New Yorks Most Notorious Neighborhood

It is impossible to overstate how notorious the lower Manhattan neighborhood called the Five Points was throughout the 1800s. It was said to be the roost of gang members and criminals of all types, and was widely known, and feared, as the home turf of flamboyant gangs of Irish immigrants. The reputation of the Five Points was so widespread that when the famous author Charles Dickens visited New York on his first trip to America in 1842, the chronicler of Londons underside wanted to see it for himself. Nearly 20 years later, Abraham Lincoln visited the Five Points during a visit to New York while he was considering running for president. Lincoln spent time at a Sunday school run by reformers trying to change the neighborhood and stories of his visit appeared in newspaper months later, during his 1860 campaign. The Location Provided the Name The Five Points took its name because it marked the intersection of four streets—Anthony, Cross, Orange, and Little Water—which came together to form an irregular intersection with five corners. In the past century, the Five Points has essentially disappeared, as streets have been redirected and renamed. Modern office buildings and courthouses have been constructed on what had been a slum known around the world. Population of the Neighborhood The Five Points, in the mid-1800s, was known primarily as an Irish neighborhood. The public perception at the time was that the Irish, many of whom were fleeing the Great Famine, were criminal by nature. And the appalling slum conditions and pervasive crime of the Five Points only contributed to that attitude. While the neighborhood was predominantly Irish in the 1850s, there were also African-Americans, Italians, and various other immigrant groups. The ethnic groups living in close proximity created some interesting cultural cross-pollination, and legend holds that tap dancing developed in the Five Points. African American dancers adapted moves from Irish dancers, and the result was American tap dancing. Shocking Conditions Prevailed Reform movements of the mid-1800s spawned pamphlets and books detailing horrendous urban conditions. And it seems that mentions of the Five Points always figure prominently in such accounts. Its hard to know how accurate the lurid descriptions of the neighborhood are, as the writers generally had an agenda and an obvious reason to exaggerate. But accounts of people essentially packed into small spaces and even underground burrows seem so common that they are probably true. The Old Brewery A large building which had been a brewery in colonial times was a notorious landmark in the Five Points. It was claimed that up to 1,000 poor people lived in the Old Brewery, and it was said to be a den of unimaginable vice, including gambling and prostitution and illegal saloons. The Old Brewery was torn down in the 1850s, and the site was given over to a mission whose purpose was to try to help neighborhood residents. Famous Five Points Gangs There are many legends about street gangs which formed in the Five Points. The gangs had names like the Dead Rabbits, and they were known to occasionally fight pitched battles with other gangs in the streets of lower Manhattan. The notoriety of the Five Points gangs was immortalized in the classic book Gangs of New York by Herbert Asbury, which was published in 1928. Asburys book was the basis of the Martin Scorsese film Gangs of New York, which portrayed the Five Points (though the film was criticized for many historical inaccuracies). While much of what has been written about the Five Points Gangs was sensationalized, if not entirely fabricated, the gangs did exist. In early July 1857, for example, the Dead Rabbits Riot was reported by the New York City newspapers. In days of confrontations, members of the Dead Rabbits emerged from the Five Points to terrorize members of other gangs. Charles Dickens Visited the Five Points The famed author Charles Dickens had heard about the Five Points and made a point of visiting when he came to New York City. He was accompanied by two policemen, who took him inside buildings where he saw residents drinking, dancing, and even sleeping in cramped quarters. His lengthy and colorful description of the scene appeared in his book American Notes. Below are excerpts: Poverty, wretchedness, and vice, are rife enough where we are going now. This is the place: these narrow ways, diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth...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...So far, nearly every house is a low tavern; and on the bar-room walls, are coloured prints of Washington, and Queen Victoria of England, and the American eagle. Among the pigeon-holes that hold the bottles, are pieces of plate-glass and coloured paper, for there is, in some sort, a taste for decoration, even here...What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies beyond this tottering flight of steps, that creak beneath our tread? AÂ  miserable room, lighted by one dim cand le, and destitute of all comfort, save that which may be hidden in a wretched bed. Beside it, sits a man, his elbows on his knees, his forehead hidden in his hands...(Charles Dickens, American Notes) Dickens went on at considerable length describing the horrors of the Five Points, concluding, all that is loathsome, drooping, and decayed is here. By the time Lincoln visited, nearly two decades later, much had changed in the Five Points. Various reform movements had swept through the neighborhood, and Lincolns visit was to a Sunday school, not a saloon. By the late 1800s, the neighborhood went through profound changes as laws were enforced and the dangerous reputation of the neighborhood faded away. Eventually, the neighborhood simply ceased to exist as the city grew. The location of the Five Points today would be roughly located under a complex of court buildings constructed in the early 20th century.

