Essay On Five Points

During the Civil War times, New York was full of many slums, including Five Points in Manhattan. It was full of gangs, crimes and several bars. It was full of many Irish immigrants trying to escape the Great Famine in Ireland. Five Points was considered one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in New York. This paper will tell you all about the neighborhood of Five Points. Five Points was completely made up of immigrants. Irish people came to escape the Great Famine, and many of them also lived a life of crime and were also trying to escape that. However, they continued this lifestyle in America. Also, Five Points was the first free black settlement in America. It was very rare during this time period that blacks lived in the same area as other …show more content…
One of this most famous breweries is The Old Brewery. It was built in 1792 and was first called Coulters Brewery. During the Civil War time period, The Old Brewery was no longer in use because it became very worn down over the years. Many homeless people took shelter here and it became known by the people around there as “the Den of Thieves”. Around seventy-five different people usually lived there at a time although, at one over 1000 people lived there. It became the home for the thieves, prostitutes, and murderers of the neighborhood. Marriage between different races and incest was a typical thing for the people living in the Old Brewery. It was a very known place for criminals to hide, but police didn’t dare come in in fear of getting mobbed by all of the criminals that lived there. It is thought that there was at least one murder every night, but many murders went unreported so there is no way of knowing how many murders there actually were. The churches unsuccessfully tried to help the living conditions, but were always run out of the Old Brewery by all of the criminals. In 1852, The Missionary Society bought the place and kicked everyone out and cleaned it