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The Gangs of New York #1
The Gangs of New York
The Gangs of New York has long been hand-passed among its cult readership. It is a tour through a now unrecognizable city of abysmal poverty and habitual violence cobbled, as Luc Sante has written, "from legend, memory, police records, the self-aggrandizements of aging crooks, popular journalism, and solid historical research." Asbury presents the definitive work on this subject, an illumination of the gangs of old New York that ultimately gave rise to the modern Mafia and its depiction in films like The Godfather.
366 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1927
About the author
Herbert Asbury
77 books56 followersHerbert Asbury (September 1, 1889 – February 24, 1963) was an American journalist and writer best known for his books detailing crime during the 19th and early-20th centuries, such as Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld, The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld and The Gangs of New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 311 reviews
January 27, 2009
Like its sister book Gangs of Chicago, Gangs of New York is an anecdotal history of the New York underworld in the 19th century from its nascence in the 1820's and 30's up until the the end of Tammany Hall and the corruption that sustained gang life as a New York institution.
It's a history populated by colorful characters like Sadie the Goat, a female river pirate, so-called because of her signature move of lowering her head and butting her adversary in the chest; Monk Eastman, former pet store owner and perhaps the most feared gang leader of all time, wherever he went, he carried a large bludgeoning club and was followed by an entourage of cats and birds, some of which would be perched on his shoulder or cradled in his massive arms; and Bill the Butcher, the anti-immigrant fanatic immortalized in Martin Scorsese's film adaptation. Indeed, many of the characters in the film are taken directly (if not exactly) from the book. The Brendan Gleeson character, the club-wielding sheriff Walter "Monk" McGinn, is an obvious reference to Monk Eastman, who also carried a club and was known as the "Sheriff of Irvington." Hellcat Maggie, played by Cara Seymour in the film, was a composite of a very real Hellcat Maggie who lived in the Five Points and a bar owner in the bowery known as Gallus Meg. A brief excerpt from the book:
Much of the book is characterized by the clash between gangs of the Five Points and the Bowery. Many of the smaller street gangs, like the Plug Uglies, Dead Rabbits, the Roach Guards and the True-Blue Americans which functioned as civic auxiliaries in parts of the city where the legitimate government had no sway or interest, joined forces with the political machine Tammany Hall, or its rivals in the anti-immigration Know-Nothing Party, for whom they rounded up voters, defended polls in sympathetic precincts and attacked the polls in hostile districts. As a reward for their service, Tammany Hall and their other political patrons saw to it that they were able to practice their vice, theft and mayhem with little or no interference from the law. When Monk Eastman, leader of the Eastman gang, clobbered someone with his club, they rarely even bothered reporting the beating (at one point, there were so many "accidents" coming into Bellevue Hospital, that it's accident ward was informally renamed Eastman Pavillion), and on the off-chance that someone actually did press charges against him, his Tammany bosses could invariably provide a bevy of witnesses claiming that Eastman was with them at the time of the attack and that the charges were based on a horrible case of mistaken identity. The same set of rules generally applied to his gangland rival, Paul Kelley.
Unfortunately for the great political machines of the day, they couldn't stop the gangsters from being gangsters. Constant warfare between the Eastman gang and the Five Pointers over turf and vice profit resulted in scores of innocent bystanders getting injured or killed in the crossfire. And as public outrage mounted, their willingness to bail the gangleaders out of their legal troubles waned. The gang wars climaxed into a pitched battle outside a stuss game on Rivington Street. So many police and civilians were killed or wounded during the protracted battle that Tammany Hall was forced to withdraw their support from Eastman and Kelley. Eastman was later sentenced to ten years in prison, but when World War I broke out he was released early to join the army, where he became a war hero and was decorated numerous times for his bravery. Incidentally, it was there that he briefly met a young lieutenant named Herbert Asbury, with whom he shared a box of stolen cigars.
As for his former patrons at Tammany Hall, they would soon discover that their relationship with the gangs was too symbiotic to be outlived. Without street gangs to police the polls, stuff the ballot boxes and intimidate rivals, they were soon swept aside by reform movements and the larger, mainstream political forces at work in the nation.
In many ways, Gangs of New York is less a work of serious history than a gutter's-eye view of the informal events, people and institutions that are otherwise ignored by history, but that made 19th century New York tick in a way in which the official and legitimate political and social institutions did only tangentially, if at all.
It's a history populated by colorful characters like Sadie the Goat, a female river pirate, so-called because of her signature move of lowering her head and butting her adversary in the chest; Monk Eastman, former pet store owner and perhaps the most feared gang leader of all time, wherever he went, he carried a large bludgeoning club and was followed by an entourage of cats and birds, some of which would be perched on his shoulder or cradled in his massive arms; and Bill the Butcher, the anti-immigrant fanatic immortalized in Martin Scorsese's film adaptation. Indeed, many of the characters in the film are taken directly (if not exactly) from the book. The Brendan Gleeson character, the club-wielding sheriff Walter "Monk" McGinn, is an obvious reference to Monk Eastman, who also carried a club and was known as the "Sheriff of Irvington." Hellcat Maggie, played by Cara Seymour in the film, was a composite of a very real Hellcat Maggie who lived in the Five Points and a bar owner in the bowery known as Gallus Meg. A brief excerpt from the book:
"Gallus Meg was one of the notorious characters of the Fourth Ward, a giant Englishwoman well over six feet tall, who was so called because she kept her skirt up with suspenders, or galluses. She was bouncer and general factotum of the Hole-In-The-Wall, and stalked fiercely about the dive with a pistol stuck in her belt and a huge bludgeon strapped to her wrist. She was an expert in the use of both weapons, and like the celebrated Hell-Cat Maggie of the Five Points, was an extraordinary virtuoso in the art of mayham. It was her custom, after she had felled an obstreperous customers with her club, to clutch his ear between her teeth and so drag him to the door, amid the frenzied cheers of the onlookers. If her victim protested and struggled, she bit off his ear, and having cast the fellow into the street she carefully deposited the detached member in a jar of alcohol behind the bar, in which she kept her trophies in pickle."
Much of the book is characterized by the clash between gangs of the Five Points and the Bowery. Many of the smaller street gangs, like the Plug Uglies, Dead Rabbits, the Roach Guards and the True-Blue Americans which functioned as civic auxiliaries in parts of the city where the legitimate government had no sway or interest, joined forces with the political machine Tammany Hall, or its rivals in the anti-immigration Know-Nothing Party, for whom they rounded up voters, defended polls in sympathetic precincts and attacked the polls in hostile districts. As a reward for their service, Tammany Hall and their other political patrons saw to it that they were able to practice their vice, theft and mayhem with little or no interference from the law. When Monk Eastman, leader of the Eastman gang, clobbered someone with his club, they rarely even bothered reporting the beating (at one point, there were so many "accidents" coming into Bellevue Hospital, that it's accident ward was informally renamed Eastman Pavillion), and on the off-chance that someone actually did press charges against him, his Tammany bosses could invariably provide a bevy of witnesses claiming that Eastman was with them at the time of the attack and that the charges were based on a horrible case of mistaken identity. The same set of rules generally applied to his gangland rival, Paul Kelley.
Unfortunately for the great political machines of the day, they couldn't stop the gangsters from being gangsters. Constant warfare between the Eastman gang and the Five Pointers over turf and vice profit resulted in scores of innocent bystanders getting injured or killed in the crossfire. And as public outrage mounted, their willingness to bail the gangleaders out of their legal troubles waned. The gang wars climaxed into a pitched battle outside a stuss game on Rivington Street. So many police and civilians were killed or wounded during the protracted battle that Tammany Hall was forced to withdraw their support from Eastman and Kelley. Eastman was later sentenced to ten years in prison, but when World War I broke out he was released early to join the army, where he became a war hero and was decorated numerous times for his bravery. Incidentally, it was there that he briefly met a young lieutenant named Herbert Asbury, with whom he shared a box of stolen cigars.
