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Title: Five Points: The 19th Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum by Tyler Anbinder ISBN: 0-452-28361-2 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: October, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (6 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: good but flawed
Comment: I live and work just a few blocks from the intersection that was once known as the Five Points. Since I moved to the neighborhood, I've been something of a local history buff. Thus this book wasn't as informative to me as it would probably be to most readers. That does, however give me a perspective from which I can judge its strengths and weaknesses. First off, the books main weakness is the way the author chose to focus very arbitrarily on the area around the Five Points as a single neighborhood, as though the areas to the north, east and west were different neighborhoods. The Five Points was an intersection, not a neighborhood. It's true that 19th Century writers did refer to the area around the Five Points using the phrase "Five Points" as a metonymic reference for the area, but it's quite misleading to claim, is Andinder implicitly does, that the Five Points was a neighborhood distinct from the Lower East Side, for example. Then, as now, the Lower East Side, referred to a quite wide area, and the Five Points region was really just a specific part of the Lower East Side. There are other points too. But aside from that quibble, the focus on just those few blocks gives the book as a whole a somewhat blinkered quality.
The books greatest strength was in the research Anbinder did on the Irish immigrants who made up the bulk of the population of that area in the mid 19th century. It was very interesting to learn that such a large proportion of them came from a small number of Estates in the Old Country. That was not something I'd picked up from any other sources. Even there, however, Anbinder left me frustrated. For all the information he unearthed about those people, he left out what for me was one of the most important details: Nowhere does he mention what proportion of the immigrants spoke English when they arrived in New York. Perhaps Anbinder simply assumed these people, being Irish, spoke English. But if so then Anbinder is betraying a woeful ignorance of Irish history. The Famine, which led to the mass emigration, was one of the historical events that most directly led to the near-extinction of the Irish language. Generally it was the Irish speakers in the western part of Ireland who died and emigrated in the greatest numbers. Thus I would imagine that a large number of the Irish-born Five Pointers would have had to learn English from scratch, or nearly from scratch, upon their arrival in the US. The struggle to master a new language is such a basic part of the immigrant experience that it seems to me to be a huge lacuna in Anbinder's discussion that he doesn't even mention it.
Rating: 5
Summary: As meticulous as it gets..
Comment: Although I am an avid NYC history fan, I must admit that I knew next to nothing about the Five Points prior to the release of the movie 'Gangs of New York'. That movie sparked an intrest in me for that area, that has yet to cease...This book takes you into that exact setting, and separates the truths from the myths. The cronological timeline of maps is one of the things I found to be quite interesting as well. I also thought it was quite amazing that the author dedicated entire chapters to some of the more imfamous sites such as The Old Brewery and Paradise Park.
Sometimes I wish more of these things were preserved and still viewable today; but I guess the Five Points was an area the city simply wanted to rid itself of...And they did a good job. The five-pointed intersection has been reduced to two 'points', and the site contains no plaques or historical landmark signs whatsoever (Unless you want to count the plaques at nearby Foley Square).
Hundreds of people casually stroll through the area every week, without a clue about the historical significance of the ground they walk on...However; if they were to go back in time 150 years, I'm quite sure that wouldn't be the case. The corner of Baxter and Worth will always be a special place for me...One of the few ghostly remains of a bygone era of poverty and corruption in the city, and a silent reminder to anyone who cares, of just how far the city has progressed and evolved since then.
This book is definately worth your time.
Rating: 5
Summary: Makes the irish out to be tougher than gansta rappers
Comment: This book is facinating. "Gangs of New York" should of surely won over the escapest "Chicago". Especially in a time of war.
After reading this, one realizes that everything ordinary Americans have is hard fought. My copy has Guinness stains all over.
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Title: The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld by Herbert Asbury, Jorge Luis Borges ISBN: 1560252758 Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press Pub. Date: 10 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Low Life : Lures and Snares of Old New York by Luc Sante ISBN: 0679738762 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 29 September, 1992 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York (Penguin Classics) by Jacob A. Riis, Luc Sante ISBN: 0140436790 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: November, 1997 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: The Five Points : by Rocco Dormarunno ISBN: 0595204465 Publisher: Writers Club Press Pub. Date: 12 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Historical Atlas of New York City : A Visual Celebration of Nearly 400 Years of New York City's History by Alice Hudson, Eric Homberger ISBN: 0805060049 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: 15 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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