Five Points and the Gangs of New York

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]We are met at this chosen ground TO SETTLE FOR GOOD AND ALL. WHO HOLDS SWAY OVER THE FIVE POINTS?

[00:00:10]Us natives BORN RIGHTWISE TO THIS FINE LAND OR the foreign hordes defiling it.

[00:00:21]Hello everyone, I'm Johnny Johnson and today we're taking a look at Five Points Manhattan as made famous in the film Gangs of New York. But was it as brutal as portrayed in the movie? Well, kind of. Yes. So, let's take a look.

[00:00:37]The Battle of the Five Points, specifically as characterized in the movie, was inspired by repeat violent clashes between gangs like the Dead Rabbits and Bowery Boys during the 1850s.

[00:00:50]But let's wind things back to how such a place even came to be.

[00:00:57]Five Points was built up on a pond used for fresh water and fish, then became a focal point for commercial businesses needing access to fresh water.

[00:01:07]Eventually, the pond was polluted by slaughterhouses and breweries.

[00:01:12]The pond was filled in by the mid 1810s and middle-class homes were built.

[00:01:17]However, the landfill was poorly engineered. Methane gas rose from the former pond. areas sank and homes and streets were destroyed. Poor drainage led to sewage buildup and mosquitoes thrived.

[00:01:32]It didn't take long for this middle-ass neighborhood to be disregarded.

[00:01:36]Starting in the 1820s, the neighborhood's demographic began shifting to poor Irish immigrants.

[00:01:43]Here is a watercol of the pond from 1798.

[00:01:48]And here's the same area depicted in 1827, just before many of the buildings were torn down.

[00:01:57]One new building, however, was erected in 1838, a prison called the tombs. An oddly beautiful building built in Egyptian revival style. It became famous for handing out sentences of certain disease due to its near unlivable swampy conditions.

[00:02:16]Geographically, the five points refers to the intersection where four streets meet. Anthony, Little Water, Cross, and Orange Street. All of these streets have been renamed minus Little Water, which no longer exists.

[00:02:31]Part of the area today is New York's Civic Center, containing buildings like City Hall. Part of it has been incorporated into New York City's Chinatown.

[00:02:41]Gangs of New York takes place during the American Civil War in the 1860s, not too far off from the height of Five Point's notoriety.

[00:02:50]The Five Points peak period of population density, crime, poverty, and gang violence would have been in the 1840s and 1850s when it was one of the most densely populated places in the Western world. With 15,000 people in this small neighborhood, only parts of London's east end would have had the same population density equivalents.

[00:03:14]The Five Points was one of the most diverse places on Earth, including the first large-scale integration of blacks and whites living together. Many newly emancipated black Americans moved here, finding tension but greater tolerance for cohabitation amongst the Irish.

[00:03:32]There was some equality in the suffering.

[00:03:37]It's believed five points had the highest murder rate of any slum at the time in the world amongst anyone living there. One focal point was Koulthard's brewery built in 1792.

[00:03:50]This was converted into a tenement following the economic depression of the panic of 1837.

[00:03:56]The old brewery housed over 1,000 poor, and it's believed that during its 15 years before demolition in 1852, a murder took place there every single night.

[00:04:11]Political tension and violence also existed in the neighborhood. New York had always been governed by the Anglo Protestant founders, but Irish voters from neighborhoods like the Five Points saw the first Catholics take key political offices.

[00:04:29]In the 1850s, the neighborhood began adding Italian settlers into the mix.

[00:04:34]Here are the words of one Italian journalist describing the area in 1880 at a time when the neighborhood was already a bit better. It is an elomeration of repulsive, dilapitated black houses where people are piled on top of each other. Worse than beasts.

[00:04:52]Large families live in only one room.

[00:04:54]Men, women, dogs, cats, and monkeys eat and sleep together in the same cubby hole without air or light.

[00:05:04]In some houses on Baxter or Malberry Street, there is so much dirt and foul air, it would seem impossible that there would not be a fatal chalera outbreak with the first summer heat every year.

[00:05:19]Five Points was of course on top of the risk of being murdered, one of the most dangerous places in terms of infectious diseases.

[00:05:27]The neighborhood did have the advantage of a clean water source from the newly completed Kton aqueduct piped to at least some of the buildings in the neighborhood.

[00:05:37]However, the trend of drinking alcohol in part because of a mistrust of the drinking water continued with the neighborhood famous for drunkenness.

[00:05:47]Tragically, the neighborhood was built on one of the cleanest sources of water in the area, contaminated in part by a bankrupt brewery that many of the residents now lived in, where they drank themselves to ruin.

[00:06:02]Increasing the high risk of disease in the neighborhood was the constant influx of immigrants, lack of sanitation, and population density.

[00:06:11]But of course, the gang violence and riots are really what gangs of New York made famous about the area.

[00:06:18]William Bill the Butcher cutting, brilliantly played by Daniel D. Lewis, is the leader of the natives gang in control of the Five Points.

[00:06:29]1834 saw the first anti-abolitionist riots. The first major wave of violence by white Protestants against abolitionists, black communities, and the Irish. White Protestants believed they were going to lose their place in society, have their work devalued by cheap labor, and compete for housing.

[00:06:51]Nativism, an ironic term, was a growing movement. Those born in America feared immigration would undermine their entire way of life, and they were violent about it, burning down churches, businesses, and homes belonging to blacks or abolitionists.

[00:07:10]The Balry Boys were a large nivist gang who did battle with Irish gangs such as the Roach Guards, also known as the Dead Rabbits. The real Bill the Butcher was the leader of the Washington Street Gang, which later became known as the Bowie Boys. He was further connected with the American Party, later known as the Native American Party. The real Bill the Butcher was killed in 1855 before the American Civil War.

[00:07:39]The violence between the two gangs churned up a large-scale riot in 1857 that consumed entire streets for days on end. On July 4th, at least a dozen people were killed. The New York Municipal Police and the newly formed Metropolitan Police were not much help.

[00:07:58]They themselves were in a conflict with one another and rife with corruption. In 1857, they had their own riot known as the Great Police Riot.

[00:08:11]Violence continued until about the 1890s when an urban renewal project saw most of the dangerous structures demolished, replaced with parks and civic buildings.

[00:08:33]All right, I'm Johnny. Thanks for watching this video on the five points.

[00:08:36]Feel free to gang up on the like button or add some points of your own in the comment section. But most importantly, do take care. Have a nice rest of your day.