Five Points: The 19th Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum

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Five Points: The 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became The World's Most Notorious Slum (eBook) Pub. Date: 6/5/2012 Publisher: Free Press
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Five Points: The 19th Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum Pub. Date: 9/28/2010 Publisher: Free Press

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Five Points: The 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became The World's Most Notorious Slum (Reprint) Pub. Date: 9/28/2002 Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
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Five Points: The 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became The World's Most Notorious Slum Pub. Date: 9/4/2001 Publisher: Free Press

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Overview

All but forgotten today, the Five Points neighborhood in Lower Manhattan was once renowned the world over. From Jacob Riis to Abraham Lincoln, Davy Crockett to Charles Dickens, Five Points both horrified and inspired everyone who saw it. While it comprised only a handful of streets, many of America’s most impoverished African Americans and Irish, Jewish, German, and Italian immigrants sweated out their existence there. Located in today’s Chinatown, Five Points witnessed more riots, scams, prostitution, and drunkenness than any other neighborhood in America. But at the same time it was a font of creative energy, crammed full of cheap theaters, dance halls, and boxing matches. It was also the home of meeting halls for the political clubs and the machine politicians who would come to dominate not just the city but an entire era in American politics.Drawing from letters, diaries, newspapers, bank records, police reports, and archaeological digs, Anbinder has written the first-ever history of Five Points, the neighborhood that was a microcosm of the American immigrant experience. The story that Anbinder tells is the classic tale of America’s immigrant past, as successive waves of new arrivals fought for survival in a land that was as exciting as it was dangerous, as riotous as it was culturally rich.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781439141557
Publisher: Free Press
Publication date: 9/28/2010
Pages: 532
Sales rank: 118,911
Product dimensions: 5.90 (w) x 8.90 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet 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, VA.

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Anonymous

Posted November 15, 2005

American History 101

What a stunning, utterly fascinating account. Mr. Anbinder tells us the history of one NYC neighborhood from its idyllic pre-colonial pastures and fields to its present day urban landscape, and in telling that story we learn a lot about American history. How tenement housing gave individuals greater freedoms than previous housing that was often in the home of one's employer, giving the employer moral responsbility for the employee's behavior. And how some of America's greatest individual fortunes began with owning those tenements. Racism, ethnic strife, hustles, crime, gangs, immigrant hopes, forms of popular entertainment, machine politics - all with us in some form today - are traced through Five Points. Couldn't put it down, a great read.
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Anonymous

Posted December 27, 2002

A more honest assessment of Five Points

Since I had written a novel with the same title--and since both of our books came out two months apart--I had an enormous interest in Mr. Anbinder's book. I was relieved to discover that Mr. Anbinder feels that while there were several gang conflicts, not everyone was a criminal, and that so many people could rise above it and move on. These were my feelings as well. I only hope that new students of the era will begin with Mr. Anbinder's great book to get an accurate account of that desperate community.
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Anonymous

Posted December 14, 2001

From Cow's Bay to Baxter Street

No other neighborhood in the 19th cenutry evoked more fear and disgust than The Five Points. This book is a fascinating study of a neighborhood overrun with criminals from a broad spectrum: prostitues, thugs, gamblers, and fearsome gangs. It is also a heart-rendering depiction of poverty at its lowest levels. Still, this book is by no means a 'downer'. There are many ironic and humorous, even inspiring, moments sprinkled throughout. I recommend this book highly.
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