Notes On The Aids Epidemic - 1955 Words

Rosy Acosta Mr. Gehring 2nd Period AM History II Honors Unlocking Indiscreet Darkness: The AIDS Epidemic in the U.S HIV originated in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo around 1920, when HIV crossed species from chimpanzees to humans. HIV stands for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, if you are infected with HIV, your body will try to fight the infection with special molecules called â€Å"antibodies.† Being HIV-positive is not the same as having AIDS, stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome: Acquired means you can get infected with it; Immune Deficiency means a weakness in the body’s system that fights diseases; Syndrome means a group of health problems that make up a disease. You don’t just â€Å"get† AIDS, you may be infected†¦show more content†¦This marked the first official reporting of what came to be known as the AIDS epidemic. On the following day, June 6th, 1981, the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times reported on the MMWR. The San Francisco Chronicle covered the story, and within days doctors from all across the US flooded CD C with reports of similar cases. In addition, CDC also received reports of a rare and weirdly aggressive cancer called Kaposi’s Sarcoma, in a group of gay men in New York and California. On June 8th, CDC developed a Task Force on Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections (KSOI) to identify risk factors and establish a case definition for national surveillance. On July 3rd, there were about 41 cases of Kaposi’s Sarcoma allegedly affecting gay men in New York and California, by the end of the year there was a total of 270 reported cases of severe immune deficiency in gay men, and about 121 of those men died. http://www.webmd.com/hiv-aids/ss/slideshow-aids-retrospective AIDS first started affecting relatively healthy young gay men in the U.S in 1981. 1982, San Francisco, working closely with the Shanti Project and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, established the â€Å"San Francisco Model of Care† which emphasizes home and community based services. In January, the first American AIDS clinic was developed in San Francisco. That same month, the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the

How Far Do You Agree with the View That the Limited Appeal Free Essays

Mazzini was an important figurehead for the unification of Italy, historians such as Pearce and Stiles state that that ‘no one else campaigned for so long or so tirelessly in the cause of a united Italy’. He had extremely radical and liberal ideas about how Italy should be unified, and some historians Mazzini’s ideal was that Italy should be unified ‘from below’. He wanted the people of Italy to rise up from their high-powered oppressors, while still maintaining the opinion that if monarchs were prepared and wanted to fight against the Austrian domination, then they should be supported and not hindered. We will write a custom essay sample on How Far Do You Agree with the View That the Limited Appeal? or any similar topic only for you Order Now He wanted a ‘brotherhood of the people’ to all move toward greater social equality (Denis Mack Smith described him as having ‘contempt for xenophobia and imperialism) so that all of the people of Italy would unite in order to unify their country. Mazzini also stressed that Italy should be unified ‘by its own efforts’, wanting to avoid any outside help- especially from France- in fear that they may just replace one outside domination by another. However, the limited appeal of his ideas were shown when Italy was eventually united and done more-so from above than it was below- he was described as being ‘disgusted’ by this and criticized the new Italian unified state, describing it as a ‘dead corpse’. It could be argued that Italy could have been unified earlier under Mazzini’s watch if it had not been for how his ‘one overriding aim’ distracted from the main goal of a united Italy. It could also be argued, as Robert Pearce details, that Mazzini was ‘absent from Italy’ for such a long and extended period of him (totalling in ‘all over 40 years’) that he became ‘out of touch’ with this situation. This then caused him to over-exaggerate the ‘national identity’ of Italians. This meant that he dis-appreciated the revolutionary potential of the peasants/ the common people, as he had little to none contact with them and knew little about them. As a result of this blindness, his further attempts to cause unification failed, an example of this is an organised mutiny within the Piedmont that then failed- but the most obvious was the failure of the planned uprising in Naples, in which Mazzini went on the assumption that the peasants were ‘a volcano about to erupt’-whereas this was not the reality of the situation. We can also see examples of his disassociation to the ‘real’ people of Italy in his political society ‘Young Italy’; despite being hailed as ‘Italy’s first real political party’, their membership was extremely limited to well educated, young, middle-class men. It was here that one of Mazzini’s major weaknesses became apparent- that as a result of his ‘complex thinking’ as well as his studies of law and medicine, his ideas became too intellectually advanced for most people to grasp and most certainly too radical for the ‘cautious, middle-class reformers’. This prevented many from joining the cause- leading to failed coups in Piedmont as well as uprisings in Naples and Savoy. His supporters described him as the ‘greatest, bravest, most heroic of Italians’. His deeply radical approach led his political enemies to accuse him of being an ‘enemy of Italy’ and a ‘terrorist’. His ideas were of democracy, rights, and equality for all (he even campained for the rights of women, wanting to give them the vote). These ideas were exteremely liberal and were far from limited in the sense that they were not censored or right-wing and they inspired many to the cause. However, his ideas were unrealistic for the times (women would not get the full vote until after World War II), but it was the fact that his ideas were extremely modern and remarkably radical that converted people to Mazzini’s idea of a ‘democratic, self-governing state’. This would suggest that his ideas were not limited, but appealing to the people of Italy. How to cite How Far Do You Agree with the View That the Limited Appeal?, Essay examples