As for his former patrons at Tammany Hall, they would soon discover that their relationship with the gangs was too symbiotic to be outlived. Without street gangs to police the polls, stuff the ballot boxes and intimidate rivals, they were soon swept aside by reform movements and the larger, mainstream political forces at work in the nation.
In many ways, Gangs of New York is less a work of serious history than a gutter's-eye view of the informal events, people and institutions that are otherwise ignored by history, but that made 19th century New York tick in a way in which the official and legitimate political and social institutions did only tangentially, if at all.
April 23, 2009
Just because this was for me doesn't mean it was for everyone. I just love reading about the vice and crime that characterizes the history of New York especially in the time period discussed in this non-fiction book. Starting at about 1829 and ending when the book was written in 1928, it chronicles the worst parts of town and its inhabitants; tough tough men women and children who did unspeakable things to survive. They were sometimes colorful and sometimes pathetic and their way of life is just unimaginable to me.
At a time when a square mile of London's east end, the neighborhood so wrenchingly portrayed in the novels of Charles Dickens, contained 175,000 inhabitants, Now York's fourth ward had a population density of 290,000 per square mile in immigrant neighborhoods.
Fun to see how mixed up the gangs were with the polititians and labor unions. Those respectable institutions couldn't get it done without these guys!
I love how this was written "so long ago" that truthfulness seems no more important than legend and folklore. I love (and am sad) that many of the place names don't exist anymore. It is written in a voice that itself reminds the reader of a very different system of political correctness. A little tedious toward the end but by that time I was ready for stories about the mob!
At a time when a square mile of London's east end, the neighborhood so wrenchingly portrayed in the novels of Charles Dickens, contained 175,000 inhabitants, Now York's fourth ward had a population density of 290,000 per square mile in immigrant neighborhoods.
Fun to see how mixed up the gangs were with the polititians and labor unions. Those respectable institutions couldn't get it done without these guys!
I love how this was written "so long ago" that truthfulness seems no more important than legend and folklore. I love (and am sad) that many of the place names don't exist anymore. It is written in a voice that itself reminds the reader of a very different system of political correctness. A little tedious toward the end but by that time I was ready for stories about the mob!
August 8, 2017
True Crime Commemoration # 33
Setting: early nineteenth century Five Points NYC
Setting: early nineteenth century Five Points NYC
March 9, 2022
Asbury’s Gangs of New York is a very long-winded, dry, and tedious account of my favorite period in New York City history. It’s absolutely not a title I would suggest anyone read for mere pleasure—as I habitually read this subject matter for fun and Asbury’s book was a slog to get through. I would however, suggest it as required reading for those that actively research 19th century Manhattan, especially crime during this time, and so I’ve rated it accordingly—to stress how incredibly useful his content and commentary was.
Gangs of New York covers the expansive history of both disorganized and organized crime in Manhattan, for the most part taking place in the Five Points and Bowery region of the island, all the way into the new century, which saw the death of the gangster and the birth of the mobster. It really is an absolutely fascinating account that covers some very minute moments in history I’ve not learned about elsewhere and was only able to further research after Asbury provided those pertinent details. Some such examples being the Old Brewery and sewer systems below Gotham Court. Thank you, sir, these little throwaway nuggets you provided became crucial details in my own writing, and truly paint a picture of a long and awful period that so many destitute citizens endured. Asbury also extensively covers gangs like the Dead Rabbits to the Whyos to the Gophers, as well as the Draft Riots—and in these two chapters I was able to confirm details he cites via other research books I’ve read, which is always so exciting.
That being said, there are moments in this book that should be read with a grain of salt, but an astute historian should be able to pick up on which elements are hearsay or perhaps blown out of proportion. It should also be noted that this book was originally written in the 1920s, so Asbury’s approach to non-fiction storytelling is tiresome, at best, and does also include casual racism reminiscent of the time. Despite how mindbogglingly dense the delivery of this content is, I persevered because the information was so useful. That I cannot stress enough. The facts, stories, and pictures within, made this read worth it, although I do not have intentions of ever reading this again.
But thank you, Herbert Asubry. Someone had to cover this content and I’m glad you were so dedicated to the subject.
Gangs of New York covers the expansive history of both disorganized and organized crime in Manhattan, for the most part taking place in the Five Points and Bowery region of the island, all the way into the new century, which saw the death of the gangster and the birth of the mobster. It really is an absolutely fascinating account that covers some very minute moments in history I’ve not learned about elsewhere and was only able to further research after Asbury provided those pertinent details. Some such examples being the Old Brewery and sewer systems below Gotham Court. Thank you, sir, these little throwaway nuggets you provided became crucial details in my own writing, and truly paint a picture of a long and awful period that so many destitute citizens endured. Asbury also extensively covers gangs like the Dead Rabbits to the Whyos to the Gophers, as well as the Draft Riots—and in these two chapters I was able to confirm details he cites via other research books I’ve read, which is always so exciting.
That being said, there are moments in this book that should be read with a grain of salt, but an astute historian should be able to pick up on which elements are hearsay or perhaps blown out of proportion. It should also be noted that this book was originally written in the 1920s, so Asbury’s approach to non-fiction storytelling is tiresome, at best, and does also include casual racism reminiscent of the time. Despite how mindbogglingly dense the delivery of this content is, I persevered because the information was so useful. That I cannot stress enough. The facts, stories, and pictures within, made this read worth it, although I do not have intentions of ever reading this again.
But thank you, Herbert Asubry. Someone had to cover this content and I’m glad you were so dedicated to the subject.
August 13, 2015
This was a re-read. This was written in 1927. It may or may not be filled with exaggeration. Old New York was a rough place filled with all kind of criminal types. This is their story.
The story of people like Albert Hicks and Bill the Butcher. Women who would tear off your ear and stick it in a jar as a trophy. (Gallus Mag) and so many people with names like Lefty Louie and Gyp the Blood. People like Hoochy Coochy Mary and Louie the Lump. There are way too many great names to mention them all and I was underlining things I thought were interesting while I was reading this and I might as well have underlined the whole book. The language this was written in is also fun with things said like on page 297 when speaking of Chuck Connors…"the final nail was driven into his cross.." and when speaking of a saloon that catered to street boys who ran in juvenile gangs picking pockets and making life miserable for people….(page 225) --"saloons and dives were opened that catered solely to the street boys selling them frightful whiskey at three cents a glass and providing small girls for their amusement.." I'm not sure if that was true or an exaggeration. The thought of a saloon filled with criminally minded tweens drinking cheap whiskey and procuring girls of the same age scares the hell out of me.
There is a lot in this book and some of it was probably made up because it would sell books but that doesn't make it any less entertaining. If you enjoy reading about true crime and vice etc then I highly recommend this entertaining read. It is much better than the movie of the same name and is written in a colorful yellow journalism fashion that really doesn't exist anymore. Make sure you take a look at the glossary in the back with such colorful definitions as Ace of Spades which was a widow to Ogles which were eyes and ending in Yam which meant to eat. A fun book to peruse (there is a handy index in the back) or read all the way through. 5 stars and best reads pile.
