Five Points: The Nineteenth-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum

by Tyler Anbinder

All but forgotten today, the Five Points neighborhood in lower Manhattan was once renowned the world over. It housed America's most impoverished immigrants-the Irish, Jews, Germans, Italians, and African-Americans. Located in today's Chinatown and Little Italy, Five Points played host to more riots, scams, prostitution, and drunkenness than any other neighborhood in America. But it was also crammed full of cheap theaters, dance halls, prizefighting venues, and political arenas that would one day dominate the national scene. From Jacob Riis to Abraham Lincoln, Davy Crockett to Charles Dickens, Five Points horrified and enthralled everyone who saw it.
Drawing from letters, diaries, newspapers, bank records, police reports, and archeological digs, award-winning historian Tyler Anbinder has written the first history of this remarkable neighborhood. Beginning with the Irish potato famine influx in 1840 and ending with the rise of Chinatown in the early 20th century, the story of Five Points serves as a microcosm of the American immigrant experience.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, New York, American History, Crime, 19th Century, Historical

544 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 2010

About the author

Tyler Anbinder is an Associate Professor of History at George Washington University. His first book, Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850's, was a New York Times Book Review Notable Book and the winner of the Avery Craven Prize of the Organization of American Historians. He lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Reviews

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five Points [2002] - ★★★★

In Five Points, Tyler Anbinder focuses his attention on once the most notorious area in New York – the infamous Five Points, once a densely-populated, poverty, crime, riots and disease-ridden area. The area, which was once a green place with a lake called “The Collect Pond”, became by the end of the eighteenth century “a putrid nuisance” (due to local industries’ contamination) [Anbinder, 2002: 14] and, later, a place to be feared and ruled by criminal gangs. However, what became a place of danger for some, also turned into a place of fun and unthought-of opportunities for others. This non-fiction book is a very detailed account of the history of Five Points in the nineteenth century. Through documents, contemporaries’ accounts (each chapter starts with a “personal story” prologue), maps, graphs and old photographers, the author shows how Five Points gained such a vile reputation around the world and what made it so different from other New York neighbourhoods.

The book is divided into fourteen chapters: (i) The Making of Five Points, (ii) Why They Came, (iii) How They Lived, (iv) How They Worked, (v) Politics, (vi) Play, (vii) Vice & Crime, (viii) Religion & Reform, (ix) Riot, (x) The Civil War & The End of an Era, (xi) The Remaking of a Slum, (xii) Italians, (xiii) Chinatown and (xiv) The End of the Five Points. Tyler Anbinder begins his story of Five Points around 1825 when this already- growing-in-business area of New York had began to be populated by menial and immigrant workers. It was slowly turning into a centre for prostitution, too and became “a slum in the very centre of the city” [Anbinder, 2002: 20], because of its central location and immense overcrowding.

The author writes how first predominately German, Irish and Jewish immigrants slowly began to concentrate on their own blocks around Five Points, either fleeing famine in their home countries or just looking for money and opportunities they simply did not have at home. Anbinder emphasises the terrible conditions and unbelievable overcrowding in wooden and brick tenements at that time: “Five Points’ unusually high population density resulted not merely from landlords’ greed but also from the custom of some tenement dwellers to sublet space in their apartments to non-family members” [Tyler Anbinder, 2002: 77]. We really get the sense of some day-to-day challenges of living in pre-Civil War tenements in New York: the round-the-clock noise, filth and extremes of cold and heat. The work of Five Pointes was mostly on a lower scale. They were tailors, shoe-makers, peddlers, seamstresses and day labourers. Many children were fruit and corn sellers, newsboys and sweepers. It was interesting to read about The Old Brewery, once the cheapest renting space in the city that was proclaimed to be “the wickedest house on the wickedest street in New York”. It was a windowless, dark, filthy and labyrinthic place that, thankfully, existed only until 1852. After the Civil War, there were some attempts at renovation and tenements’ improvement, but still in 1873 the Mulberry Hall also got its reputation of a particularly awful place to live in: “Tenants [there] died so frequently that the Board of Health ordered the building to be vacated in November 1871” [Tyler Anbinder, 2002: 353]. The increasing wretchedness of what became known as “Mulberry Bend” had a death rate of “about 50 percent above the citywide average” [2002: 354].

