and voter fraud, 322, 323, 325, 327
restaurants, 439–40
Chinese, 406–8, 436, 438
return migration, 135, 374, 422–23
Rice, Pete, 182
Rice, Sam, 222
Ridaboek, Frederick, 160, 161, 276
Riis, Elisabeth Gortz, 337–38, 340–42, 424
Riis, Jacob, 2, 93, 255, 331, 337–42, 344, 350, 356–61, 377, 382–84, 423–32, 434, 441
Riley, Edward, 161
riots, 2, 4, 27–32, 166, 180, 201
draft, 305, 314–18
election, 27–29, 145, 203, 277, 295
race, 7–13, 27–29, 32, 154–58, 187; see also Bowery Boy Riot
Ripley, John, 180–81
robbery, 207, 219–22, 233, 392
by children, 220, 231
police corruption and, 229
prostitution and, 213, 220
Robinson, Solon, 67, 129–30, 259, 369
Rocco, St., festa of, 383–86, 438
Roche, Walter, 146, 168, 284, 286, 287, 293, 328, 331
Roche Guard, 284–88, 291, 293, 328, 440
Rockefeller, John D., 255
Rolloson, John, 11
Roosevelt, Theodore, 431
Rosenthal, Mayer, 120
Ross, Joel, 69–71
Rossa, Jeremiah O’Donovan, 329
Roth, Henry, 72
Russell, William H., 299
Rutgers Fire Company, 404
Rynders, Isaiah, 141–44, 166, 167, 181–82, 206, 289, 309
Sabbia, Francesco, 373
saloons, 91, 111, 177, 191, 193–97, 206, 232, 360
boxing matches in, 202
in Chinatown, 436–37
lodging in, 79–80
gambling in, 195–96
licensing of, 278, 279, 282
political influence of owners of, 145–46, 148–49, 159–60, 164–66, 169, 194, 271, 272
prostitution in, 214, 218
robbery in, 221
for sporting men, 142, 182
Sam Yip, 416
Sanger, William, 215–17
Sante, Luc, 3, 194, 315
Sarsfield Light Guard, 185, 188
Scalabrini, Bishop Giovanni, 381
Scally, Bill, 151
Scandinavians, 339
Scanlon, Dave, 182
scavenging, 88, 107, 133
Schell, Augustus, 276
Schermerhorn family, 15
Schilling, Herman, 317
school sinks, 85–86
schools: operated by charitable institutions, 247, 248, 252, 254, 255
parochial, government subsidies for, 331
public, 154–56, 252
Scott, Robert K., 301
Scribner’s publishing house, 428–29
seamstresses, 111, 112, 122–26, 134–35, 260
at Five Points Mission, 246–47
in House of Industry, 251
prostitution as alternative for, 216, 217
seasonal labor, 114–16
second-hand stores, 119–20, 128
fencing of stolen goods in, 221–22
Secor, Thomas, 202
Sedgwick, Theodore, 214
servants, see domestic servants
settlement houses, 267
Seward, William H., 240
sewers, 347, 349, 353
Seymour, Horatio, 309, 324
Shakespeare, William, 144
Shaler, William, 155–56
Shanks, William F., 425, 426
Shea, Mary and Jeremiah, 96
Shea, Tim and Honora, 137, 138
Shea, Timothy and Johanna, 138
Sheehan, James M., 264
Sherman, Mary and Maggie, 224–25
Shields, William H., 332, 333
Shields family, 78
shipbuilding, 114
Shirt-Sewers’ Association, 124–25
shoemaking, 111, 113, 118
Sing Sing prison, 227, 389, 391–94
Sitting Bull, 189
slaughterhouses, 14, 15
slavery, 35–36, 303–7, 309, 311, 363
opposition to, see abolitionists
Sligo, County (Ireland), 49, 51–59, 60, 98, 102, 135, 184, 185, 187–88, 232, 301
Sligo Young Men’s Association, 187–88
slumming, 26, 33–34
Small Parks Act (1887), 427, 429, 431
Smith, Bartholomew, 253
Smith, Henry, 313
Society of Italian Fruit Peddlers, 376
Society of the Madonna della Pietá, 384
Society of Monte Carmelo, 384
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 413
Society of San Michele Arcangelo, 384
Solomon, Harris, 221–22
Sons of Temperance, 186
Soulder, Joseph, 282
soup kitchens, 134, 254
Spann, Edward K., 312
Spartans, 156–57
Spears, Siege, 182
Spencer, Charles, 314
Spinola, Gen. Francis B., 309
sporting men, 1, 182–84, 200, 206, 346
in politics, 142–44, 283, 298, 301
spousal abuse, 222–23, 390
Stable Gang, 332
Stacom, Johnny, 308
stale-beer dives, 359–61, 429, 433
Stanford, Leland, 398
Steers, James, 293
Stelzle, Charles, 194–95
Stewart, A. T., 426
Stewart, James R., 61
Stookey, Aaron, 226–27
street cleaning, 82–84
street entertainers, 177–78
street names, changing, 105
street sweepers, 130, 237
streetwalkers, see prostitution
strikes, 117–18, 377, 378
during Civil War, 312
Strong, George D., 21, 27, 130
Strong, George Templeton, 120, 279
Strong, William L., 436
Sullivan, Barbara, 77, 93, 137
Sullivan, Denis P., 313–14, 317
Sullivan, Mary, 78, 123
Sullivan, Sandy, 94–96, 354
