"This is the place: these narrow ways, diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruits here as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors, have counterparts at home, and all the wide world over. Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old, See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays. Many of those pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright in lieu of going on all-fours? and why they talk instead of grunting?"

So spoke author Charles Dickens upon visiting the notorious Manhattan district of Five Points while on a visit to New York in the mid 19th Century. What makes the tenor of these words all the more remarkable is the fact that Dickens, given the subject matter of his novels, was certainly no stranger to observing abject misery in the extreme and not prone to hyperbole. Other luminaries were equal ly nonplussed with this nefarious neighborhood bordering the five "points" or streets of Mulberry, Cross (now Park), Anthony (now Worth), Orange (now Baxter) and Little Water (now gone). Daniel Boone, being of Irish stock himself, was so unnerved by this immigrant cesspool that he felt compelled to report: "In my part of the country, when you meet an Irishman, you find a first-rate gentleman; but these are worse than savages; they are too mean to swab hell's kitchen," Davey Crockett, who would later die with Boone at the Alamo, remarked that he would "rather risk [himself] in an Indian fight than venture among these creatures after night." Even Mark Twain was moved to label the area, " the most insidious place on earth", after an altogether brief visit to the notorious district. Little wonder then that from the mid to late 19th Century the Five Points (Or "auld Sixth Ward" as some referred to it) would prove to be the most fertile breeding ground of gang activity in US history; and also the scene of the most extreme non-military related violence that America had ever known before or since.

Throughout the 19th Century, New York's populace experienced a demographical upheaval that makes the everchanging city we know today appear positively sedentary. As the New World began to appear more and more appealing to European peasants seeking to flee tyranny, poverty, and even boredom, immigrants began to arrive on American shores in unprecedented numbers. Cities on the Eastern Seaboard of the US, such as Boston, Philadelphia, Savannah and particularly New York began to experience an influx of immigrants drawn from every race in the ethnic spectrum. And no race was more robustly represented than the Irish. From approximately 10,000 in 1790, New York's Irish population, due to a connuence of factors such as the famine and the easing of prejudicial attitudes towards Catholics, had risen to over 400,000 by 1845. Most were relegated to living in the appalling slums that sprouted up around a city unable to deal competently with such a vast human cargo.

Five Points, located in the area now housing Manhattan's Civic Center and Foley Square, was by far the most notorious and populous of all the pitiful slums that sprung up throughout the city. Originally the site of a relatively idyllic settlement in the early history of the city, the plush green meadows of the area bordered a picturesque lake named "The Collect." With the vast flow of immigrants entering the city throughout the 19th Century, the neighborhood soon began to buckle under the weight of new arrivals as living spaces became utterly overcrowded and sanitary conditions deteriorated at an alarming rate. Slaughterhouses, warehouses and industrial businesses began to surround The Collect, permeating the pure air with the fumes of pollution and turning the lake into a toxic hazard. By 1813 the stench had become so unbearable that the lake was filled in by city authorities, though the smell never quite dissipated. This work had hardly been completed when waves of people, eager for living space of any kind, began constructing dwellings on the reclaimed land. They soon discovered, much to their chagrin, that the efforts at reclaiming the land were lackadaisical at best, making the ground akin to a swamp. No sooner were houses built than they began sinking into the marshy ground even as the damp rose up the walls. As the steady Stream of newcomers continued to land at Ellis Island each day, tenement houses dotted the landscape of Five Points and overcrowding became a way of life for inhabitants.

By the early 1820's, the neighborhood contained almost a third of all the city's immigrants as Irish, Germans and African Americans thronged Five Points' seedy streets. Conditions were simply appalling as buildings designed to house 20 occupants more often held over ten times that amount in the most Spartan conditions imaginable. In a midcentury study carried out by city authorities it was found that one bathtub was used by 1,321 families and many buildings did not even have running water. Cholera was a constant threat and Five Points, as the city's most densely populated area, accounted for almost 40% of all deaths from the dreaded disease in 19th Century New York. The lack of sanitary conditions and scarcity of medical personnel meant that many died from illnesses that were entirely treatable even only a few scant miles away. Disease was not the only threat however, as this hodgepodge blend of races soon developed marauding gangs of Protestants, audaciously terming themselves "native Americans", began raiding Five Points in search of Irish quarry. By the 1820's over one in twenty people died each year in Five Points and the neighborhood became famous for its rather unnattering slogan of "a-murder-a-night."

