The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-07-15
NEW YORRLSMS.
11,Om or, otOn Correspondent


vhs five Points ~ IL Was asd L.,
During Mr.. Dickens, last visit to this country,
one of the pet ne wspaper paragraphs about MIN
was that he was paying nocturnal visits to the
various Police ation houses, and especially to
the vice-hauuted purl Gus of Five Points
Whatever trdth there may have been in the
rumOr, it is certainly suggestive of the immense
difference he would have discovered between
the Five Points as it was twenty-five years ago
and the Five Points as it is o.day.
Upon leaving the Tombs and proceeding
down Centre street in tn. direct on OF the City
Hall, you come, after the PASSAGE OF block or
two, to Worth street, runuIDg at right angles
with Centre; AID upon turning to the lett, and
proceeding along Worth street. almost the 6r5t
object of note that strikes the eye IS the words
''The Five Points" printed in great black let
ters on the side OF a great brick building. These
words denote the vicinity of Cow Bay, the Oh
Brewery, aud Murderer's Alley, and the wall
upon which they are printed, at the height OF
eight feet from the ground, is the Five Points
House of Industry. They mark the coalition of
past and present, and are at once a finger post
showing the backward path of vice, and
milestone indicating the onward tracks of
virtue.
About fifteen years ago the Broadway pedes-
trian, who suddenly left that tboroughfare
and proceeded down Anthony street, would
have found himself in Que minutes time in
the centre OF an area of perhaps Que square
acre, into which emptied five streets, viz -
Little Water, Cross, An ihoDy, Orange, aud Null
berry. These were the notorious Five Points,
fostering like a small desert of beathendom
amid large oasis OF ChrIstiaoity. The nucleus
of this acre-area consisted of small
space in the shape of a scaliue triangle known
as Paradise So Iare. Paradise Lost ami Para
disc Reg aimed would better express the charac-
ter of the surrounding locality, as it was then,
and as il now is. Opposite the base of the
scalene trialge, stood the Old Brewery, andlt
was the Old Brewery in which almost everything
that was hideous IN the history of that hell
upon rth originated, and consummated itself
in d asign, before it was placed in execution.
If it were true that some hundreds of human
creatures were the tortured playthngs of an
infinite being of infinite SIN, hardly anything
worse could be conceived of than the enormltles
of crime perpetTated, and OF retribuuon suf-
feIed, In The Five Points of that period. The
man of culture, who has never been brought
face TO face with vice in all its repulsve nudity
gathers in, at hearing such statement, all he
has heard or read OF whatever is unnatural and
monstrous in the ola and in the New world, in
bDe Qark ages as wei as IN tOlS age OF llgnt.
With all that pan norama of deformty unrollng
Itself before him, he asks whether anything like
it really once existed in the neighborhood Of
Paradise Square, whether tradition
has not attired herself in the robes of
e2 aggeratiOn, and VIII ,ther romance has not
sometimes laid the false colOrs of morb dity
upon the outline facts of police archives. He is
answered, No! Within the COM paratveIy small
space, of which Paradise Square was the centre
were constantly enacted deeds, some of which
no language meant for public reading could
ever touch upon. and most of which no Ian
guage but that of eloquent eye witness,
bearing testimony, could ever deplcture with
adequate force. Crime, vice, poverty, suffering
of every degree short OF he'll, wraugied together.
there. II was like the chaos preceding an evil
creatiol. 1t was like great workshop or
ante.roOm, where pain and SIN, twin Franken-
STEMS were sub.created and sent forth upon
their distinctive mission, with the sardoniC
curse upon them, "Be fruitful and multiply"
The Old Brewery was large, yelOw colored,
dilapidated building, with an alley extending
all around it. On the north side this alley was
of irregular width, commencing wide, but gra-
dually tapering toward point. On the south
side the passage was known as Murderer's alley
and consisted OF a dark, filthy path, scarcely
three feet wide. The building itself consisted
of a double row of rooms, entered from these
north and south passages, and having more Or
less discOnnecton from one another by means
of winding and abJrnthine entries tina
seemed constructed on purpose to mslead.
While the Old Brewery was being de
molished also, in December OF 1852 hume
rous secret hIding-places were discovered In
the floors and walls. In the easements, as wei
as in the upper por ions of the buildings, rooms
not more than fifteen feet square we're each in
habited by nearly thirty people, and used at
once as dining dres ing, and sleeping-r0oms.
Most OF the men were street sweepers and
thieves; most of the women and children were
beggars. 1t was towards 1887 that the Brewery
began TO be perverted 10 a bal use la 1892 it
was erected and known as Coultcr's Brewery
In 1887 it was changed into tenement bouse.
and with the change were sown the seeds OF
that motor ETY. which cluug to 1t ever after.
II was about this penol when no respectable
mau would have dared TO go through FIVE
Points alone with the expectation OF coming
out uninjured in his person and property, that
the attention OF the New York LADIES' Home
Missionary Society of the Methodist Epscopal
Church was directed towards that miserable
quarter. As far back as l84S the necessity was
felt of establishing a mission in Elm or Centre
street near the Tombs and the Board of the
Association just mentioned selected number OF
benevolent and judlcIous men to examine
the grounds and designate some spot
where the work might be commenced. The