Sullivan, Tim, 132, 335–36
Sullivan, Yankee, 156, 157, 159, 160, 162, 166, 169, 182, 194, 201–6, 333
Sumner, Charles, 307
Sunday schools, 252–54
Supreme Court, U.S., 421–22
sweatshops, 440–41
Sweeny, Peter Barr, 170, 328
synagogues, 242–43
tailoring, 111, 113, 114, 117–18, 134
Tammany Hall, 2–4, 146, 150, 187, 206, 278, 334, 438
Brennan and, 296, 309–10, 318–20, 328, 331, 332
Clancy and, 171, 293–94, 296, 309
Kerrigan and, 275, 291, 299
opposition within Democratic party to, 155–57, 298, 335
private welfare system of, 267–68
Rynders and, 144, 166, 167
Sullivan and, 132, 335–36
voter fraud perpetrated by, 4, 322–24, 327
Walsh and, 271–73
tanneries, 14, 15
Taoism, 417
tap dancing, 1, 172–76
Tappan, Arthur, 8, 9
Tappan, Lewis, 7–10, 27
Tappen, Big Jerry, 182
“Tattered Maggie,” 239
temperance movement, 92, 193, 248, 250, 259, 279
tenements, 1, 4, 72–105, 336, 346–52
amusements as refuge from, 197
brick, 74, 80, 88, 94–95, 347
Chinese in, 404, 405
conditions in, 67–71
dark passageways of, 80–82, 349
described by Dickens, 33
drunkenness in, 232
and end of mass immigration, 435–36
extremes of heat and cold in, 87–89
filthiness of, 82–83
fires in, 89–91, 183, 230
lodgers in, 77–78
on Lower East Side, 343–44
model, 435
needle trades in, 123
noisiness of, 87
notorious, 352–57
origin of, 18
outhouses of, 73–75, 85–86
overcrowding in, 75–76, 92–93, 95–97, 349–50, 434, 441
razing of, 21, 22, 104–5, 431–34
rear, 74–75
regulation of, 347–49, 434
rents charged in, 102–4, 308
Riis’s crusade for reform of, 2, 426–33
stench of, 86–87
wooden, 72–74, 347, 354
Thais, 439
theaters, 176, 188–91, 197, 200, 346
theft, see robbery
Thomas, Charles, 226
Thompson, Boss, 182
Three Family Society, 416
Tierney, Bridget, 90
Tobin, Mary Jane, 231
Tombs prison, 231, 272, 273
tongs, 412, 415, 437
Trainor, William, 104
Treasury Department, U.S., 421
Trench, William Steuart, 62–64, 135
Trevelyan, Charles, 56
Tucker, James, 184
Tuosist (Ireland), 53, 54, 55–56, 64, 77, 96, 98, 137, 138, 449n
Turner, Margaret, 222
Tuttle, Sarah, 217
Tweed, “Boss” William M., 4, 170, 271, 278, 296, 323, 324, 332
during Civil War, 309
death of, 334
defeated by Clancy for county clerk, 293–94
downfall of, 272, 328–31
fraternal lodge of, 186
private welfare system of, 267–68
volunteer fire company, 146, 185
and voter fraud, 323, 324
Twomey, Mary and Cornelius, 123
Two Years Before the Mast (Dana), 288
Tyng, Stephen H., 251
typhus, 59
Underground Railroad, 187
unemployment, 133–35
Chinese blamed for in California, 398
during Civil War, 307
seasonal, 114–16, 120–22, 125, 374
Union Theological Seminary, 109
Unionist Club, 156, 206
unions, 117–18, 373, 377–78
Chinese, 416
United Chinese Associations of New York, 440
Upper East Side, 432n
urban renewal, 433–34
Van Buren, Martin, 26, 27
Van Meter, W. C., 109, 110, 258, 261
Vatty, Lewis, Sr. and Jr., 222
Victoria, Queen of England, 65
Vietnamese, 439, 440
village associations, Chinese, 415–16
violence, 233
against Chinese, 398, 399
during elections, 141, 143, 153–54, 156, 162, 201, 277, 295
mob, see riots
against policemen, 229
during robberies, 222
against women, 222–24
Virginia Minstrels, 189
Voice from the Newsboys, A (Morrow), 110
Volks Garden, 177
volunteer fire companies, 176, 183–85, 200
Bowery B’hoys in, 178
fighters in, 202
politics and, 146, 164–65, 168–71, 185, 270, 274, 283, 286–87, 295, 310
stage portrayals of, 189
voter fraud, 4, 321–27
Vultee’s old corner saloon, 182
Wah Ling, 399
Walker, William, 276
Wallace, Mike, 290
Walling, George, 408, 409
Walsh, Blanche, 272, 273
Walsh, Mike, 156–58, 179, 194
Walsh, Thomas P. “Fatty,” 146, 269–73, 278, 280, 328, 335–36, 353
Walsh, William, 270–72, 307, 310, 328, 332–34, 353
Ware, James E., 347, 348
Washburne, Elihu B., 236
Weeks, Samuel, 103, 398–99
Welland, Elizabeth, 259
Welsh, 232
wheys (cooperative loan systems), 401–2
Whig party, 20, 27–31, 141, 143, 148, 151, 156, 163–65, 167, 206, 275, 278
White, John, 116
White, Mary, 219–20
Whitman, Walt, 155, 157, 173, 176, 183
Williams, Pete, 198–99; see also Almack’s dance hall, 172–73
Williams, Robert, 12
Williamson, George “Legs,” 10