The story of people like Albert Hicks and Bill the Butcher. Women who would tear off your ear and stick it in a jar as a trophy. (Gallus Mag) and so many people with names like Lefty Louie and Gyp the Blood. People like Hoochy Coochy Mary and Louie the Lump. There are way too many great names to mention them all and I was underlining things I thought were interesting while I was reading this and I might as well have underlined the whole book. The language this was written in is also fun with things said like on page 297 when speaking of Chuck Connors…"the final nail was driven into his cross.." and when speaking of a saloon that catered to street boys who ran in juvenile gangs picking pockets and making life miserable for people….(page 225) --"saloons and dives were opened that catered solely to the street boys selling them frightful whiskey at three cents a glass and providing small girls for their amusement.." I'm not sure if that was true or an exaggeration. The thought of a saloon filled with criminally minded tweens drinking cheap whiskey and procuring girls of the same age scares the hell out of me.
There is a lot in this book and some of it was probably made up because it would sell books but that doesn't make it any less entertaining. If you enjoy reading about true crime and vice etc then I highly recommend this entertaining read. It is much better than the movie of the same name and is written in a colorful yellow journalism fashion that really doesn't exist anymore. Make sure you take a look at the glossary in the back with such colorful definitions as Ace of Spades which was a widow to Ogles which were eyes and ending in Yam which meant to eat. A fun book to peruse (there is a handy index in the back) or read all the way through. 5 stars and best reads pile.
March 18, 2018
DNF 50%
I just couldn't continue with this book. You'd think for a book about the history of gangs in NY, it would be really interesting, but it was so dull and dragging and there were so many commas. One moment you're in pre-civil war next your in the late 1800s and you're to keep guessing which ear you're in until the author bothers to tell you. Also the cycle of each chapter is the same. A little background on why a riot happened, followed by a way to in-depth account of the fight, followed by a quick conclusion. This pattern was repeated over and over with the chapter that I got tired of reading it. So tired that I've fallen asleep many times reading it. I don't need to torture myself over this book. School does that job already.
I just couldn't continue with this book. You'd think for a book about the history of gangs in NY, it would be really interesting, but it was so dull and dragging and there were so many commas. One moment you're in pre-civil war next your in the late 1800s and you're to keep guessing which ear you're in until the author bothers to tell you. Also the cycle of each chapter is the same. A little background on why a riot happened, followed by a way to in-depth account of the fight, followed by a quick conclusion. This pattern was repeated over and over with the chapter that I got tired of reading it. So tired that I've fallen asleep many times reading it. I don't need to torture myself over this book. School does that job already.
January 1, 2011
This was a huge struggle to get through. Each page was the same as the next just listing different crimes and violent acts. It just blurred into one long, lethargic 'can't wait to get to the end' book. I was actually so glad to finish it which is a very bad sign. If I love a book I actually mourn it a little bit when I finish. But, this book was written in the late 1920's so it was going to be a challenge and I didn't particularly like the film either. I only picked it up to start my A-Z list going as the author is an 'A'. There is some debate about how much of it was actually true and how much was fiction but I like to think of it as a historic account as it is based on newspaper reports of the time. I also like the fact it has photos of real people and I found the drawings interesting too. All I can say is, New York at that time sounded dreadful and my next book has to be something uplifting and enjoyable....
December 17, 2016
Not a true history but rather a historical artifact. A look at the 1830s-1900 through the eyes of the 1920s. Dark, fascinating, appalling.
I wish we could get closer to these people of mid-19thC NYC than a 1920s-based narrator. It was another world, one that was two or three generations more remote than the Riis photos and DeNiro's Godfather-as-a-young-man.
I personally found the earliest chapters most interesting for how truly distant and unfamiliar those times, the 1830s-50s, were.
In that strange pre-Civil War, pre-railroad, world: One-QUARTER of Manhattan's inhabitants had only RECENTLY been starving, potato-blighted subsistence peasants in southern and western Ireland, yet were now savvy, hardened urbanites -- how did these rustics become brutal city-dwellers?
And the slums' huge gangs ruled what had only a few years ago been cow pastures and a freshwater pond.
The rickety tenements above ground were mere markers, like gravestones, for a below-ground network of warrens, tunnels and catacombs -- where many actual corpses were buried.
The police force was so new and barely professional that two versions of it warred with each other, in parallel with the gangs.
Shippers along the river wharves were subject to actual piracy from the city's own inhabitants.
The per-acre human density was equivalent to districts in today's Nairobi.
It was the Wild West in a dense urban setting -- the Wild, Wild East. I would love to read a whole book of primary sourced social history of this period, but the anecdotes herein are a start.
Jumping ahead to the Civil War years, the most historically significant chapters concern the "Draft Riots" of 1863. The descriptor is a euphemism-- though the trouble did begin with objections to the Civil War draft, that political motive was quickly overshadowed by unforgivably racist bloodlust as the mob turned to terrorizing and lynching African Americans. However significant the events, these chapters are unfortunately the most poorly written in the book; look elsewhere for a historically rigorous and well written account.
The chapter on the Chinese tongs was interesting, but its accuracy can't be assured.
Though some chapters are fluent enough, the writing throughout the book is generally an inconsistent match for the drama of the subject matter. For one thing, the author indulges in 1920s-style casual racism, so be prepared for that. For another, at times it's tedious and I found myself skimming. Oh, brickbats again? Somehow, it's too anecdotal: And then another thing, and then another thing .... It's true that gangsters are not men of ideas, nor their female associates. Still, I would have liked more cohesion and more insight about who these people really were.
Nevertheless, there's enough rich and exotically shocking detail of squalor and degeneracy to make it an essential read. Description of the horrifying, poisonous Bowery intoxicants, to say nothing of the murders, is enough to induce shivers. Even if the details are exaggerated and the telling uneven, Gangs of New York still is a window to a world that fundamentally shaped New York City -- the Bowery hadn't changed much when the punks got there in the 1970s-- but is now mostly gone.
...
ETA: Having another look, I realized why the prose is tedious. It's just plain wordy! Too many progressive ("was gathering" instead of "gathered"), past participles and passive-voice constructions. Also too many prepositional phrases when a single word would do: e.g., "in the vicinity" (three words and six syllables!) instead of just "nearby."
I wish we could get closer to these people of mid-19thC NYC than a 1920s-based narrator. It was another world, one that was two or three generations more remote than the Riis photos and DeNiro's Godfather-as-a-young-man.
I personally found the earliest chapters most interesting for how truly distant and unfamiliar those times, the 1830s-50s, were.
In that strange pre-Civil War, pre-railroad, world: One-QUARTER of Manhattan's inhabitants had only RECENTLY been starving, potato-blighted subsistence peasants in southern and western Ireland, yet were now savvy, hardened urbanites -- how did these rustics become brutal city-dwellers?
And the slums' huge gangs ruled what had only a few years ago been cow pastures and a freshwater pond.
The rickety tenements above ground were mere markers, like gravestones, for a below-ground network of warrens, tunnels and catacombs -- where many actual corpses were buried.
The police force was so new and barely professional that two versions of it warred with each other, in parallel with the gangs.
Shippers along the river wharves were subject to actual piracy from the city's own inhabitants.
The per-acre human density was equivalent to districts in today's Nairobi.
It was the Wild West in a dense urban setting -- the Wild, Wild East. I would love to read a whole book of primary sourced social history of this period, but the anecdotes herein are a start.
Jumping ahead to the Civil War years, the most historically significant chapters concern the "Draft Riots" of 1863. The descriptor is a euphemism-- though the trouble did begin with objections to the Civil War draft, that political motive was quickly overshadowed by unforgivably racist bloodlust as the mob turned to terrorizing and lynching African Americans. However significant the events, these chapters are unfortunately the most poorly written in the book; look elsewhere for a historically rigorous and well written account.
The chapter on the Chinese tongs was interesting, but its accuracy can't be assured.
Though some chapters are fluent enough, the writing throughout the book is generally an inconsistent match for the drama of the subject matter. For one thing, the author indulges in 1920s-style casual racism, so be prepared for that. For another, at times it's tedious and I found myself skimming. Oh, brickbats again? Somehow, it's too anecdotal: And then another thing, and then another thing .... It's true that gangsters are not men of ideas, nor their female associates. Still, I would have liked more cohesion and more insight about who these people really were.