The pastime of Five Pointers included bare-knuckle boxing, dancing, bowling, gambling and attending theatre, musical venues and saloons in the Bowery area. Tap-dancing evolved here, as well as two subcultures: the Bowery B’Hoys and the “sporting men”.

“Five Points had more fighting, drinking, and vice than almost anywhere else; but also more dancing and nightlife, more dense networks of clubs and charities, and opportunities both small and large for those who seized them. With its energy, brutality, enterprise, hardship, and constant dramas, Five Points was an extreme case, yet still a deeply American place” [Tyler Anbinder, 2002: 37].

Then, in the 1870s there was a rapid increase in the Italian population in the area: “Unlike Irish Five Pointers, who had quickly embraced American foods upon their arrival in America, Italians chose to bring their culinary staples with them” [Tyler Anbinder, 2002: 368]. I thought the book was particularly good in explaining attitudes and complex demographical situations of immigrants – “the uneasy ties between Five Pointers’ various ethnical groups” [2002: 394]. Italians started to replace Irishmen in many menial trades, including selling fruit and grocery, an image which still persists in New York. In 1880, when the Chinese population had also started to increase in the area, they took jobs in either tea trade, or were sailors, cigars sellers and peddlers. From this time, there was also an increase in purely Chinese establishments, such opium dens.

Tyler Anbinder writes how the end of Five Points was hastened by the razing of the worst tenements, by the end to mass immigration and by some “cleaning-up” reforms. Although the Five Points area in the city is no longer a filthy slum, the author writes that “life is still the same”, “immigrant street vendors are everywhere”, “food is still the most popular item for sale on the streets “, “ethic mixing” is prevalent and even ethnic tensions are still apparent [2002: 439, 440]. Italians have now dispersed throughout the centre and Chinatown has tuned into “an entertainment zone”.

Five Points maybe a book which is a little on a dry side and may contain too much detail, as well as some repetition, but it is still an exciting account of one unique historic place in New York where debauchery and crime gangs, including the Bowery Boys and Mulberry Boys, operated alongside immense opportunities, immigrants’ hopes and all kinds of innovations.

[Jill Hutchinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book much better than "Gangs of New York". It provides an in-depth picture of that NYC neighborhood that teemed with immigrants, gangs, ward heelers, and grinding poverty. The politicians, using gangs such as the Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys as enforcers,were unbelievably corrupt, ruled with an iron hand and kept the impoverished "in their place". This is an insightful look at the city in transition and is fascinating and yet,depressing.

[Marti · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read for anyone who enjoyed the film "Gangs of New York." Unlike the book of the same name by Herbert Asbury, the author utilized statistics to debunk some of the hyperbole surrounding America's most notorious slum. There were even some fairly well-to-do merchants who chose to remain because they owned businesses there. However, it was still a level of misery few can imagine.

The neighborhood became a cesspool around the 1820s when tannery businesses congregated there. Rioting and fighting seemed to be a staple of life. However, the massive overcrowding did not begin until the well-known exodus from Ireland due to the Potato Famine. The poorest refugees congregated in the "Five Points" intersection, which today can be located precisely at Baxter and Worth Streets (although "The Old Brewery" and other streets that gave the intersection its name are now buried under the Federal Courthouse). Following the Civil War Draft Riot (which took place largely outside the Five-Points even though they got most of the blame), Protestant relief efforts and Irish assimilation into mainstream politics combined to diminish the unsavory reputation of the "Bloody 6th" Ward. However this did not last long as Italian and Chinese immigrants replaced the Irish at the bottom of the ladder. Hence, the overcrowding, which was documented by Jacob Riis, began anew.

The author points out that while the slumlords were greedy in overcharging their tenants and neglecting their properties, they were not entirely to blame for the overcrowding. Even enlightened landlords who built "model tenements" and charged reasonable rents, saw their properties degenerate within a few years. The unlivable conditions only stopped when the government ended its open door immigration policy in the 1920s.

[Rebekah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was big when The Gangs of New York movie came out. I picked it up because I am a sucker for 17th-19th NYC history for some reason. It is a fabulous read for a history nerd with a dark side like me.

