Talk:Five Points, Manhattan

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At Five Points' height only certain areas of London's East End vied with it in sheer population density, disease, infant and child mortality, unemployment, violent crime and other classic ills of the destitute. Of course one may not mention any of the places east of Suez that outclassed both London and New York in these categories. I suppose we don't hold those cultures to Western standards. Wetman 06:35, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

That's not what's going on here. It's surprising but true-- no urban area, west or east of Suez, came close to Five Points and the East End for these conditions in the mid 1800s. The key statistic is population density. The worst slums of Cairo, Calcutta and Beijing were far greater in land area than the Points, but density in the Points was much higher, thanks mostly to the invention of the Tenement. It was four and five stories of misery compared to one or two. Yes, it's a bit deceiving if you're comparing entire cities with each other. But if you are talking about individual slums (as the article is), it's just a matter of fact that the Points and the East End (particularly Whitechapel/Bethnal Green) embodied a concentrated poverty not previously seen, anywhere. JDG 04:55, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] "Racial" integration

As "race" is a cultural phenomenon, it does not make much sense to speak universally of the history of racial integration. One might as well say that the Roman assimilation of the Etrurians fits in the "history of racial integration". As to the "aloofness" of Spanish conquerors, that is certainly arguable, but it cannot be disputed that the great majority of them took native wives, certainly well before the mid-19th century, so even in the context of "modern Western racial integration in the Americas" the Five Points was not unique or pioneering. The only way the Five Points could be said to be historically distinctive in terms of racial integration is in the context of the history of the United States.--Pharos 22:16, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, I disagree on these and many other points. But I'll sit tight and live with your change until I can get my ducks in a row. In the meantime, plz step back and look at the question in the round. Something unprecedented *did* take place vis a vis black folk and the Irish in Five Points. Our challenge is to characterize it correctly. If you're one of those who really swallows the current academic fad that considers notions of "race" to be 100% "socially constructed", it's going to be difficult. We're not talking about Latins and Etruscans or somesuch involving mere ethnic or tribal differences. We're talking Black and White, genetic lines with very objectively different allelic signatures, mixing it up on a sustained scale (one of the big draws for fashionable slummers from upscale Manhattan neighborhoods was to take in the 'miscegenation' going on in the Points... plz understand I do not call it "miscegenation", just using the word then used)... Five Points *was* unique and pioneering. I'm afraid you're collapsing some of the dates involved. Twenty or so years down the line you can find some of the same thing in other NYC enclaves, Boston, Jersey City, Philly and even Chicago and Cincy. But circa 1830 it was the Points and the Points alone... Plz watch this page and see you soon, most likely. JDG 23:35, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Pharos, I've been considering how to change the sentence we discussed above but I can't come up with a good way to approach it (that is, a way that would not be reverted by you), given your extreme position on "race". You really believe "race" is purely a "cultural phenomenon"? There are no quantifiable biological group differences which would make the sexual activity between these previously physically separate groups an occurrence of note? JDG 07:53, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, the first thing that I'm saying is that the mixing of white and blacks or different races did not start in the Five Points; in other words that the Five Points was not some epochal event in the biological history of the human species. By any standard, persons who would today mark "white" or "black" on the U.S. Census have mixed throughout history, including having children with one another. It is fair to say that the social situation in the Five Points as regards race was a harbinger of an important development in American history.--Pharos 08:42, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I must descend to a trite analogy, I'm afraid. Let's say it's the year 2020. A new public works project in New Jersey is about to result in the first ever confluence of the Passaic and Hackensack rivers. A new canal will result in their waters flowing together for about 200 meters. A local reporter submits an article he's written on the project to his editor, containing the sentence "And so, the Hackensack and the Passaic, after ages, will mingle.". The editor says, "Touching sentence, rookie, but it so happens I myself mingled the Hackensack and the Passaic twelve years ago on a lark. I filled a beer bottle with Passaic water, drove four minutes to the Hackensack and poured it in. Why? Just because I could. Now scratch that sentence."
Is the editor being a tad literal? If you study Five Points in the context of world population movement you'll see the Points was indeed the first place anywhere on the planet in which a sizable, sustained "as peers" milieu between "whites" and "blacks" came to be. I lack the time now to fetch references for you, but I assure you it is the case. These are the sorts of facts that make history come alive. "[P]ersons who would today mark "white" or "black" on the U.S. Census have mixed throughout history", you say. One can well imagine other stray individuals splashing together small, isolated quantities of the Passaic and the Hackensack in the story above prior to 2020. But the sentence you rewrote was talking about sizable and sustained integration. For this, the Points was first ever, anywhere. JDG 09:16, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It should probably be noted that there were tensions among many of these groups such as between Irish and Italian (as well as Jewish immigrants) within the Five Points which was not at all limited to Irish and African Americans. 152.163.100.204 07:10, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] slum clearance

The editor of this page says that most of the Five Points was subject to slum clearance in the 1880s. I cannot disagree more with this. The Five Points was renovated in the late 1940s in accordance with the New Deal Act. In the late 1800s, the Five Points was still the worst slum. Irish crime was replaced by Jewish crime in the early 1900s. The Five Points didn't get cleaned up until 1947. Sandy June 00:33, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

