Ground Manhattan.jpg|African Burial Ground
African Burial Ground National Monument
African Burial Ground National Monument at Duane Street and African Burial Ground Way in Lower Manhattan preserves a site containing the remains of more than 400 Africans buried during the 17th and 18th centuries. Historians estimate there may have been 15,000-20,000 burials there...
on the south shore of the Collect Pond-active until 1792, was the burial ground for New York City's free blacks and African slaves, located a short distance southwest of future Five Points intersection.
File:1741 Slave Revolt burned at the stake NYC.jpg|African American slave being burned at the stake after New York Conspiracy of 1741. 17 black men, two white men, and two white women were hanged at the gibbet
Gibbet
A gibbet is a gallows-type structure from which the dead bodies of executed criminals were hung on public display to deter other existing or potential criminals. In earlier times, up to the late 17th century, live gibbeting also took place, in which the criminal was placed alive in a metal cage...
next to the Powderhouse on the narrow point of land between the Collect Pond and the Little Collect, 13 were burned at the stake a little east on Magazine
Magazine (artillery)
Magazine is the name for an item or place within which ammunition is stored. It is taken from the Arabic word "makahazin" meaning "warehouse".-Ammunition storage areas:...
StreetDigital History: Title: Fear of Slave Revolts Author: Daniel Horsmanden
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/documents_p2.cfm?doc=231New York Times: COLONIAL NEW-YORK CITY; Burning of Negroes Amid the Hills of Five Points. GRIM RESULTS OF AN ALLEGED PLOT The Gibbet on Powder House Island Bore Strange Fruit for Many Months in the Year 1741.http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F6081FFD3A5D15738DDDAD0A94D9415B8585F0D3
File:Edward-mooney-house-18-bowery.jpg|Edward Mooney House
Edward Mooney House
The Edward Mooney House is located in New York, New York, at 18 Bowery at the corner of Pell Street in what is present day Chinatown. The building was built between 1785 and 1789 for wealthy butcher Edward Mooney on land confiscated from British Loyalist James Delancey.The home was close to the...
built between 1785 and 1789 by wealthy butcher Edward Mooney on the corner of The Bowery and Pell Street on land seized from James Delancey, a British loyalist
Loyalist (American Revolution)
Loyalists were American colonists who remained loyal to the Kingdom of Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War. At the time they were often called Tories, Royalists, or King's Men. They were opposed by the Patriots, those who supported the revolution...
during the American Revolutionary War
File:Bulls Head Tavern New York City.jpg|The Bulls Head Tavern (c. 1755) located approximately at The Bowery and Canal Street served the thriving slaughterhouse and tannery
Tanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...
industry, the area was surrounded by holding pens with slaughterhouses along Mulberry Street
Mulberry Street (Manhattan)
Mulberry Street is a principal thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York. The street was listed on maps of the area since at least 1755. The "Bend" in Mulberry in which the street changes direction from southwest to northeast to a northerly direction was to avoid the wetlands surrounding the Collect Pond...
Paula Young Lee: Meat, modernity, and the rise of the slaughterhouse p.187
File:Five Points New York City 1852.jpg|A corner building which served as a grocery store and liquor store on Orange Street and Anthony Street at the southwest corner of Mulberry Bend in Five Points (c. 1852)
File:Five points Mulberry Bend.jpg|Five Points brick tenements began replacing older wooden buildings; the southwest corner of Mulberry Bend in Five Points with Orange Street running north
File:Bottle Alley Why'o Gang Headquarters.jpg|Bottle Alley located in Mulberry Bend just south of Bandit's Roost. A crime scene photograph
Forensic photography
Forensic photography, sometimes referred to as forensic imaging or crime scene photography, is the art of producing an accurate reproduction of a crime scene or an accident scene using photography for the benefit of a court or to aid in an investigation. It is part of the process of evidence...
used in a murder trial. The X marks location where victim was found.