Fight the Dead and Fear the Living Essay Example For Students

Fight the Dead and Fear the Living Essay The meaning of zombie has changed so drastically from the times of White Zombie, to the current Walking Dead. In movies like Day of the Dead, or Return of the Living Dead, the zombie is essentially the villain. It is the bad guy, the one you need to watch out for. In the Walking Dead, the zombies are just a pest, like wolves, the humans become villains. Have we become so much deeper that we can get through such an event? Would society really crumble? Could this really happen? And in my opinion, what makes The Walking Dead so deep into today’s culture, how would I do? Who would my friends be? WOULD I SURVIVE? Over the course of this paper, I have refined my thesis down to a sort of simple thesis. How the idea of the living dead influenced the big 3 monsters (Frankenstein, Dracula The Mummy), and how these very primal fears have lasted for hundreds of years and permeated society even today. This paper opened my eyes to the fact that zombies are everywhere. From books, to comics, movies, music videogames. Why do we like zombies so much, why now? What is going on in the world that made us love the Walking Dead? Why do we run obstacle courses where we get physically injured by â€Å"zombies. † We miss our pets or our grandmother, just because we want them back doesn’t mean they should come back. If I had to sew my dogs tail back on every day because he is undead, it would probably break my heart more. Not to mention there is no way to stop the flesh from decomposing. Would granny be watching Judge Judy as her eyeballs fall out? Would it be cool to see Elvis, or Buddy Holly preform one more time? Yes, but we would be stuck with fat Elvis. Modern technology has borrowed something of Victor Frankenstein, at Coachella 2012 Snoop Dogg, started to preform a song with his long dead friend, Tupac Shakur. The lights went out and slowly Tupac rose from a platform on stage. This was not Tupac, but a High Definition Hologram of him animated to look and sound like he was preforming. This is how in the future, I will see Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash preform on stage. I can see Marlon Brando in a Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway, live. Will Hall of Presidents in Disneyworld get an upgrade where you can see Andrew Jackson and Bill Teddy Roosevelt’s inaugural address live? Is this zombies? It is dead people coming back to life and man, is it cool. But the idea of bringing loved ones back to life started the zombie fear or craze. Zombie: Originates Haitian Creole: zonbi; North Mbundu: nzumbe. Zombie is defined as an animated corpse resurrected by witchcraft, mystical means, or some other supernatural power. They are usually slow moving, not self-aware, and usually unintelligent. Zombies first officially appeared in 1929 in â€Å"the Magic Island† by William Seabrook. Personally I think the idea and the fear of zombies have been around for years before that. The idea of zombies has been around for a long time and are still a huge part in today’s pop culture. The first full length zombie movie came out in 1932 called White Zombie, since this movie came out there are countless zombie movies, books, TV shows, video games etc. I will mostly be focusing on the transition and comparison of zombie movies from White Zombie up to now, also how zombies are created differently through human creation, science, poison, radioactive accidents, disease, or witchcraft. In today’s society zombies are almost an obsession for some people, taking over all aspects of their lives. I am a victim to the zombie apocalypse that has taken over pop culture. I have been bitten. I mostly enjoy watching zombie movies and TV shows, I have not yet started to read the graphic novels or novels, I have played some zombie video games but I am not that fond of them. I have also thought about what I would do if a zombie apocalypse was to actually happen, who I would team up with, where I would go, my weapons of choice etc. There are people that have made safe houses, have bags full of supplies ready to go, weapons made, escape routes, and strategies on what do â€Å"when† the apocalypse happens. The classic horror gods took their cues from zombies. And that is just the beginning. White Zombie came out and did all sorts of things to zombie culture, although it is all but forgotten, except by college humanities professors. It still pushes the notion the the idea of zombies is wibbly wobbly. It changes from where you need it. There sort of a solid definition, but there is always room for interpretation. For me I believe that the original Frankenstein by Mary Shelley was part of the beginning of the zombie culture. The novel was first published in 1818, Shelley had started writing the novel when she was 18 and was published when she was 21. It was about scientist, Victor Frankenstein and how he created a monster through a science experiment. Victor feels as if he is an almighty god by creating life from the dead. The monster that had no name was not like the zombies that we now know today. He was aware, smart like, and functional, and can even speak in a rudimentary from. He became almost human like, he had emotions, and he was sensitive. I believe that Shelley’s novel was the real start of zombie pop culture, and gave about ideas and influenced many people into creating