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

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

"The very letters of the two words seem, as they are written, to redden with the blood-stains of unavenged crime. There is Murder in every syllable, and Want, Misery and Pestilence take startling form and crowd upon the imagination as the pen traces the words." So wrote a reporter about Five Points, the most infamous neighborhood in 19th-century America, the place where "slumming" was invented.

All but forgotten today, Five Points was once renowned the world over. Its handful of streets in lower Manhattan featured America's most wretched poverty, shared by Irish, Jewish, German, Italian, Chinese, and African Americans. It was the scene of more riots, scams, saloons, brothels, and drunkenness than any other neighborhood in the new world. Yet it was also a font of creative energy, crammed full of cheap theaters and dance halls, prizefighters and machine politicians, and meeting halls for the political clubs that would come to dominate not just the city but an entire era in American politics.

From Jacob Riis to Abraham Lincoln, Davy Crockett to Charles Dickens, Five Points both horrified and inspired everyone who saw it. The story that Anbinder tells is the classic tale of America's immigrant past, as successive waves of new arrivals fought for survival in a land that was as exciting as it was dangerous, as riotous as it was culturally rich.

Tyler Anbinder offers the first-ever history of this now forgotten neighborhood, drawing on a wealth of research among letters and diaries, newspapers and bank records, police reports and archaeological digs. Beginning with the Irish potato-famine influx in the 1840s and ending with the rise of Chinatown in the early 20th century, he weaves unforgettable individual stories into a tapestry of tenements, work crews, leisure pursuits both licit and otherwise, and riots and political brawls that never seemed to let up.

Although the intimate stories that fill Anbinder's narrative are heart-wrenching, they are perhaps not so shocking as they first appear. Almost all of us trace our roots to once humble stock. Five Points is, in short, a microcosm of America.

©2001 Tyler Anbinder (P)2018 Tantor

Critic reviews

"The author has performed a prodigious...feat of research, leaving no original or secondary source untouched...a solid work of scholarship that deserves a permanent place in any top shelf of urban history." (The Washington Times)

The revelatory facts

Interesting but an at tines a ponderous narrative.which could have used a few less statistics.

the detail

the detail of everything, the history of American started there. love the book. would listen again

A Historical Masterpiece

This book is an essential work on NYC history. Very well written and very thorough. It should be in the library of every Native New Yorker.

Why the accents???

I had to stop listening because of the reader’s terrible accents when reading quoted passages. Just read them in a normal way, for crying out loud! Your Irish accent is not great, and even if it were, it’s distracting. Spoiled what I know is a good book.

Very Interesting and Informative

Great narration and storytelling. Do yourself a favor and purchase this audio book. You will not regret it.

Extensive and Sweeping.

I went into this listen wishing to hear about 19th century street gangs and heard a whole helluva lot more. Highly recommended.

Great historical piece

If you have any interest in this historic neighborhood, listen to this well researched, well written and well narrated audiobook. I think you will have a much better understanding of this unique part of New York history after you have listened.

Informative Documentary

The book had a lt of statistical information. I was looking for a "story" more than a forensic analysis and struggled to get through the book.

fascinating and horrific at the same time

The narrator was excellent and the story is completely engrossing. I just looked up the photos of The five points. A must read if you love New York history.

there is a good book in here - with some pruning

Anbinder certainly seems to know his facts. Unfortunately, he can run off reams of data that go from fascinating to numbing to boring. I would happily trade more than half of the tales of squalor and filth for a bit more pre-history of the Five Points district. If Anbinder defined the Five Points district beyond the intersection, I missed it.There is too much overload of data and not enough definition of the district itself. Part of my critique is due to the nature of Audible itself as the listener is given neither nor photos. A visit to Wikipedia cetainly enhanced my comprehension of this narrative.
Anbinder talks about Jacob Riis and his photos changing the perception of this slum area. The photos by Riis on Wikipedia are intensely more moving than the prose of Anbinder. (I have not seen the book, so photos and maps may be provided, but they are essential, at least to me.) Anbinder's narrative is not helped by Joe Barrett's narration. The prose and the reading prompted me to ratchet up the speed as I got bored/numbed by some of the data.
But Anbinder did make valid points and a lot of the facts were new to me. Unfortunately they were buried under repetitious data which only seemed to be there to show how how assiduous Anbinder was in his research. If the book has maps and images, it would be preferable to the Audible version, but, as I noted, it needs to be pruned.