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The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld Paperback – July 1, 2008
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The basis of Martin Scorcese's acclaimed 2003 film, The Gangs of New York is a dramatic and entertaining glimpse at a city's dark past.
Focusing on the saloon halls, gambling dens, and winding alleys of the Bowery and the notorious Five Points district, The Gangs of New York dramatically evokes the destitution and shocking violence of a turbulent era, when colorfully named criminals like Dandy John Dolan, Bill the Butcher, and Hell-Cat Maggie lurked in the shadows, and infamous gangs like the Plug Uglies, the Dead Rabbits, and the Bowery Boys ruled the streets. A rogues' gallery of prostitutes, pimps, poisoners, pickpockets, murderers, and thieves, Herbert Asbury's whirlwind tour through the low life of nineteenth-century New York has become an indispensible classic of urban history.
- Print length366 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateJuly 1, 2008
- Dimensions5.09 x 0.85 x 7.95 inches
- ISBN-100307388980
- ISBN-13978-0307388988
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Editorial Reviews
Review
—The New York Times
"One of the essential works of the city. . . . It owns a direct pipeline to the city's unconscious.”
—Luc Sante, author of Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York
“A univeral history of infamy, the history of the gangs of New York contains all the confusion and cruelty of the barbarian cosmologies.”
—Jorge Luis Borges
“One of the best American books of its kind. Mr. Asbury writes in a direct and engaging manner.”
—Edmund Pearson, The Saturday Review of Literature
About the Author
Herbert Asbury, an early 20th-century journalist, made a name for himself by documenting the gangs, pimps, prostitutes, and thieves that thrived in the underbellies of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and New Orleans. His works, still in print after seventy-five years, are often hailed as the best snapshots of their time period. The Gangs of New York was the basis of Martin Scorcese's 2003 film.
Product details
- Publisher : Vintage; Reprint edition (July 1, 2008)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 366 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0307388980
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307388988
- Item Weight : 10.8 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.09 x 0.85 x 7.95 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #243,435 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #365 in Organized Crime True Accounts
- #663 in Criminology (Books)
- #2,905 in U.S. State & Local History
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The lake was eventually filled in and homes built on the landfill. This landfill became the region know as the Five Points. The Five Points area was named after the intersection of the five blocks of Cross, which became Park Street and is now Mosco Street, Anthony, which became Worth, Orange which became Baxter, Mulberry Street and Little Water, which now does not even exist. It was originally a respectable area where the rich lived, but then houses began sinking into the imperfectly drained swamp, and the rich abandoned the area for better parts of Manhattan Island. Their places were taken mostly by freed Negro slaves and the low-class Irish, who began flooding into the area from Ireland, starting around 1790.
The Five Points area became a breeding ground for crooks and criminal, and people from other parts of the city dared not venture into its boundaries. The great Charles Dickens once visited the area and he wrote about the Five Points, "This is the place: these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Debauchery has made the houses very prematurely old. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and the whole world over. Many pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright instead of going on all fours, and why they talk instead of grunting?"
It was in these rotted streets that Dickens described, that the first street gang was formed in 1825. It was aptly named the Forty Thieves, and was started in the back room of a produce shop on Center Street. It was owned by Roseanna Peers, and past the rotted vegetables outside, she sold illegal hootch in the inside back room, and allowed a dastardly chap named Edward Coleman to rule a motley crew of criminals. Being Irish, they all hated the Englishmen, but they robbed and pillaged from mostly their own.
Soon other gangs cropped up with names like the Chichesters, the Plug Uglies, Roach Guards, Shirt Tails and Dead Rabbits. The fought amongst each other over who would have the right to control the crime on certain streets. Soon more gangs arrived on the Five Points boundaries, like the Bowery Boys, the True Blue Americans, the American Guards, the O'Connell Guards and the Atlantic Guards. The streets, in and around the Five Points area, became so dangerous the brave Davey Crockett, known for his heroism out west, said the Five Points area of New York City was the most dangerous place he had ever visited in his entire life.
As the years went by, gangs came and went in the Five Points area. The Civil War was the biggest destroyer of the original Five Points gangs, since many of the hooligans were drafted into the war down south. Some came back maimed. Some came back not at all.
The rest of Asbury's book details every gang and crook that prowled New York City, until m1928. We meet such unlikable chaps as Monk Eastman and his Jewish Gang, Owney Madden and his Irish Hudson Dusters, and Paul Kelly (Paulo Vaccarelli ) and his Italian Five Pointers.
If you want to get down and dirty, reading about the lives of men so despicable they were hung weekly in the courtyard of the city prison called Tombs, The Gangs of New York is the book for you.
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The sheer volume of vivid and detailed examples of violent and thieving acts without respite can make it a difficult read. Stories about the physical skills of great gangster Mose are obviously fictional but they’re written like they’re true. Having a healthy amount of skepticism about some of the tales helps keep everything in perspective.
All of the gangsters are bad people so if you’re looking for heroes you’ll find them in honest cops who valiantly fight people who terrorize neighborhoods.
There is significant commentary about the relationships between politicians, unions, and businesses with gangsters. The smartest gangsters made sure they were buddies with politicians who could get criminal charges against them dismissed.
If you can get past all the violence, theft, and other bad behavior you’ll love it.
Even so, no matter what anyone (including yours truly) says...and awful lot of people of all ages READ this book -- and love it. I was recently on a flight and sat next to a guy in his early 20s who sat there fascinated, reading it during the entire 3 hour flight.
Gangs of New York is NOT your typical book on which a movie is based. If it's bought by someone who loves the film somebody is going to be in for a monster surprise (or disappointment). Don't expect a plot, don't expect compelling writing, don't expect a large section on which the book is based and to easily find those sections. But do expect to be fascinated.
WHAT THIS IS: This is a book about: early brutal gang warfare, during a time in the 19th century where gangs literally swarmed all over New York City; blow-by-blow bloody battles and legendary gang fighters in a city virtually in the grip of gangs -- leading to the creation of the NY City Police department; and the politically dominating Tammany Hall machine's birth and growth in the 19th and 20th centuries, set within the context of a politically corrupt, violence-prone city.
Most interestingly, it's about a time in NYC's history that you seldom see portrayed in films or in books. I found the accounts of the 1863 Civil War draft riots absolutely gripping. But mostly it's about the gangs with names such as Dead Rabbits, Plug Uglies etc (the film used these names too). Many illustrations are old-style drawings rather than photos.
WHAT IT DOES: Gangs of New York gives you a good history seemingly based on interviews and mountains of old newspaper clippings, most of it in anecdotal versus dry statistical form.
WHAT IT IS NOT: It is not a book written in a modern prose style, but it isn't boring. It doesn't have a "plot" with a beginning, middle and end. No, it doesn't have a hero, or anyone resembling Leonardo, a love subplot, etc.
But if you're interested in the acclaimed movie's source material and learning about a fascinating and often forgotten period in NY City's municipal history you'll love it. Even though it was out of print for many years The Gangs of New York has been a legend itself for many years -- and it easy to see why.