Given these adverse conditions it is hardly surprising then that the poor of Five Points began to travel in groups for protection and work together in an effort to escape their pathetic lives. At first these groups usually comprised of individuals from the same area of Ireland, a trait that also characterized many tenement houses of the day. The constant siege of "native American" marauders and religious bigotry encountered by the Irish in particular only reinforced the notion of "us and them" and, as despair turned to defiance, the dynamics and agendas of Irish gangs also began to change. In a world of little hope where Irish people were considered to be somewhat less than human, the gang, as is the case today, began to compensate for societal shortcomings. Gangs afforded members a feeling of solidarity in a fractious world, a feeling of sanctuary when surrounded by hostility and, as many soon discovered: a feeling of power in a world that demands your subservience.

Gangs are not a new phenomena as even the bible and other ancient texts make many references to the topic. The gang as we know it today though, can most likely be traced back to 12th Century India where a gang calling themselves "Thugeez" or "Thugz" were renowned for both their delinquency and ferocity. What distinguished them from their contemporaries however, was their use of hand signals as a secret form of communication and the expectation that members adhere to a particular dress code. These characteristics allowed a gang as far-flung as the Thugeez to recognize each other immediately and communicate in virtual secrecy whilst the uniform gave them both an identity and a feeling of solidarity. These basic tents have become the blueprint for most gangs today and the Irish gangs of New York were no different.

In 1825, an Irish lady named Rosanna Peers opened a small green grocers just south of Worth Street where curious passers by pondered as to how anyone would be interested in purchasing fruit and vegetables that were positively rancid. What these innocents could not know was that Peers' real business was contained in a hidden room at the back where she furtively sold liquor to the Irish of the neighborhood; a practice that was common place at the time. Such a contentious trade was often quite hazardous to the owner's health as it often forced them to deal with a whole manner of violent and unscrupulous individuals so Peers was delighted when a young tough named Edward Coleman and his friends began frequenting her premises. In 1826, Coleman officially formed a gang named the Forty Thieves, using Peers' store as their base. This represent ed the first known reference to an organized Irish gang in New York The group, involving a loose affiliation of various delinquents, gained a reputation for violence and theft though they were never considered to be overly serious about organization or direction. Through selling low-grade liquor, battling with antiIrish thugs and operating a variety of crude protection rackets, the gang struck fear into the hearts of New Yorkers, though a lack of discipline and structure eventually saw them committed to history as they faded to insignificance.

The only other dominant Irish gang in Manhattan at the time was a group known as the Kerryonians, comprised entirely, as you might expect, of men either born in or with parents from County Kerry in Ireland. Their mandate was quite simple: attack and attempt to destroy anything associated with Britain. Though numbering only several hundred, the gang compensated for their lack of members by launching capricious and audacious attacks on British subjects and interests throughout the city. Lacking discipline and decimated by the lengthy jail sentences handed down to their leaders, the Kerryonians also proved to be an ephemeral entity.

What could euphemistically be described as the golden age of the New York gangs began in the 1830's with the formation of such outfits as the Dead Rabbits, Roach Guards and Plug Uglies, and was characterized by an increasing reliance on organization that allowed the gangs to nourish as criminal enterprises. Each gang had its own distinct style of dress and modus operandi. The Dead Rabbits' name, for example, was born when a dispute amongst some of the founding members led one man to throw a rabbit into the middle of the floor. Henceforth, whenever the gang went to battle a rival outfit, one member would carry a spear or pike on which a rabbit was impaled. The gang also wore pants with a red stripe down the side and required all members to be over six feet tall. Alternately, the Plug Uglies' name derived from their members propensity for wearing plug shaped hats stuffed with wool and leather; ideally suited to protecting the owners head and effective as a weapon when swung like a mace.

Each gang also had their own patch of territory, which they fiercely defended whilst also cultivating criminal enterprises such as prostitution and gambling. With literally hundreds of gangs multiplying throughout the city, murder ran disease a close second as the leading cause of death amongst the Irish on the streets of Manhattan. Membership of these gangs ranged fi·om the dozens to the thousands, whilst many formed alliances, bloody internecine feuds often resulted in the streets of Five Points being littered with bodies of combatants. A lack of official records and the fact that most gangs took their dead away to be buried in "gang plots", means that establishing even a ballpark figure on casualties proves extremely difficult but a yearly estimate in the low thousands would not be inconceivable.

The natural enemies of these gangs, and the catalyst that made their existence possible, were the protestant gangs that made the lot of a New York Catholic so miserable. Although there were many such collectives, the Bowery Boys were far and away the largest and most violent of all the protestant gangs. Their hatred of Catholics in general, Irish in particular and vainglorious belief that they represented "real Americans" made the zealots of hatred a fearsome bunch indeed. Traveling in huge packs and carrying an awesome array of weaponry, the Bowery Boys would enter Five Points on maniacal missions of malice, indiscriminately beating all in their path, burning out houses and stealing all that they could lay their hands on. The battles between the Bowery Boys and the Irish outfits, most particularly the Dead Rabbits, were of a terrible and epic nature as men set upon each other with bricks, knives, bats and guns, until one group was vanquished. Survivors would retreat to their lairs and lay plans to re-enact the whole scene at the earliest possible convenience.

