The Five Points in 1827
The Five Points was a neighborhood of downtown Manhattan in New York City, United States in what is now the Civic Center and Chinatown. For 70 years, the Five Points was a crime-ridden slum of New York, seeing gang warfare between various street gangs. The police did not care if the poor people killed each other, intervening only if they attacked the upper classes or the police themselves.
History[]
The Five Points is marked by the intersection of Orange Street, Cross Street, Anthony Street, Little Water Street, and Mulberry Street in downtown Manhattan in New York City. At first, it appeared that the Five Points would be a good example of an American melting pot, with African-Americans moving there after the abolition of slavery in New York in 1827, with Irish moving after the Great Famine, and some Chinese moving there during the 1860s. Along with London's East End, the Five Points was known for being a center of sheer population density, child mortality, disease, unemployment, prostitution, violent crime, and other crimes committed by the poor. The neighborhood became a center of crime due to its poverty, and it was the most dangerous slum in the world, with a person being murdered in the Old Brewery tenement every night for 15 years. It was the sight of several riots, and in 1846 the Battle of the Five Points took place between the Dead Rabbits and the Natives gangs, resulting in William Cutting's Natives taking control of the neighborhood. The neighborhood was also a center of the 1863 New York draft riots, seeing the US Navy bombard Paradise Square in the center of the neighborhood as the people lynched African-Americans and damaged many houses. The Natives and Dead Rabbits had a final battle there, resulting in a victory for the Dead Rabbits and the defeat of Cutting's gang. The neighborhood was a violent slum until the 1910s, with a gang being known as the "Five Points Gang" being active in the neighborhood. Today, the Five Points is divided between the Civic Center and Chinatown.
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