[Arthur · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 16 hour unabridged audiobook.
I wanted to give this book 4 stars because it was just full of so much useful information as to how life was back then. How far we have come. But alas it reads like a boring encyclopedia entry and that knocked it down a star.

[Joseph Bruno · Rating 5 out of 5]

I lived in New York City's Little Italy for 48 years. But before it was called Little Italy, it was called "The Five Points." This book captivated me with the details of how my neighborhood transformed from a den of iniquity, to what it was when I lived there, starting in 1953.

First, the Five Points was filled with Germans and Dutch. The potato famine induced the Irish to hightail it to America, and they settle in the Five Points. In 1855, the Five Points was 55% born-Irish and only 25% American born. Then, starting in the 1880's, the Italians moved in, followed by an avalanche of people from China.

All in all, this is a great book for those interested in the history of NY City, especially downtown Manhattan.

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the book I thought it would be. The author focused so much on Five Points during and after the Irish potato famine and not enough time on how the area came to be the way it was. I am not as interested in the politics or entertainment of 1850s Five Points as I am with how the area that used to be a pond turned into a neighborhood where mostly poor people lived. I'm more interested in how it became "the most notorious slum" than I am in how much alcohol people drank there in any particular period. Once I found that this book wasn't going to tell me what I want to know about the older history of the area, I picked up another book by this author, City of Dreams, and it is so far much better when it comes to older history and not just a social study of only a few decades.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinatingly detailed look at a notorious 19th-century NYC neighborhood.

Anbinder's 2001 "Five Points" will be both familiar to anyone who saw the film "Gangs of New York" while at the same time being a useful and refreshing partial corrective to that mostly-true-but-still-fiction account.

Drawing from property records, charity books, church records, census data, newspaper accounts (both salacious and banal) and other innumerable primary documents, Anbinder paints a wonderfully colorful, fetid and gritty history that is frequently as depressing as it is inspiring.

Needless to say, you wouldn't want to live in the Five Points during the 19th century. With its rampant crime, corruption, vice, and general seemliness, it would never be among anyone's first choice. But for new immigrants to America and New York (particularly Irish fleeing the famine), it was their best and only choice. Anbinder does a wonderful job of painting the Five Points in an array of colors that never gets too salacious ("den of iniquity") or rose-colored ("immigrant city on a hill") -- instead, he conveys Five Points mostly as those who lives in and around it saw it: a home for some, a lurid fascination for others (and how we got the term "slumming"), and a cesspool to be avoided at all costs for still others. Anbinder gives a richly detailed account about everything from crime to prize fights to politicking to sanitation.

Whether it's Irish immigrants, or Italians, or ultimately Chinese (it's now NYC's Chinatown), "Five Points" is a constantly rewarding history.

[Barbara Stoner · Rating 5 out of 5]

If ever there was a good year to read Five Points: The 19th Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum , 2016 is it. A meticulous social history, Five Points documents the impact of immigration and racism as they impact a New York neighborhood in the mid-19th Century. From nativism to the spectre of African-American equality to looking for the perfect “outsider” in local politics, Tyler Anbinder's Five Points is a distant mirror to our own times. Much of the early history centers on the Irish, on the growing influence of Tammany Hall, and the path to political power through the fire and police forces - of it playing out in the kind of squalor that can only seem somewhat preferable through comparison with life on the Ould Sod.

"The overcrowding in Five Points boardinghouses was terrible… 'as thickly covered with bodies as a field of battle could be with the slain.’ In many of these establishments, lodgers slept on two-tiered bunks, which often consisted of canvas stretched between two wooden rails. When business was brisk, proprietors created a third tier by placing other customers on the floor underneath the lowest bunk. Others slept on bed frames covered with straw. Cellar lodging rooms were both crowded and, with so many dirty lodgers squeezing into windowless bedrooms, filthy and smelly as well. ‘Without air, without light, filled with damp vapor from the mildewed walls, and with vermin in ratio to the dirtiness of the inhabitants …they are the most repulsive holes that ever a human being was forced to sleep in.’"

Walt Whitman, in his post as editor of a Democratic organ called The Aurora, militated against Catholic immigrants in words that presage Donald Trump’s drug-peddling, raping Mexicans:

"Democrats should not submit to a ‘coarse, unshaven, filthy Irish rabble…’ Describing Catholic priests, Whitman asked, ‘shall these dregs of foreign filth – refuse of convents – scullions from Austrian monasteries – be permitted to dictate what Tammany must do?’ …No…because if Democrats yielded to ‘the foreign riffraff…there will be no end to their demands and their insolence.’"