As gangs became more ambitious, grew ever larger in numbers and became both brazen and indiscriminate in their acts of violence, a tired citizenry began to justifiably believe that New York was marching down a poison path toward chaos. 1834 only served to reinforce such a notion as the city, and America in general, experienced a violent year like no other. Across the US there were 147 independent instances of riots with most gang related. New York bore the brunt of this vicious trend as the city's municipal elections sparked off three days of rioting resulting in an untold number of deaths. Gangs had now allied themselves with "like-minded" political parties, offering their services to intimidate voters into voting for a particular candidate or even assassinating members of their enemy's party. In return they received political favors and carte blanche from their sponsors to continue their shenanigans unmolested.

By the early 1840's, gangs were controlling large tracts of New York real estate through an aggressive recruitment of new immigrants and an increasing observance of discipline and organization. The city appeared ever nearer a fatal precipice and according to an 1842 New York City Council report: "The property of the citizen is pilfered, almost before his eyes. Dwellings and warehouses are entered with an ease and apparent coolness and carelessness of detection which shows none are safe...Thousands that are arrested go unpunished, and the defenseless and the beautiful are ravished and murdered in the day time, and no trace of the criminals is found." The police force, still based on the antiquated Dut~h constable system, only exacerbated the problem with many gangs having more members than the entire police department!

Outgunned, demoralized and, in many cases, on the payroll of the gangs, the police force were unable to stem the spiraling murder rates and had to turn a blind eye to much of the gang's activities until Mayor Robert Morris began overhauling the department in an effort to halt the city's march to the abyss. Morris' ideas found application under his successor, William Havemeyer, who formed the Municipal Police Department in 1845. With George W Malsell as chief much was expected of the 900 new recruits but the plan was inherently nawed as corruption went on unabated. The warring political factions of Tammany Hall Democrats, who used the Dead Rabbits as a private army, and protestant Whigs affiliated with the Bowery Boys, hired only police that were sympathetic to their agendas meaning that, in many cases, gang members were actually recruited as police. Corruption was endemic as the worlds of the street and politics were symbiotically linked. When Mayor Fernando Wood took power in the 1850's, the situation worsened considerably. Adored by Democrats, and by extension the Irish (even though he was an avowed, yet secretive member of the anti-Catholic "Know-Nothing" Party), Woods began using the Municipal cops like his own personal army. Infuriated and fearful of Wood's overt embracing of the Irish, in 1857 Whigs forced government to pass an act forming a new police force to be called the Metropolitan police. Tammany Hall, and therefore the Irish, were now the aggrieved party but their ire grew in intensity when they discovered the other main tenet of this act. Whigs had attempted several times, by political means, to inject their brand of gentility into the Irish neighborhoods, and failed upon each occasion. The act creating the Metropolitan Police Force also attempted to curb drinking hours in the city and stipulated that all taverns remained closed every Sunday. With Protestants largely observing abstinence, the Irish viewed this law as a racist affront. On Sunday July 4th, 1857, they showed their defiance in Five Points as packed taverns, guarded zealously by gangs such as the Dead Rabbits and Plug Uglies, remained open all day. City officials demanded that action be taken and sent the newly formed police force, along with a huge contingent of Bowery Boys, marching into the neighborhood determined to quell Irish resistance. By the time they withdrew the next day (many witnesses in fact claimed that Five Point's gangs chased them out), at least 12 were dead and hundreds seriously injured in what was America's biggest gang fight, yet this proved only a precursor of the battle to come.

For the next several years the gangs continued this policy of governing their neighborhoods as neo-fiefdoms. A degree of sophistication, albeit of the more insidious kind, saw gangs begin to assume the form we recognize today as they developed central leadership and began branching out into lucrative ventures such as prostitution, gambling, murder-for-hire and drugs. This tenuous peace was often punctuated by eruptions of violence between rival outfits as the hatred between the Irish and their protestant neighbors continued to simmer.