Nevertheless, there's enough rich and exotically shocking detail of squalor and degeneracy to make it an essential read. Description of the horrifying, poisonous Bowery intoxicants, to say nothing of the murders, is enough to induce shivers. Even if the details are exaggerated and the telling uneven, Gangs of New York still is a window to a world that fundamentally shaped New York City -- the Bowery hadn't changed much when the punks got there in the 1970s-- but is now mostly gone.
...
ETA: Having another look, I realized why the prose is tedious. It's just plain wordy! Too many progressive ("was gathering" instead of "gathered"), past participles and passive-voice constructions. Also too many prepositional phrases when a single word would do: e.g., "in the vicinity" (three words and six syllables!) instead of just "nearby."
November 15, 2017
Questo volume un’impostazione vera e propria non ce l’ha, i capitoli che trattano i vari argomenti sono stati composti piuttosto alla rinfusa, e anzi più di una volta alcuni paragrafi sarebbero stati maggiormente funzionali collocati in posti diversi. Sì, seguono una certa linea temporale, ma vengono affrontati in modo tale che si sarebbero potuti organizzare in maniera decisamente più “performante”. Eppure quest’atmosfera un po’ caotica si addice bene al tema trattato. Il libro non è certo stato scritto con fare accademico e proprio in questa caratteristica trova il suo punto di forza. Dati statistici e precisazioni storiche, nonché l’esatta realtà dietro ai fatti, trovano ben poco spazio… e meno male! La bellezza del libro risiede proprio negli aneddoti sui personaggi di spicco, sulle esagerazioni, sul sensazionalismo che sconfina tranquillamente nelle leggende metropolitane, frutto dell’apparenza intimidatoria che incutevano questi criminali (alcuni dei quali poliziotti e uomini politici) con le loro malefatte e i loro comportamenti. Francamente poco mi sarebbe importato dell’ordinario, per quanto veritiero, soggetto a moderazioni atte a ridimensionare il tutto in un contesto più realistico. Invece questa lettura mi ha consentito di ‘sguazzare’ nel sottobosco criminale newyorkese e la sua storia con una connotazione che non esiterei a definire ‘folkloristica’. A metà tra il saggio e la fiction, è stato un volume appassionante, ricco di episodi coloriti e di personaggi tanto temibili quanto bizzarri… realmente esistiti!
January 2, 2011
The Gangs of New York by Herbert Asbury, written in 1928, is a great read for those who love to read stories about crime and criminals that took place in New York City, dating back to the early 1800's. The book starts with the chapter entitled “The Cradle of the Gangs,” which was the Five Points Area in 1829. Roughly, the Five Points area was the territory bounded by Broadway, Canal Street, the Bowery and Park Row, which was formerly Chatham Street. Now this area is the home to the city prison called the Tombs, the Criminal Courts Building and the County Court House. In the early 1700's, the area was mostly a swap area, surrounding a lake called Fresh Water Pond by the English and Shellpoint by the Dutch.
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 1928. 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.
Read
September 18, 2024This was a very dense book with a LOT of names. I remember none of them. BUT what I did get out of this book was a lot of interesting history of NYC in the 1800s-1920's. Here are some of my takeaways:
1. I did not know that the original firefighters were volunteer gang members. It was a tough place to be, and firefighting is a tough job that only the toughest could handle. While this makes it sound like the gangs were altruistic towards their community, they really were not. Oftentimes, rival gangs would show up to the same fire and end up fighting eachother while the building burned down.
2. A LOT of places burned down. Between the draft riots and organized crime being completely disorganized, there was no law, there was no order. If someone looked at someone the wrong way, there was revenge to avenge!
3. It was the wild west. This time period had thousands of gang members, and they were in cahoots with the crooked politicians, and the crooked cops. It seemed like no one was safe.
4. To all the people in 2024 who complain that NYC is dangerous now, I want them to read this book.
5. I did not realize that back in the 1800s, when the first major wave of Irish immigrants came in they made up 25% of the city's population. The Irish idolized George Washington, having beat the Brits in the Revolutionary War, the Irish flocked to America just for the simple reason that they hated the English.
6. Another fun fact that I did not know, was the Civil War draft clause that if a man's name was pulled to be drafted into the war they can decline by paying $300 and they're let off the hook. This caused the draft riots in NYC which was a week long free for all ACROSS the entire city. No neighborhood was safe, tons of buildings were burnt down, and the poor Irish went on a lynching spree to show they did not care for the draft and its clauses. The mayor ended up coming up with a plan to pay like $1.6 million in funds to have available for any poor that could not afford the $300 get-out-of-war fee. $300 in 1800s = about $10,000 today
7. Child prostitution was prevalent. This is the 3rd book written from/about gaslight era NYC, that I have read about this disgusting part of history. In 2024, we are always shocked when we hear about these things but going back 100-150-200 years, and people made do with what they had available to them to survive. Even little boys cross-dressed at brothels for money for wealthy men. I recently read Caleb Carr's The Alienist, and the victims in that book were all young, male brothel workers.
1. I did not know that the original firefighters were volunteer gang members. It was a tough place to be, and firefighting is a tough job that only the toughest could handle. While this makes it sound like the gangs were altruistic towards their community, they really were not. Oftentimes, rival gangs would show up to the same fire and end up fighting eachother while the building burned down.
2. A LOT of places burned down. Between the draft riots and organized crime being completely disorganized, there was no law, there was no order. If someone looked at someone the wrong way, there was revenge to avenge!
3. It was the wild west. This time period had thousands of gang members, and they were in cahoots with the crooked politicians, and the crooked cops. It seemed like no one was safe.
4. To all the people in 2024 who complain that NYC is dangerous now, I want them to read this book.
5. I did not realize that back in the 1800s, when the first major wave of Irish immigrants came in they made up 25% of the city's population. The Irish idolized George Washington, having beat the Brits in the Revolutionary War, the Irish flocked to America just for the simple reason that they hated the English.
6. Another fun fact that I did not know, was the Civil War draft clause that if a man's name was pulled to be drafted into the war they can decline by paying $300 and they're let off the hook. This caused the draft riots in NYC which was a week long free for all ACROSS the entire city. No neighborhood was safe, tons of buildings were burnt down, and the poor Irish went on a lynching spree to show they did not care for the draft and its clauses. The mayor ended up coming up with a plan to pay like $1.6 million in funds to have available for any poor that could not afford the $300 get-out-of-war fee. $300 in 1800s = about $10,000 today
7. Child prostitution was prevalent. This is the 3rd book written from/about gaslight era NYC, that I have read about this disgusting part of history. In 2024, we are always shocked when we hear about these things but going back 100-150-200 years, and people made do with what they had available to them to survive. Even little boys cross-dressed at brothels for money for wealthy men. I recently read Caleb Carr's The Alienist, and the victims in that book were all young, male brothel workers.
January 7, 2013
My old U.S. history book from school (which unfortunately I no longer have) skipped right over the Draft Riots of New York in a sentence or two and touched only tangentially on the horrific poverty and crime endemic to certain areas of New York, and the influx of immigrants through the city. Chiefly what I recall from those days is the smell of chalk and erasers, furtive whispers, a long line of students listlessly propping their heads up on their chins as they listened to the teacher drone on about various Supreme Court decisions, Dred-Scott, Gettysburg, and other things they collectively saw as irrelevant to their lives. It was, unfortunately, akin to watching paint dry.
How sad that history is often reduced to pedantic interpretations without the verve, color, excitement, fear, emotion and lives of the people of the era.
