The message below came from another list I'm on from NYC.  Are you all city
fellas familiar with this place?  Sounds interesting.  Ruth The Country
Mouse






On page 47 of today's (Oct. 10, 2001) Daily News is a full page photograph,
labelled from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York, of Jacob
Riis' "Bandits' Roost", circa 1888.  Page 49 has a full page article about
Five Points and a book called, "Five Points: The 19th Century New York City
Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's
Most Notorious Slum" (Free Press) by Tyler Anbinder, who spent 9 years
researching his book.  Included is a map of the area (Canal Street south to
Chatham Street with Baxter Street on the west to Elizabeth Street on the
east.)  Areas are marked  where these groups resided:  Jewish and Christian
Germans, Christian Germans, Jewish, African-American and Irish.  A quote from
the author might explain the expected-unexpected for those who are
researching roots in this area.  "If there was a woman in a neighboring
apartment, and that widow dies, you took those orphans in," says Anbinder, an
associate professor of history at George Washington University, in
Washington, D.C.  "And you had nothing to begin with.  It's hard to imagine
New York that way . . .but you watched out for each other."  Mention is made
of the first designated (7 stories tall) tenement built in 1865 which still
stands at 65 Mott Street and today houses a pharmacy.  "You can see the
standard two-room apartment.  The front room, 12 (feet) by 12 (feet), was
your kitchen, your living room, your den.  The back room, 8 by 10, was a
sleeping closet with no windows.  But people worried about the lack of
ventiliation - they believed vapors carried disease - so they would crowd
into the front room to sleep, spreading out straw and hay.  On average, there
would be about six people in two rooms, but that ranged up to as many as 12."
To read a condensed version of this article go to the Daily News URL at
http://nydailynews.com/today/New_York_Now/Culture/a-127928.asp
--
Ruth Barton
[log in to unmask]
Westminster, VT