Boiling point came two years into the Civil War when president Abraham Lincoln, his armies decimated in the furious fighting, attempted to enlist new soldiers by introducing conscription. Each male between the age of 20 and 45 whose name was drawn in the draft had the choice of enlisting immediately, finding someone to take their place or paying %300 to the government to obtain an exemption. For the Irish, already embittered by the competition they faced for scarce jobs from the steady stream of freed blacks making their way to the city, the act proved to be an anathema. Most viewed the war as being a contest between the power and money of the North against the rural spirituality of the South; much like the conflict that had driven them from their home country. The $300 exemption fee, whilst affordable to many of their protestant counterparts, proved impossibly high for poor American-Irish and was held up as yet another example of institutionalized racism against Irish people. Anger swept through neighborhoods such as Five Points and Hell's Kitchen like a growing tsunamis of rage. On July 3, 1863, the wave crashed.

On that balmy morning, antidraft mobs began gathering in Union Square to vent their frustration but, within hours, the entire protest degenerated into an orgy of violence orchestrated by the Dead Rabbits and Roach Guards pitted against government forces. As the Bowery Boys and Atlantic Guards entered the fray, the sentiment of the mob moved from being a protest against the draft to a more sinister, sectarian impetus. Over three days, an estimated crowd of over 70,000 wrought havoc throughout Manhattan in scenes of violence that, thankfully, have not been seen since in American society. The New York Times reported the air to "be thick with bricks, bottles and knives" as rival factions, the army, police and even ordinary citizens attempted to snuff out each other's existence. Heinous acts became the order of the day with tales of unmitigated violence coming from all quarters. US Army Colonel H. J. O'Brien was tied to the back of a horse and dragged up and down the cobblestone streets until a priest persuaded the mob to allow him administer last rites to the unfortunate soldier. His captors acquiesced but, as soon as the priest finished, O'Brien was set upon once again by the murderous mob. This time he was tortured with knives and beaten with rocks, left out in the unrelenting sun for three hours before finally being taken to his own garden, where Irish women brandishing knives slowly sliced what little life was left out of him. Indeed, eyewitnesses on the day verify that women played their part in the melee with many seen in the heat of gang battle brandishing knives and clubs. Those women who were unable or unwilling to participate in the actual fighting could often be seen pouring boiling oil into the wounds of prone victims.

Regrettably, African Americans, for the reasons given above, proved to be a popular target and bodies of lynched blacks hung from lampposts throughout the city. Others escaped to rooftops as arsonist's flames licked up their building's stairwells but had to jump off as the inferno closed in, only to be set upon by the mob waiting below. Even black children's orphanages were razed to the ground and survivors hacked to death. As fires raged throughout the city, firefighters often joined in the wholesale looting and Manhattan may well have burned to the ground were it not for a huge thunderstorm that dumped inches of rain on the burning city. For three days Irish and protestant gangs fought open and ensanguined war on the streets. In an irony that Lincoln must have recognized, troops were actually recalled from Cettysburg and West Point in an effort to restore order.

The full horror of the incident only became apparent when relative calm was finally restored. Over 2,000 civilians and 350 government troops were dead with another 10,000 people wounded. 88 African-Americans were lynched and virtually every member of the police force required medical treatment. Damage to the city was estimated at over S5,000,000; an unfathomable sum in 1863. Despite this horror and carnage, only 20 people came to trial for the incident and, incredibly, not one was charged with murder.

Though gangs continued to be a common feature of New York life for the next 75 years, the wake of the so called "Draft Day Riots" meant that their days of omnipotency and ascendancy were well and truly over. The horror felt by Americans as stories of the event proliferated through the rest of the country coupled with the realization of how close the city had come to chaos, instilled a new resolve in officials to destroy the power of gangs once and for all. Laws such as those permitting the immediate arrest and incarceration of gang members if even seen in certain areas of the city, proved extremely potent in encouraging delinquents to change their attitudes. Even the largest gangs saw their ranks thinned by faction fighting that split the larger group into smaller less organized units whose power was extremely limited and in less than a generation gangs such as the Plug Uglies and Dead Rabbits were definitively consigned to the history books. The arrival of new races of immigrants also ensured that the Irish were no longer the low race on the totem pole and hastened their assimilation into American society. Some gangs, most notably the Eastman Gang and Paul Kelly Gang (whose alumni included Al Capone and Lucky Luciano), did attain relatively high profiles in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th Centuries but viewed violence as a necessary tool as opposed to a way of life.

These new breeds were characterized by cunning and stealth, operating strictly in the shadows of a world unknown to most. Driven originally by nationalistic zeal and the very real threat of annihilation by their neighbors, the Irish gangs had served their purpose and, if truth be known, helped hasten in their acceptance as a race. Their methods were reprehensible, their acts deplorable and their terrifying legacy endemic, yet out of it all "a terrible beauty" was born.

Images from the movie,'The Gangs of New York" supplied by Miramax Films.