Obviously no one ever told Herbert Asbury that he had to be boring.
The Gangs of New York vividly recreates New York life in the Five Points, Hell's Kitchen, and Paradise Square, the kingdoms of the gangs. Peopled variously with dead-eyed, slungshot-laden gangs such as the Bowry Boys, the Plug Uglies, the Dead Rabbits, the Shirt-tails, the True-Blue Americans; piratical river gangs like the Daybreak Boys, the Hookers, and the Patsy Conroys'; Fagin-like pickpocket crews, Chinese Tongs, ward-heelers, street-sweepers, gangsters and gamblers and rife with crimping bars, brothels, rancid tenements, raucous theaters, penny gin-mills and gaming hells, the subject matter alone make The Gangs of New York a rich find.
Here's a brief taste (and frankly as vivid a character sketch as you are ever likely to find in print):
"Gallus Meg was one of the notorious characters of the Fourth Ward, a giant Englishwoman well over six feet tall, who was so called because she kept her skirt up with suspenders, or galluses. She was bouncer and general factotum of the Hole-In-The-Wall, and stalked fiercely about the dive with a pistol stuck in her belt and a huge bludgeon strapped to her wrist. She was an expert in the use of both weapons, and like the celebrated Hell-Cat Maggie of the Five Points, was an extraordinary virtuoso in the art of mayham. It was her custom, after she had felled an obstreperous customers with her club, to clutch his ear between her teeth and so drag him to the door, amid the frenzied cheers of the onlookers. If her victim protested and struggled, she bit off his ear, and having cast the fellow into the street she carefully deposited the detached member in a jar of alcohol behind the bar, in which she kept her trophies in pickle."
The book weaves the sordid history and practices of the gangs, mainly the enormous Five Points gangs in the first half of the book (often with members numbering in the thousands) that literally controlled whole sections of the city, followed by the more common criminal gangs and the early beginnings of what would, ultimately, evolve into the more recognizable classic "gangster" of the 1920's. If there is a fault in Asbury's account (which he styles an "informal history of the New York underworld") is that while the linkages between the political corruption of Tammany Hall that encouraged, protected and promoted the gangs are outlined, it is somewhat sparse and subjective, without the clear connections that linked money, property, immigrant votes, protection rackets and other vices to the political structure of the city and the nascent NYPD.
Realistically the book culminates with the Draft Riots in 1863, which saw more than 2,000 people killed during a week-long riot that ravaged New York (That's the same number of Union forces that died at Antietam (or Sharpsburg, if you are from the South), one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War). Unfortunately the Draft Riots occur at roughly the half-way point of the book, with the remaining, more anti-climatic chapters outlining the final heydays of the gangs and the slow erosion of their dominance and control as political corruption was rooted out. Though the book is somewhat archaic (first published in 1928) and the language is somewhat lurid at points, it offers a insiders look at the underbelly of the city that most histories ignore entirely.
The only other failing of note is that, for a non-New York reader unfamiliar with the city's geography, a good map would have been a priceless addition.
The Gangs of New York is, at the most basic, a rich, exciting, bloody and base tapestry, populated by some of the most appalling personages you can imagine. In other words: a damn fine read.
Asbury authored a number of other books over the years including The Gangs of Chicago, The Barbary Coast (a look at the underworld of San Francisco), and The Sucker's Progress (gambling), among others.
For another look at the Five Points, check out Tyler Anbinder's book Five Points: The 19th Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum.
For a good (if heavy and lengthy) history of New York, read Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows.
How sad that history is often reduced to pedantic interpretations without the verve, color, excitement, fear, emotion and lives of the people of the era.
Obviously no one ever told Herbert Asbury that he had to be boring.
The Gangs of New York vividly recreates New York life in the Five Points, Hell's Kitchen, and Paradise Square, the kingdoms of the gangs. Peopled variously with dead-eyed, slungshot-laden gangs such as the Bowry Boys, the Plug Uglies, the Dead Rabbits, the Shirt-tails, the True-Blue Americans; piratical river gangs like the Daybreak Boys, the Hookers, and the Patsy Conroys'; Fagin-like pickpocket crews, Chinese Tongs, ward-heelers, street-sweepers, gangsters and gamblers and rife with crimping bars, brothels, rancid tenements, raucous theaters, penny gin-mills and gaming hells, the subject matter alone make The Gangs of New York a rich find.
Here's a brief taste (and frankly as vivid a character sketch as you are ever likely to find in print):
"Gallus Meg was one of the notorious characters of the Fourth Ward, a giant Englishwoman well over six feet tall, who was so called because she kept her skirt up with suspenders, or galluses. She was bouncer and general factotum of the Hole-In-The-Wall, and stalked fiercely about the dive with a pistol stuck in her belt and a huge bludgeon strapped to her wrist. She was an expert in the use of both weapons, and like the celebrated Hell-Cat Maggie of the Five Points, was an extraordinary virtuoso in the art of mayham. It was her custom, after she had felled an obstreperous customers with her club, to clutch his ear between her teeth and so drag him to the door, amid the frenzied cheers of the onlookers. If her victim protested and struggled, she bit off his ear, and having cast the fellow into the street she carefully deposited the detached member in a jar of alcohol behind the bar, in which she kept her trophies in pickle."
The book weaves the sordid history and practices of the gangs, mainly the enormous Five Points gangs in the first half of the book (often with members numbering in the thousands) that literally controlled whole sections of the city, followed by the more common criminal gangs and the early beginnings of what would, ultimately, evolve into the more recognizable classic "gangster" of the 1920's. If there is a fault in Asbury's account (which he styles an "informal history of the New York underworld") is that while the linkages between the political corruption of Tammany Hall that encouraged, protected and promoted the gangs are outlined, it is somewhat sparse and subjective, without the clear connections that linked money, property, immigrant votes, protection rackets and other vices to the political structure of the city and the nascent NYPD.
Realistically the book culminates with the Draft Riots in 1863, which saw more than 2,000 people killed during a week-long riot that ravaged New York (That's the same number of Union forces that died at Antietam (or Sharpsburg, if you are from the South), one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War). Unfortunately the Draft Riots occur at roughly the half-way point of the book, with the remaining, more anti-climatic chapters outlining the final heydays of the gangs and the slow erosion of their dominance and control as political corruption was rooted out. Though the book is somewhat archaic (first published in 1928) and the language is somewhat lurid at points, it offers a insiders look at the underbelly of the city that most histories ignore entirely.
The only other failing of note is that, for a non-New York reader unfamiliar with the city's geography, a good map would have been a priceless addition.
The Gangs of New York is, at the most basic, a rich, exciting, bloody and base tapestry, populated by some of the most appalling personages you can imagine. In other words: a damn fine read.
Asbury authored a number of other books over the years including The Gangs of Chicago, The Barbary Coast (a look at the underworld of San Francisco), and The Sucker's Progress (gambling), among others.
For another look at the Five Points, check out Tyler Anbinder's book Five Points: The 19th Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum.
For a good (if heavy and lengthy) history of New York, read Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows.
August 23, 2018
I had seen the Movie when it came out in theaters and I was so so-so happy with it. It was a GREAT storyline, Great Characters, Great Historical points. But while browsing the local library I seen they had this for sale so for $.50 I picked it up with a few others. I was So happy with the Info, The History, The PEOPLE!!!!! To see the differences from the Gangs then to now is so krazzie. I know violence is a part of both but it was so different but the same. But old time "Gangsters" they were into Crime, Violence, Status, And some actually making it and being wealthy!!!! They were started to keep territory and Status, (Like the "new Gen" the 70's-80's were started to help each other stay safe/ kids being kids and evolved into something WAY OUT OF HAND.)