Willis, Maria, 11
Willis, Nathaniel P., 34, 69, 198–99, 214
Wilson, Frances, 222
Wilson, Jane, 128
Wo Kee, 397–98, 403, 405, 406
Wong Ching Foo, 402, 407, 408, 412, 415, 421
Wong family association, 416
Wong He Cong, 403
Wood, Catharine, 206
Wood, Fernando, 228, 277–81, 291, 298, 303, 309
Wood, Silas, 435
Worden, Paddy, 177
Yale University, 110
Young Men’s Central Republican Union, 235
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tyler Anbinder is a professor of history at George Washington University. His first book, Nativism and Slavery, was also a New York Times Notable Book and the winner of the Avery Craven Prize of the Organization of American Historians. He lives in Arlington, Virginia.
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* Defining the borders of a neighborhood is not easy. In 1873, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper asserted that “Five Points is bounded by Canal Street, the Bowery, Chatham, Pearl and Centre Streets, forming a truncated triangle about one mile square.” Others conceived of the district as slightly larger or smaller. I came to my own conclusions about how Five Pointers would have demarcated their territory both by reading their own accounts of the enclave and by walking the neighborhood’s streets to determine how the layout of the thoroughfares and buildings would have shaped their perception of their turf. In the end, my own sense of Five Points’ boundaries matched that of Frank Leslie’s, and those boundaries are the ones I have used throughout this book. See Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper (August 16, 1873): 363.
* The British Parliament conducted hearings all across Ireland in 1836 in order to determine the extent of poverty there for use in amending the British “Poor Laws.” The testimony recorded in these hearings provides the most complete record of life for the rural Irish laborer and small farmer in the years before the Great Famine began in 1845.
* For reasons that will be discussed at the end of this chapter, city lawmakers in 1854 decided to change the names of Five Points’ four most notorious streets. Orange became Baxter, Anthony become Worth, Cross became Park, and Little Water became Mission Place. Because most of the tenement descriptions in this chapter date from just after 1854, I will for the sake of consistency use the new street names throughout this chapter.
* The most important issues in the campaign were whether or not the United States should annex Texas, and how the country should conduct its negotiations with Great Britain regarding the disputed Oregon Territory, which both nations claimed. The Democrats’ slogan “Fifty-four-forty-or-fight” referred to their promise to insist upon all of Oregon, up to the 54° 40’ latitudinal line (at what is now central British Columbia) that marked its northern boundary. The Whigs were less bellicose in their demands.
* A round in the mid-nineteenth century did not last three minutes, as it does today, but instead ended when either combatant fell to the ground. In the bare-knuckle fights of this period, rounds rarely lasted more than a minute.
* It is impossible to verify Riis’s claims concerning the fate of those displaced by the razing of the Bend. One also wonders what happened to other Five Pointers once they left the neighborhood, for th
e vast majority did not live there for even a decade. Most Irish Five Pointers had names that were too common to allow them to be traced in city directories or census indexes once they left the district. Italian and Chinese names were too often mangled by the census takers and too often left out of city directories to allow them to be tracked down. I was able to identify with certainty in the 1860 city directory only about one in ten Five Pointers who had opened accounts at the Emigrant Savings Bank in the early 1850s. About half still lived in Five Points. Most of the remainder had relocated to immigrant neighborhoods on either the Lower or Upper East Side, but there were a few scattered in nearly every part of the city.