There are early instances of Irish Americans protesting emancipation on the grounds that “equality as soldiers means equality at the ballot-box, equality everywhere,” resulting in the Irish being “degraded to a level with negroes."

The level of corruption, fraud, and even violence in elections make Citizens United appear deceptively benign.

It’s not all bad. There are interesting sections outlining the beginnings of the settlement house movement, programs and legislation designed to force landlords to provide better housing, or at least to prevent them from dangerously overcrowding their tenements. As in all social change, advance was glacial. It’s a miracle that so many of our early immigrants, those who came in hope and those who came in chains, survived this rough initiation.

Five Points is a good introduction to the American history that has little to do with great men or battles or even congressional floor fights. It’s a story of people who became Americans, and whose concerns and prejudices were annealed in one of the steamiest cauldrons of the melting pot. No wonder so many of their descendants retain these early lessons in survival. That so many others survived to see better days and to learn better of their neighbors is a tribute to the promise of an America where anything can happen. The Five Points is a case study in where we have been, and a warning of where, if we aren’t careful, we could find ourselves once more.

[Scott Pomfret · Rating 3 out of 5]

Five Points is a solid, if not particularly lively, exploration of the gratuitously notorious neighborhood of the name in Manhattan, with a rather extensive detour into famine Ireland (but no such comparable detour for the waves of Chinese who also inhabited the neighborhood). The author generously suggests that while the neighborhood had its challenges, it was not perhaps as bad as some contemporary writers with their own agendas depicted. The book is well-organized, with separate chapters on a number of relevant topics (e.g., prostitution, local politics, the Famine, charitable institutions). It suffers, however from constant quoting of lists of the destitute dwellings and descriptions of their occupants, none of which accounts differ enough from each other to justify the repetition, which became tedious. The paucity of accounts by the Five Points residents themselves is also a weakness, albeit one the author acknowledges. The cause did not appear to be from lack of research. All in all, the accounts of boot blacks and newspaper boys and Black chimney sweeps and political brawls form a colorful pastiche.

[Gedvondur · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my estimation, Four Stars is a *great* book, well worth reading.

In this look at New York City's most infamous neighborhood of old, Anbinder throws cold water on many of the more fantastic and harsh visions of the Five Points without disavowing the abject poverty and very real problems that plagued the neighborhood. Furthermore, Anbinder shows the German Jewish immigrants, the Irish, and later the Italians, clearly showing how they came in and how they effected the neighborhood. He looks at politics, Tammany Hall, and the evolution of Democracy in the lens of the Five Points.

If you are a fan of history, particularly in New York City, Anbinder takes you through antebellum and post-civil war in the neighborhood, disproving the most incredulous stories while weaving a tale of a troubled neighborhood in a considerably less civilized time.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Five Points' is a very comprehensive/detailed (somewhat scholarly), yet still very readable and enlightening, history of one of New York's most famous slums. It often reads as if it where written to be a (high school?) textbook. It's overriding moral/image/message seems to be: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I liked it enough, though, to seriously consider reading Tyler Anbinder's other book: 'Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850's'.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, although a bit dry at times. It does present a very thorough history of the neighborhood known as the most infamous slum in America for much of the 19th century, but the author gets bogged down in the details now and then.

(My personal interest in the book came from the fact I used to live 2 blocks away from the 5 Points intersection.)

[Jennifer Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I enjoyed most about this book was that besides giving a general history, it also singled out individuals to focus on, which brought a more human element to it. I liked the that each chapter had an interesting little prologue, something I haven't seen before. It was interesting reading about how the neighborhood turned over from one ethnicity to another over the years.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

What fun! Anbinder brings you back to New York’s Five Points with energy and clarity. He tells his tale in such a powerful and honest way, you think that you happen to be sitting in a bar next to a reporter regaling you with life on his beat!! Pull up your chair, and listen. He’ll tell you a wonderful story!!!