The People were so intriguing I was so interested to look up so many of these people. (I would have loved to get more info on the people, Because SO MANY HAD AMAZING BACK STORIES!!!!) but they were just so OUTRAGOUSE, Violent, Smart, Tragic, There were Men, Women, KIDS who were so involved in the lifestyle that it was there life!!! I was just so happy to see all of this great info on such a important part of history that is known about but not known in depth.
if you enjoy the movie Gangs of New York, Historical, PEOPLE OF THAT TIME!!!! Please check this out it really is a great read.
The People were so intriguing I was so interested to look up so many of these people. (I would have loved to get more info on the people, Because SO MANY HAD AMAZING BACK STORIES!!!!) but they were just so OUTRAGOUSE, Violent, Smart, Tragic, There were Men, Women, KIDS who were so involved in the lifestyle that it was there life!!! I was just so happy to see all of this great info on such a important part of history that is known about but not known in depth.
if you enjoy the movie Gangs of New York, Historical, PEOPLE OF THAT TIME!!!! Please check this out it really is a great read.
May 9, 2011
When reading a book written some time ago, it's important to remember that standards and tastes may have been different back then. Such is the case here. It's entirely possible (in this case, likely) that this book was considered eminently readable when it was published in 1927, but today's readers might find it somewhat more difficult.
Asbury presents us with a dizzying array of names of people (real names, pseudonyms, and nicknames) and places (modern and historical), barely pausing for breath, let alone meaningful distinction among them (I lost count of the number of gangsters described as "huge"). A map would have been nice, and a cast of characters even better.
Anecdotes are piled one on top of another, with little or no explanation as to why any of them are important or how any of them are connected. And each one is more sensationalistic than the last, making me wonder where Asbury got his information from. A bibliography is appended at the end of the book, but it's impossible to tell which stories he got from which sources (and, indeed, which came from "personal interviews" with criminals and police officers). So, as hard a time as I had just wading through the mass of details, I almost had an even harder time believing them.
Asbury presents us with a dizzying array of names of people (real names, pseudonyms, and nicknames) and places (modern and historical), barely pausing for breath, let alone meaningful distinction among them (I lost count of the number of gangsters described as "huge"). A map would have been nice, and a cast of characters even better.
Anecdotes are piled one on top of another, with little or no explanation as to why any of them are important or how any of them are connected. And each one is more sensationalistic than the last, making me wonder where Asbury got his information from. A bibliography is appended at the end of the book, but it's impossible to tell which stories he got from which sources (and, indeed, which came from "personal interviews" with criminals and police officers). So, as hard a time as I had just wading through the mass of details, I almost had an even harder time believing them.
March 3, 2009
I think I love this book so much because its yet another bit of evidence that humans have always be sublimely f'd up and perverse, and criers of declining morality and vices of the twentieth century have no idea what they're talking about.
I also love it for it's great antique voice, that lets you know "THIS WAS WRITTEN LONG AGO". (Warning: antique voice means that antique casual racism is included as well, which honestly really isn't quite as delightful at ALL).
I also also love it for being better then the movie of the same name in every possible way (except maybe Daniel Day Lewis) and for also being true!
I also love it for it's great antique voice, that lets you know "THIS WAS WRITTEN LONG AGO". (Warning: antique voice means that antique casual racism is included as well, which honestly really isn't quite as delightful at ALL).
I also also love it for being better then the movie of the same name in every possible way (except maybe Daniel Day Lewis) and for also being true!
February 26, 2010
I'm not sure if I really like this book. It certainly provides a window on a unstable period of the great city when gangs ran rampant....and ran local politics as well. But it didn't have a flow of narrative; it felt almost disconnected and therefore, I couldn't concentrate on it. I put it down several times and would pick it up later but just couldn't stay with it for any length of time. However, there were sections of excellent detail and insight into the inner workings of the society and hierarchy of the gangs. But other sections seemed to drag on forever.
One thing is certain ..........it was better than the film!!!!
One thing is certain ..........it was better than the film!!!!
September 30, 2008
Research. Mostly lies cobbled together by the degenerate hack, Asbury, but the important thing is that they're interesting lies. And who isn't moved by the tale of Gallus Mag biting off the ear of her mortal enemy, the river pirate Sadie the Goat, and keeping it pickled in a jar behind the bar of her dive for decades before the two women became friends and Gallus fished out Sadie's ear and gave it back to her while crying on her shoulder and hugging her tight? BFF.
January 4, 2016
This is my favorite book of all time. Big ups to Hellcat Maggie.
December 13, 2018
Julian DeBitetto
Mr. Hart
English III
12/10/2018
Gangs of New York
The book Gangs of New York is about a man named Amsterdam Vallon and the story of his life. In the beginning of the movie he is a young boy in a scene that follows his father’s death after Bill Cutting stabs him while fighting over the five points which is the neighborhood he had lived in as a child. The neighborhood was notoriously known for its gang violence (gangs fighting to control the five points). After his father is killed, young Amsterdam is sent off to an orphanage and raised there. After that when he is grown, he returns to the place he used to live, The Five Points, where he finds it run by lower gangs but the most powerful is the natives which is ran by Bill Cutting.
It's also the time of the Civil War and forced drafts for the military lead to the worst riots in US history. With the violence and corruption occurring within Cuttings gang and politics, Vallon tries to infiltrate Cuttings gang and seek revenge on his father's death. He shortly becomes friends with a man named Johnny which introduces him to all of the gangs in the neighborhood. Amsterdam keeps his identity hidden, so they don’t know who he really is. When he finds out Bill is going to later host a party to celebrate his victory against the Irish, he plots to assassinate Bill with the knife Bill murdered his father with which he had hidden before he was taken. Later, he begins to like this girl named Jenny, who Johnny is in love with. On the night of the party Johnny tells Bill who Amsterdam really was because he was jealous of Jenny and Amsterdam. Bill and Amsterdam soon got into a fight, then Bill decided that he should live in shame, so Bill scalds his face with a hot blade of a knife. Shortly after Amsterdam and Jenny ran away and hid.
After his wound is healed, he returns for the second time to the five points to attempt to get revenge on bill. While he’s at the five points, draft riots begin to occur and turned into an extreme fight. The Union Army was ordered to control the riots. Many soldiers and people were killed. During the chaos Bill and Amsterdam begin a duel. Finally, Amsterdam stabs Bill and kills him with his fathers’ knife. After Amsterdam buries Bill in the same cemetery as his father. And when the movie ends, Amsterdam and Jenny leave New York to start a new life.
The book Gangs of New York I think is a fantastic book.It contains historical information that is clearly presented along with a captivating plot.The revenge climax in the movie kept my attention the entire time wondering what was going to happen next. And when Amsterdam finally killed Bill I was satisfied with a good ending and not a cliffhanger into a second film. I rate it 10/10.
Mr. Hart
English III
12/10/2018
Gangs of New York
The book Gangs of New York is about a man named Amsterdam Vallon and the story of his life. In the beginning of the movie he is a young boy in a scene that follows his father’s death after Bill Cutting stabs him while fighting over the five points which is the neighborhood he had lived in as a child. The neighborhood was notoriously known for its gang violence (gangs fighting to control the five points). After his father is killed, young Amsterdam is sent off to an orphanage and raised there. After that when he is grown, he returns to the place he used to live, The Five Points, where he finds it run by lower gangs but the most powerful is the natives which is ran by Bill Cutting.