  • No, that was in the Lower East Side– a neighboring area, sure, but not the same place.--Pharos 13:08, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Why was the Five Points subjected to slum clearance and not the Lower East Side as well? It does not make much sense. Sandy June 04:43, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

  • The Five Points, as it more properly refers to the specific intersection of Anthony Street (modern Worth Street) with Orange (Baxter) and Park streets, was a smaller neighborhood than the vast area that the label of the "Lower East Side" of Manhattan applied to. Therefore, it was easier to clear out the Five Points neighborhood than the entirety of the Lower East Side. In addition, the Five Points neighborhood was closer to City Hall, the Tombs prison, and the later Foley Square park than the Lower East Side, with the Five Points being roughly between City Hall and the prison. This meant that, geographically, when the buildings of "Government Center" were built along Centre Street, around Foley Square and between City Hall and the prison, the Five Points neighborhood was simply in the way of the new government buildings. Lastly, although the Lower East Side was more well known for its vibrant immigrant life by the 1880s, the Five Points was already known for decades by then to be the city's most notoriously crime-ridden neighborhood. As the center of immigrant neighborhood shifted over to the Lower East Side and crime fell in the immediate Five Points neighborhood, by the 1940s, it was politically expedient and relatively easy to erase memory of the Five Points from the map, and divide the area between the growing Government Center neighborhood to the west, and Chinatown neighborhood to the east. 128.235.249.80 04:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
I applaud you 128.235.249.80. This is exactly right. In fact, in 1947 there was no area actually called "Five Points". It was considered long gone. In the 1890s there was still the adjacent (in some places overlapping with the old Points) slum called "Mulberry Bend". That too was cleared out long before the 1940s, so Sandy June above must be referring to certain clearance initiatives aimed at *parts* of the Lower East Side. JDG 19:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Park Street?

Is it the best to use the term Park Street in this article? The street is neither signed Park St. today, nor was signed it when Anthony St. was cut through to the intersection to create the actual Five Points intersection back in 1817. In that year, Anthony St. was extended to the intersection of Orange and what was known as Cross Street to create an intersection with five corners; in the 1830s, Anthony Street was extended further, past the intersection, to Chatham Square, leaving the intersection to become, actually, a six-cornered intersection by the era that the movie "Gangs of New York" is set. Only later was Anthony renamed Worth, Orange into Baxter, and Cross into Park Street. By the time of the 1930s/40s, with the WPA projects that created Government Center, were Baxter and Park streets closed south of Worth Street; in addition, with the sometime refurbishment of Columbus Park (the result of the 1880s slum clearance project), Park Street was closed between Baxter and Mulberry, resulting in the current intersection of Baxter and Worth. This T-shaped intersection of Baxter and Worth is what remains of the Five Points intersection today. In that time, too, the name of Park Street had changed; now the street is signed Mosco Street, and runs only the one block between Mott and Mulberry Street (alongside the RC Church of the Transfiguration in modern-day Chinatown). Therefore, since "Park Street" was neither the name of the street when the "Five Points" originated (then being known as Cross Street), nor the name of the street now (being currently signed Mosco Street), is it really proper to call it Park Street in this article? 128.235.249.80 04:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Besides, using the name Park Street in the article can easily lead to confusion to the nearby Park Row that comes off Chatham Square, two blocks east of the current-day intersection of Baxter and Worth; Park Street can also be confused for Park Avenue elsehwere in Manhattan, whose name and location have no relation to Park Street or the Five Points. (Park Ave. was renamed from Third Ave. for its wide median, left when the railroad tracks leading to Grand Central Terminal were buried underground from the original location at ground level.) 128.235.249.80 05:05, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I invite you to change the names according to your sources. I wrote the paragraphs you're referring to but I'm afraid I no longer have access to the source material I used at the time. The street names are quite tricky. What was true in 1840 would not be true in 1848, etc.,., etc,. If you want to be super accurate with street names you'll need to track changes and demolitions through time... It would also be good to mention the important role of "Paradise Square" (which formed one of the corners). It too was demolished some years before the general razing of the Points, so there was a period of Four Points, so to speak (this was also after the extension of Anthony St. was demolished, so, strictly speaking, the intersection went from 5 Points to 6 Points to 5 Points to 4 Points). JDG 20:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Grassroots Racial Integration"

This particular line leads the reader to believe that this was an organized effort. Grassroots, while technically defined as "basic or fundamental" (per Merriam Webster) also conjures up the idea of an organized group of people advocating a cause, independent of political or wealthy backers as part of today's vernacular and really, that is what is has come to mean - far from it's basic and fundamental form.

Irish and African immigrants and slaves living in close quarter in the Five Points area of NYC in the 18th and 19th centuries has nothing to do with "grassroots" racial integration. Segregation, racial hatred and crimes against freed Africans were common even within the neighborhood and there was certainly no common cause movement to uphold racial integration as the way of the future. How quickly you forget the Civil War Draft Riots!

How many sources would you like cited to demonstrate that this small article seems to overlook the truth behind The Five Points district/neighborhood and whitewashes it in a sort of bizarre, almost revisionist paint?