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did enjoy this book, though it took me a while to finish. It's not exactly a page-turner, but it was very educational. I also listen to The Bowery Boys podcast, so to read this and listen to them, I was able to really situate myself in Five Points.

[Rae · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw the not-so-great musical Paradise Square, which, while lacking in plot and memorable music numbers, really sparked my interest in the history of the neighborhood it was based on. So I was pleased to find this all-encompassing book about the area and time period, and then doubly excited when I booked a trip to New York and made plans to stay in the neighborhood.

For all my interest, this book was a bit of a slog. I'm not sure what could have made it more compelling. Maybe it didn't need to go quite so far into the weeds, maybe it was that chapters sometimes got repetitive. The author divides the chapters into themes like how they worked, played, politics, riots, religion, etc. and inevitably these topics intersect which resulted in sometimes feeling like the author was beating a dead horse.

By grouping the chapters by subject rather than a chronological retelling, it could get confusing to keep track of where in time things were happening. I found it most compelling when there was a prolonged focus on a single narrative, like the stories of Jacob Riis and Master Juba.

Recommend only to readers deeply interested in the history and willing to accept what an often dry recounting of research, dates, names, and events.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

POV: the kid who proposed to you in middle school then moved to another school slides into your DMs in your 20s, you reject him, you change your mind because your dead fiance told you to marry him, you agree to a long distance relationship, he shows up in person 7 months early and marries you on the spot
Jacob Riis you a wild one, if I were Elisabeth I wouldn't have married you either

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most prominent 19th century slum of New York City was called Five Points; located in what is now Chinatown. This is an exhaustive, extraordinarily well researched historical account of Irish and Italian [and eventually Chinese] immigrants' struggles with poverty, crime, starvation, and pervasive social duress.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. The book contained a wealth of historical information and interesting anecdotes, but it seemed to lack a consistent narrative or theme.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

An examination of one of New York City's most notorious slums. This book is chock full of facts, but there are also short anecdotes about the actual people who lived there. Violence, death, poverty abounded. One must think about how bad it was in Ireland and the rest of Europe for people to leave home and settle in such a place. No matter how bad things are anywhere in the City today, it is nothing compared to what was.

[Rachel Nortz · Rating 4 out of 5]

NYPL #17

Not nearly as dry as I generally expect history studies to veer into even with the best editing.

I've always known about the concept of Five Points and I know where to find the Third Point marker in front of the Manhattan Bridge.
What I didn't realize was just how much history I was treading over on my way to jury duty by Collect Pond Park (the Wikipedia search that sparked me seeking out this book at the library), taking the bus down Park Row, or producing a show in a converted tenement building around the corner from Centre Street.
This city is an incredible amalgamation of wonder and horror, and when I can leave my house again I'm going to do a side by side photographic tour of the neighborhood for my own map studies.

[Kevin Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books ever written on the Five Points. It covers every aspect of life in the Points in detail, including the history of the neighborhood. Highly recommend.

[Bill FromPA · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-documented look at poverty, immigration, crime, and politics in a NYC neighborhood from the 1820s (when the Collect Pond was filled in) through the 1890s (after the publication of How the Other Half Lives). This deals with some of the same material as The Gangs of New York and Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York, but in a more data-driven and less sensational manner; unlike those crime-centered books, the murder of Bill "the Butcher" here gets only a passing mention.

Anbinder ties the various threads together, showing how political ambition and influence dove the fortunes of the neighborhood and individuals within it. He concentrates on the Irish for most of the book, devoting one chapter to conditions in Ireland just prior to and during the potato famine and how they led to mass immigration. I would have liked a little more information on the backgrounds of Jewish and German immigrants who, in lesser numbers, shared Five Points with the Irish through most of the mid-century decades. The besieged Five Points African-Americans who eventually largely abandoned the neighborhood due to racial violence could also have been portrayed in a little more depth, though Anbinder is reluctant to venture very far into areas under-documented by contemporary data. This at least spares the reader from Ashbury's "print the legend" approach.

Chapters on the later 19th century, concentrating on Italians and Chinese immigrants benefit from a more concise approach to these specific immigrant communities.

Each chapter except for the final one is prefaced by a "Prologue" which concentrates on an individual personality who lived in or visited Five Points. The material on Jacob Riis, which is spread through several of the later chapters, is particularly detailed.