It's also the time of the Civil War and forced drafts for the military lead to the worst riots in US history. With the violence and corruption occurring within Cuttings gang and politics, Vallon tries to infiltrate Cuttings gang and seek revenge on his father's death. He shortly becomes friends with a man named Johnny which introduces him to all of the gangs in the neighborhood. Amsterdam keeps his identity hidden, so they don’t know who he really is. When he finds out Bill is going to later host a party to celebrate his victory against the Irish, he plots to assassinate Bill with the knife Bill murdered his father with which he had hidden before he was taken. Later, he begins to like this girl named Jenny, who Johnny is in love with. On the night of the party Johnny tells Bill who Amsterdam really was because he was jealous of Jenny and Amsterdam. Bill and Amsterdam soon got into a fight, then Bill decided that he should live in shame, so Bill scalds his face with a hot blade of a knife. Shortly after Amsterdam and Jenny ran away and hid.
After his wound is healed, he returns for the second time to the five points to attempt to get revenge on bill. While he’s at the five points, draft riots begin to occur and turned into an extreme fight. The Union Army was ordered to control the riots. Many soldiers and people were killed. During the chaos Bill and Amsterdam begin a duel. Finally, Amsterdam stabs Bill and kills him with his fathers’ knife. After Amsterdam buries Bill in the same cemetery as his father. And when the movie ends, Amsterdam and Jenny leave New York to start a new life.
The book Gangs of New York I think is a fantastic book.It contains historical information that is clearly presented along with a captivating plot.The revenge climax in the movie kept my attention the entire time wondering what was going to happen next. And when Amsterdam finally killed Bill I was satisfied with a good ending and not a cliffhanger into a second film. I rate it 10/10.
August 31, 2019
An engrossing historical chronicle about gang activity in New York starting in the early 1800s through to 1927. This book was published that same year, so it sits much closer to the events and feels more contemporary.
Gangs of New York is controversial. Although it's clearly the product of deep research, many of the tales are anecdotal. The information is densely packed, but varies from broad strokes to specific accounts of events or timelines. It devotes two very detailed chapters to the Draft Riots of the mid-1800s and gives a lot of time to some personalities.
You can't really make this kind of thing up. But tiny pinches of salt might be needed now and then. Events appear to be presented pretty evenhandedly, but the theme is clearly around the depravity and audacity of the gangsters chronicled. It occasionally veers into salacious, almost tabloid, descriptions, but overall this is a reasonably balanced book.
Still, historians have challenged some of its contexts and descriptions, so don't treat it as gospel.
A side note: the introduction of the book is very interesting, completely missing the rise of organised crime through bootlegging alcohol. The last part of the book, despite touching on the years since the Volstead act (aka. Prohibition) became active, hardly mentions bootleggers! The introduction goes as far as to explain why gangs wouldn't reappear in New York - this is in 1927, four years before Al Capone was sent to prison and the Mafia's five families were created. Talk about hindsight being 20/20!
Second side note: Martin Scorcese's movie uses material mostly found in the first third, though it employs numerous references from across the book. For example, the character notching a club with successful attacks mimicked a tradition by Monk Eastman, a gangster active from the 1890s to 1910s. Only a few background characters in the movie were based on actual people. None of the main characters were real, though there were a couple of Bill the Butchers in the period. The gangs all did exist, but weren't bound by any particular laws or rituals. They just fought a lot, and drank and engaged in crime in between. Few of the events in the movie are in the book and in the case of the Draft Riots they present very different interpretations. But many of the locations did exist.
Gangs of New York is controversial. Although it's clearly the product of deep research, many of the tales are anecdotal. The information is densely packed, but varies from broad strokes to specific accounts of events or timelines. It devotes two very detailed chapters to the Draft Riots of the mid-1800s and gives a lot of time to some personalities.
You can't really make this kind of thing up. But tiny pinches of salt might be needed now and then. Events appear to be presented pretty evenhandedly, but the theme is clearly around the depravity and audacity of the gangsters chronicled. It occasionally veers into salacious, almost tabloid, descriptions, but overall this is a reasonably balanced book.
Still, historians have challenged some of its contexts and descriptions, so don't treat it as gospel.
A side note: the introduction of the book is very interesting, completely missing the rise of organised crime through bootlegging alcohol. The last part of the book, despite touching on the years since the Volstead act (aka. Prohibition) became active, hardly mentions bootleggers! The introduction goes as far as to explain why gangs wouldn't reappear in New York - this is in 1927, four years before Al Capone was sent to prison and the Mafia's five families were created. Talk about hindsight being 20/20!
Second side note: Martin Scorcese's movie uses material mostly found in the first third, though it employs numerous references from across the book. For example, the character notching a club with successful attacks mimicked a tradition by Monk Eastman, a gangster active from the 1890s to 1910s. Only a few background characters in the movie were based on actual people. None of the main characters were real, though there were a couple of Bill the Butchers in the period. The gangs all did exist, but weren't bound by any particular laws or rituals. They just fought a lot, and drank and engaged in crime in between. Few of the events in the movie are in the book and in the case of the Draft Riots they present very different interpretations. But many of the locations did exist.
April 14, 2020
Written in 1929, the book is enlightening about the condition of the City of New York in its developing years, and it is NOT about the wealthy families. I can't even imagine what living in the density of people in a constricted area would have been like. The Five Points drew the people who were used to a hard life, and they had it in New York just like they did back in Europe.
The author describes the colorful gangs, criminals, politicians, and others who populated the area from the 1840's on. The chapters depicting the treatment of the Black population are hard to read, but then so are the chapters about the Irish. Oh, my. I have never read about the Draft Riots, and I learned more than I wanted to know.
Not for the squeamish.
The author describes the colorful gangs, criminals, politicians, and others who populated the area from the 1840's on. The chapters depicting the treatment of the Black population are hard to read, but then so are the chapters about the Irish. Oh, my. I have never read about the Draft Riots, and I learned more than I wanted to know.
Not for the squeamish.
August 28, 2018
its ok, pretty detailed history. sometimes overly detailed.
March 27, 2017
Fun but not totally accurate of that era.
April 7, 2020
Wasn't an easy book to read, but it was chock-full of stories. Great source material for anyone creative enough to use it. And no, it's nothing like the Martin Scorsese film.
May 27, 2021
more like 3.5 but exciting and I’m a sucker for NY history
December 28, 2020
Gangs of New York is exactly the sort of book that I’d like to use to beat some sense into the types of people always looking back fondly to the ‘good old days’ (which are always much better when seen through rose-tinted glasses and presume that the person looking back would have been a rich, white man to elevate themselves above all the shit), a comprehensive look at the many, many stampings, stabbings, robberies, murders, riots and much more perpetrated by the incredible and vast array of gangs that bedevilled New York throughout the 1800’s, not forgetting to include those who enabled, incited and quite often joined them - the police, fire brigades and the Tammany politicians who kept many of the gangsters on their payrolls to further their own nefarious plans.
Reading this made me boggle sometimes that New York is even still standing - the shocking destruction caused by the many riots that even reached into the wealthy parts of the city, robbing and burning the homes of the well-to-do, was really quite incredible while the paltry sums that people were regularly beaten to death for make you realise just how hard life was for anyone not a member of the very highest classes. Less shocking, sadly, was the violent racism prevalent in every level of society, from the richest to the very poorest, with every bit of civic trouble seemingly used as an excuse to lynch members of the black community, nor was the disgusting behaviour of the police and politicians.
If you’ve seen the Scorsese film of the same name, not to worry - the film only deals with around the first eighth of the book (and Scorsese has naturally used a great deal of artistic license to shoehorn some of the facts and figures found inside into his film) and most of what you’ll read is actually much more shockingly violent and corrupt than Scorsese could ever have hoped to have depicted, though at times repetitive,
I did find it rather amusing though, to find Asbury finishing up in 1920 saying that was the last New York saw of gangs….
