The sun., 1919-07-27
By HERBERT AsBURY.

when the reform waves first
began to appear in New York,
the Five Points district meant
TO everybody on Manhattan Island that
part Of the city which runs from Park
Row to Chatham Square, through Mott
street into Chinatown, then to Canal
street, back to Worth street. through
Mulberry street, from Worth to Canal
street, through Baxter, and back from
Centre street TO the Tombs-and right
in the heart Of this region was Para
disc Park, the real Five Points, the
junction formed by the crossing of
Little Water, Cross, Ambrose, Orange
and Mulberry streets, now Park,
Worth and Baxter.
For more than hundred years this
district was, as 1t has been aptly
called by a writer with taste for
pungent ALTERATION. "seething sink
of sin alive with dens Of the devil"
And It was even more than that.
From its earliest days, as far back as
l741, when fourteen negroes were
burned at the stake for participation
in the negro insurrection. Five Points
was a breeding place for gangs Of
criminals and for the individual GRIM
inals who worked ION their own"
what Dickens Saw.
Dickens visited Five Points when
he was in the United States in 1912,
and subsequently he wrote this in his
American Notes;
LET us go on again and plunge into
the Five Points. Poverty,
wretchedness and vice are rife enough
where we are going now.
"This is the place, these narrow
ways. diverging to the right and left.
and reeking everywhere with dirt and
nth. Such lives as are led here bear
the same fruits as elsewhere. The
coarse and bloated faces in the doors
have their counterparts at home ana
all the world over. Debauchery has
made the very houses prematurely
old. See how the rotten beams are
tumbling down, and how the patched
and broken windows seem to scowl
dimly, like eyes that have been hurt
In drunken trays.
what place is this to which the
saualid street conducts us? A kind OF
square Of leprous' houses, Some OF
which are atta1nable only by means
Of crazy stairs without. What lies
beyond this lettering flight of steps
that creak beneath our tread? A mis-
cradle room, lighted by one dim can
die, and destitute of all comfort, save
that which may be hidden in the
wretched bed. :. -.
p Here. too, are lanes and alleys
paved with mud knee deep; under
ground chambers, where they dance
and game; ruined houses open to the
street, whence, through wide gaps in
the walls, other ruins loom upon the
eye, as though the world OF vice and
misery had nothing else to show;
hideous tenements which take their
name from robbery and murder; all
that is loathsome. dropping and de-
cayed is here"
Naturally enough, Five Points was
the breeding place of most of the
gangs that had New York in their
grip during the early part of the
nineteenth century. Not all OF the
gangs had their headquarters there,
and not all OF them, of course, de-
pended upon that district for their
revenue, but the majority Of the
leaders of all the old time gangs OF
New York were Five Point gangsters
and killers before they had gangs of
their own. This section was the birth
place of the old Five Points gang.
perhaps the toughest and the most
criminal Of all the gangs that ever
ruled the city. and the lineal ancestor
OF the Five Points gang captained by
Paul Kelly and other noted gangsters
OF later periods. OF all the gangs the
Five Points gang was the only one OF
Importance to hand down its name
through the years.
Besides giving to the gangs some
OF their greatest leaders. the district
OF the Five Points was the scene of
many of the greatest gang battles that
New York ever had. 1t was there
that the great gang battle of July 4,
1857 took place, a conflict that has
come down in gang history as the
best example of knock down and
drag out" fighting that America af-
fords. Authorities differ as to the
gangs which took part in this fight.
Some say the battle was between the
Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys,
while others declare that It was fought
between rival detachments of the
Roach Guards of Mulberry street and
the Atlantic Guards OF the Bowery.
Still others say that the Plug Uglies,
gang led by Tom Coakley, was mixed
up in the fight.
''The Dioody Sixth" Christened.
During the ten to thirty years inn
mediately preceding the civil war the
gangs waxed powerful and strong both
In politics and In killing and plumber
ing. The Bowery Boys were then in
their prime, bitter enemies OF the Deao
Rabbits and the Five Points gang. On
the lower East Sido, in the Sixth Ward,
tho gang outbreaks were so numerous
and so bloody that the ward got the
name OF The Bloody Sixth" name
that has chung to 1t TO this day. The
East River was literally alive with
river rats and harbor thieves; the Fifth
Ward was as much under the control
Of gangs and gangsters as the Bowery
and Chinatown were in later years,
and then there was the Lower Seventh
Avenue Crowd and the Day Break
Boys. who were river pirates, willing
20 do anything for hire. Besides these
there were numerous small gangs OF
petty and sneak thieves and other
gangs that were controlled and kept
alive by politicians and which came
into general notice only during cleo