Though Anbinder includes the famous image of "Bandits' Roost" at the top of this review, he also includes a much less often reproduced image of the same spot where residents are celebrating the Feast of St. Rocco. Between them the two images represent the range of Anbinder's book, documenting both the dark and the light side of the immigrant experience of Five Points.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook!

My favorite thing about this book is the way it deals with the complexity and nuance involved in the immigrant experience in Five Points. Utilizing many concrete examples, press coverage from the period, etc. I had a very tangible idea about what life might have been life for the neighborhood's inhabitants throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. The author covers the chronological changes brought on by politics, waves of immigration, and the influence of different people groups exceedingly well. I especially enjoyed the chapter about religious relief organizations (not only Protestants but the Catholic "counter-movement" that developed in the former organizations' wake).

I recently visited New York City and stayed quite close to modern day Chinatown. In particular, I visited Mulberry Street and Columbus Park, which was the bedrock of "the Bend" in the 19th century. To see the way the neighborhood flourishes today was so incredible and extra special when the neighborhood's history is known and considered. Overall, I really enjoyed this book-- some of the details blew my mind-- and the narrator didn't annoy me, so that's cool!

[Paula Galvan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a well-written history of the famous Five Points neighborhood in New York City through the 19th century. The author documents the slums, murders, and drunkenness and provides real-life stories of the most notorious in this melting pot for poor immigrants. Ireland's potato famine, war, discrimination against Jews, and widespread poverty in mid-eighteenth-century Europe drove thousands to seek a better life in America. Some found the help they sought, but many were left to wallow in abject poverty, living in overcrowded tenement buildings and eke out a life on the streets. The Points was so famous that sometimes wealthy New Yorkers accompanied by police would tour through the poverty, brothels, brawling, and filthiness to glimpse into "life on the other side." It wasn't until laws were put in place to hold landlords accountable and most old buildings were razed in the early twentieth century that the worst slums disappeared.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

So here we have the story of one notorious 19th-century slum in Lower Manhattan, a vast panorama of the immigrant experience. The human adventure continues.

Honestly, sections of this book were a little dry to me because it was so detailed. I probably would’ve appreciated that a bit more had I grown up in the area or at least been more familiar with it. I once visited the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, which helped me picture things more clearly in my mind. The book also had some pretty fascinating moments which didn’t surprise me. I’ve always been fascinated with the history of New York.

I particularly enjoyed the little prologue chapters and the other mini-biographies of individuals whose lives intersected in meaningful ways with that neighborhood. It brought the book to life.

Overall, this was a thorough and interesting history of a very specific subject.

[Al Lock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well-written and researched history of the Five Points Neighborhood in New York City, from the early 19th century until its disappearance in the early 20th century, covering it as a living space for immigrants from Ireland, Prussia, Germany, Italy and China.

Using primary and secondary source material (and confirming other sources with primary and secondary sources), Tyler Anbinder does an excellent job of describing the challenges that faced the immigrants who ended up in the Five Points as well as the living conditions that they lived in.

Politics, social challenges, judicial challenges. It's all covered here. I suggest reading the notes as well, some tidbits of interest found there.

Excellent history.

[JM Scarpati · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is truly a standard bearer for New York City history anthologies. Mr. Anbinder writes in a voice that is both scholarly and accessible, highlighting history in a way that is both fact driven and human at its very nature.

The book is detailed, comprehensive, informative, and while this can make the book tedious at times (and at worst a bit repetitive) it is always forgiven on its next page as Mr. Anbinder gifts you countless evocative stories and tales, chapter to chapter.

I wish it was required reading for anyone moving to New York City today so they can fully appreciate what this city was and is and I would put it on any must read list for those interested in New York City, American Immigration, sociology, and of course niche history.

[Jeanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book -- a detailed sociological, historical, political examination of what is today Little Italy and Chinatown in New York. I was drawn to the book after seeing Gangs of New York, of course, but while Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day Lewis are based on real types, the story itself of course was not true. Anbinder digs deeply, through statistical data and contemporary newspaper accounts, into the cultural life of this section of Manhattan. Of course Jacob Riis is frequently referenced. In the last chapter, he briefly chronicles the life of the area past what he calls the end of the "five points" proper and addresses what he feels was the cause of so much misery.