**Also posted at Cannonball Read 12**
Reading this made me boggle sometimes that New York is even still standing - the shocking destruction caused by the many riots that even reached into the wealthy parts of the city, robbing and burning the homes of the well-to-do, was really quite incredible while the paltry sums that people were regularly beaten to death for make you realise just how hard life was for anyone not a member of the very highest classes. Less shocking, sadly, was the violent racism prevalent in every level of society, from the richest to the very poorest, with every bit of civic trouble seemingly used as an excuse to lynch members of the black community, nor was the disgusting behaviour of the police and politicians.
If you’ve seen the Scorsese film of the same name, not to worry - the film only deals with around the first eighth of the book (and Scorsese has naturally used a great deal of artistic license to shoehorn some of the facts and figures found inside into his film) and most of what you’ll read is actually much more shockingly violent and corrupt than Scorsese could ever have hoped to have depicted, though at times repetitive,
I did find it rather amusing though, to find Asbury finishing up in 1920 saying that was the last New York saw of gangs….
**Also posted at Cannonball Read 12**
January 13, 2015
I learned about this book from Borges' short essay "Monk Eastman, purveyor of iniquities," and have been meaning to check it out for some time, but only when I stumbled across this edition -- which was published to coincide with the Scorsese film -- did I pick it up. The foreword to this edition, fittingly enough, is actually the Borges essay.
Asbury wrote several books collecting sensational crime stories (the others focus on Chicago, New Orleans, and San Francisco). This one, on New York, is the most famous. (I haven't read the others but I assume the fact that New York is the oldest and most populous of the cities covered accounts for a lot.)
Asbury attempts to give some historical background, but tends to dwell on the most sensational events and does not shed much light on the "why"s of the gangs. Instead he tells interesting, even shocking, stories of the gangs and their most infamous members. We meet the real Hell-Cat Maggie (who filed her teeth to points and wore brass claws into brawls) and other unlikely gang leaders, including the entirely legendary Mose the Bowery Boy, who stood over 8 feet tall. We learn about the original "Hole in the Wall" bar -- run by Gallus Meg, a massive woman who was both the owner and the bouncer, and who collected ears from unruly customers. I was most impressed to learn of the pirates of the Hudson River, who raided docked ships and sold their booty to pawn shops, and numbered in the hundreds. There are ton of interesting tidbits, interspersed with some repetitive accounts of feuds and assassinations.
The reader can pick up a few bits of socio-economic and political information to help give the astonishing level of gang activity some context, but about halfway through it becomes a little repetitive. Things pick up a bit near then end of the book when the Tongs are introduced, but eventually the book just runs out of steam.
Still, it is pretty absorbing, especially in the first half. If I read more of his gang histories, I will probably give myself permission to skim more and skip sections.
Asbury wrote several books collecting sensational crime stories (the others focus on Chicago, New Orleans, and San Francisco). This one, on New York, is the most famous. (I haven't read the others but I assume the fact that New York is the oldest and most populous of the cities covered accounts for a lot.)
Asbury attempts to give some historical background, but tends to dwell on the most sensational events and does not shed much light on the "why"s of the gangs. Instead he tells interesting, even shocking, stories of the gangs and their most infamous members. We meet the real Hell-Cat Maggie (who filed her teeth to points and wore brass claws into brawls) and other unlikely gang leaders, including the entirely legendary Mose the Bowery Boy, who stood over 8 feet tall. We learn about the original "Hole in the Wall" bar -- run by Gallus Meg, a massive woman who was both the owner and the bouncer, and who collected ears from unruly customers. I was most impressed to learn of the pirates of the Hudson River, who raided docked ships and sold their booty to pawn shops, and numbered in the hundreds. There are ton of interesting tidbits, interspersed with some repetitive accounts of feuds and assassinations.
The reader can pick up a few bits of socio-economic and political information to help give the astonishing level of gang activity some context, but about halfway through it becomes a little repetitive. Things pick up a bit near then end of the book when the Tongs are introduced, but eventually the book just runs out of steam.
Still, it is pretty absorbing, especially in the first half. If I read more of his gang histories, I will probably give myself permission to skim more and skip sections.
April 25, 2009
As the title suggests, this book is about the gangs of New York. In particular, it's a collection of mostly short anecdotes, in rough chronological order running from the mid nineteenth century through the early twentieth century. This rogue's gallery is full of tales about the worst sort of scofflaws: murderers, pickpockets, pimps, ear-biters, and greedy politicians. These tales of violence and depravity are interesting to read, but since most of the figures appear for only a few pages at a time and there is a certain feeling of repetition to the stories of gangland grudges and police crackdowns, the book lacks a certain momentum.
Oddly, the most interesting section wasn't really about gangs at all. There are a few chapters in the middle about the draft riots of 1863, a several day period when the citizens of New York, scared of conscription and angry at the rich who could buy their way out of the draft, looted much of and almost burnt down the entire city in a giant riot during the middle of the Civil War. Thousands died and most of the police force was injured or incapacitated. The riots were had to be quelled by a quickly mobilized combination of parts of the National Guard and the Union army.
The Martin Scorsese movie of the same name mainly takes setting and color from the book as well as the event of the draft riot, since there isn't really a complete story in the book to grab onto, but is quite worth watching in its own right, especially for the hats and the performance of Daniel Day Lewis.
Oddly, the most interesting section wasn't really about gangs at all. There are a few chapters in the middle about the draft riots of 1863, a several day period when the citizens of New York, scared of conscription and angry at the rich who could buy their way out of the draft, looted much of and almost burnt down the entire city in a giant riot during the middle of the Civil War. Thousands died and most of the police force was injured or incapacitated. The riots were had to be quelled by a quickly mobilized combination of parts of the National Guard and the Union army.
The Martin Scorsese movie of the same name mainly takes setting and color from the book as well as the event of the draft riot, since there isn't really a complete story in the book to grab onto, but is quite worth watching in its own right, especially for the hats and the performance of Daniel Day Lewis.
December 3, 2010
There's a long tradition in New York of looking back on bygone periods of mind-bogglingly dangerous violent crime with a sort of wistful, carefree nostalgia. (Oh, will no one bring back the heroin-soaked early 80's, when you could ride a broke-ass graffiti covered subway car to the East Village, step over half-a-dozen junkies on your way up the Bowery to see a real live punk band (!) and then get blackjacked by a mugger trying to stumble home at 1:30?)
This one's the grand-daddy of them all, freely mixing American tall-tale hokeyness with lurid tabloid journalism to craft an outsized picture of the city's criminal element in the latter half of the 1800's, a time when various police forces, fire brigades, and gangsters almost blurred together as one ultra violent warring mob on Tammany Hall's payroll.
With more than a few winks, Asbury blends legendary accounts that can't possibly be real (8-feet hoodlums who, Hulk-like, swing trees and lamp posts as clubs) in with countless, probably true stories of big city slum crime. Occasionally the text degenerates into lists of gang names, ridiculous underworld sobriquets, and catalogs of weaponry that start out fun and then glaze your eyes over, and there's plenty of casual 1920's bigotry sprinkled throughout (those sneaky, sneaky China-men), but, you know, all in good fun.
This one's the grand-daddy of them all, freely mixing American tall-tale hokeyness with lurid tabloid journalism to craft an outsized picture of the city's criminal element in the latter half of the 1800's, a time when various police forces, fire brigades, and gangsters almost blurred together as one ultra violent warring mob on Tammany Hall's payroll.
With more than a few winks, Asbury blends legendary accounts that can't possibly be real (8-feet hoodlums who, Hulk-like, swing trees and lamp posts as clubs) in with countless, probably true stories of big city slum crime. Occasionally the text degenerates into lists of gang names, ridiculous underworld sobriquets, and catalogs of weaponry that start out fun and then glaze your eyes over, and there's plenty of casual 1920's bigotry sprinkled throughout (those sneaky, sneaky China-men), but, you know, all in good fun.
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