File:Five Points New York City C.1879.gif|Rear pre-Civil War Era tenements constructed of wood in Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend
Mulberry Bend was an area in the notorious Five Points neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. It was bound by Bayard Street in the north, Cross Street in the south, Orange Street on the west and Mulberry Street on the east. The "Bend" in the street layout was due to the original topography of the area...
in the Five Points neighborhood.
File:Five Points House of Industry 1893.jpg|Five Points House of Industry at 155 Worth Street in 1893 opposite Paradise Square
File:Ragpickers Row Alleyway at 59 Baxter St Five Points NYC.jpg|Baxter Street Alley, Rag-Picker's Row" at 59 Baxter Street (c. 1898 Jacob Riis)
File:Barney Flynns bar in Edward Mooney House 1899.jpg|Barney Flynn's Old Tree House a bar in the Edward Mooney House in 1899 showing Chuck ConnorsCHUCK' CONNORS DIES ON BOWERY; Pneumonia Ends Career of the Famous Chinatown Guide and Inventor of Slang http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50B10F63C5B13738DDDA80994DD405B838DF1D3
File:Chinese theater - Doyers Street - Bain.jpg|Chinese Theatre 5-7 Doyers Street, scene of multiple murdersTHREE SHOT DEAD IN CHINESE THEATRE; Hip Sing Tongs Fire Upon the On Leong Tongs
File:NYC Mulberry Street 3g04637u.jpg|Mulberry Street
Mulberry Street (Manhattan)
Mulberry Street is a principal thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York. The street was listed on maps of the area since at least 1755. The "Bend" in Mulberry in which the street changes direction from southwest to northeast to a northerly direction was to avoid the wetlands surrounding the Collect Pond...
(c.1900) taken from west side of Mulberry north of Bayard Street looking toward Canal Street
File:The Tombs, New York City.png|New York Halls of Justice known as "The Tombs
The Tombs
"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
"
File:Chinese Tuxedo Doyers Street 1901.jpg|Chinese Tuxedo restaurant at 2 Doyers Street
File:Church of the Transfiguration Five Points NYC.jpg|Church of the Transfiguration (built 1801 as Zion Protestant Episcopal Church bought 1853 by Catholic Archdiocese of New York) on the corner of Mott and Mosco Streets. The parish was founded by Padre Félix Varela y Morales
Félix Varela
Félix Varela y Morales was a notable figure in the Roman Catholic Church in both Cuba and the United States.-Life:Varela was born in Havana, Cuba and died in St. Augustine, Florida, United States...
in 1827Church of Zion and St. Timothy (Protestant Episcopal) http://www.nycago.org/Organs/NYC/html/ZionStTimothyEpis.html
File:Black Horse Tavern Mulberry And Park St.jpg|The Black Horse Tavern on the corner of Mulberry and Park Street, the Church of the Transfiguration is in the background; picture is c.1895-1899
File:AlCaponemugshotCPD.jpg|Mugshot of Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
-nicknamed "Scarface", was member of the Five Points Gang
Five Points Gang
Five Points Gang was a 19th-century and early 20th-century criminal organization, primarily of Italian-American origins, based in the Sixth Ward of Manhattan, New York City. Since the early 19th century, the area was first known for gangs of Irish immigrants...
along with Lucky Luciano
Lucky Luciano
Charlie "Lucky" Luciano was an Italian mobster born in Sicily. Luciano is considered the father of modern organized crime in the United States for splitting New York City into five different Mafia crime families and the establishment of the first commission...
See also
- ChinatownChinatown, ManhattanManhattan's Chinatown , home to one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere, is located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
- Little Italy, ManhattanLittle Italy, ManhattanLittle Italy is a neighborhood in lower Manhattan, New York City, once known for its large population of Italians. Today the neighborhood of Little Italy consists of Italian stores and restaurants.-Historical area:...
External links
- Gregory Chritiano:Where the Gangs Lived-New York's Five Points http://www.urbanography.com/5_points/5p2.html
- Official site of the federal government's Five Points archaelogical dig
- Article including contemporary news accounts of 1857 Police and Gang Riots
- Five Points on Google Maps
- 2004 Frances Carle (Asbury)
- History of NY Chinatown and the Five Points includes a map of the area then, and now.