zombie work. Frankenstein’s monster as modern society forgets to call it, learns and tries to become human again. His brain is not making the right connections, nor does he know where he is, or what he is doing. The God complex always causes harm, people thinking they can act as a god in other words. It makes great movies and even better philosophical debates. It causes for great events of drama and action. Frankenstein as the first mainstream zombie coming about in 1818 scared people in a way that we today in 2013 cannot imagine being that scared from a book. Frankenstein as a monster using the god complex made its way through the years forever. It lasted until 1994, when John Hammond made dinosaurs walk in Jurassic Park. Was the T-Rex really a villain or was it just living his instincts. Was Frankenstein’s monster just scared and running to try and get help? Was he really a monster? Frankenstein’s monster was never a monster. He was scared and lost. He was looking for help but was just caught like a bull in a china shop. He couldn’t control his hands. The monster was a zombie before we knew what a zombie was. He is and was a reanimated corpse. Society the Film Portrays EssayThis brought the first time that the zombies were decomposing and falling apart and flesh eating monsters in recent history. Also in 2002, Robert Kirkman released book one of the Walking Dead graphic novel. As a man ahead of his time, Max Brooks wrote and published the Zombie Survival guide in early 2003. Brooks has released many Zombie books, that are very good, and very useful. The most notable is World War Z, (published in 2006) which Brad Pitt will star in the film adaptation. The book centers around an unnamed journalist who is traveling across the world writing down the human aspect of the story. It is written through fictitious interviews and â€Å"first hand accounts† The book is heartbreaking at points but also deeply human. Brooks’s zombies are faster and stronger, at one point they are running in sort of a herd, Brooks also has his zombies travel across the globe by walking underwater and sinking ships, they are able to climb and overthrow castles and massive blockades put to them. In 2003 Zack Snyder director of 300, and The Watchmen directed a remake of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. Snyder’s zombies were not clumsy or slow. They were fast and mostly human figured, without decomposition, It was a fitting remake to make the zombies badder and scarier. Simon Pegg’s classic zomedy, Shawn of the Dead, took the zombie apocalypse to the U. K. where all he wants is to go to his bar and save his girl. One of the funniest movies I have seen, these zombies were not scary, and the type of zombie depends on how they are best used for comedic values. Zombieland really pushed the zomedy genere to a whole new level, with Bill Murray’s perfect zombie preformance he showed how simple make up can make a human live in a zombie world. This doesntfit any word of zombies reaction, even if you look like a rotting corpse doesnt mean you smell like a rotting corpse. Zombies would and usually do know where you are based on smell. The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman’s epic black and white zombie graphic novel infected thousands in 2003. By 2010 it was picked up by AMC to bolster its amazing network line-up. The graphic novels and show depict a yeah the zombies are out there, how are we going to live now scenario, focusing much more on people, not necessarily the walkers. Fun fact, the word Zombie is never used in the show) The books focus on Deputy Rick Grimes, who wakes up from a coma in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. He sets out to find his wife and child and assumes the role of leader of the huge group. A major diffrence in the show and book from almost any zombie literature that i have seen is that the diesease is imbedded in the humans. When you die, you wake back up. This poses a personal issue for say givi ng childbirth, if you die in labor, your son has to shoot you in the head to make sure you dont wake back up and eat your baby. This could mess a kid up, as seen with Rick’s son Carl in The Walking Dead. Carl has issues because of this. He shot a young boy at point blank at the end of the third season, not to mention his dad’s best friend as a zombie. The man who raised him. Almost all of the movies I have seen, have just really ended. The Walking Dead pulls you into this world, where the zombies are pests, and keeps living in that world. It hasn’t been done this deep. The emotions of people, raising children, getiing communities back together, what happens next. This is what the Walking Dead is showing us. That yes there are heroes who do heroic, selfless things, but they still don’t know if the baby your wife gave birth to is yours, or answer the phone to dead people. Rick is the epitiome of a hero, because we see his flaws, his pain, his regret. That is why people love the walking dead so much, not the flesh eating monster zombies, but the times Rick goes and does stuff and things in the woods. When we see Ricks human side. The walkers in the walking dead can only be killed by taking out the cerebral cortex, the brain. The governor, kept zombie heads in his back room, and they were still biting. The zombies are slow and lumbering, can trip on each other or have their legs ripped off and keep going. The Walking dead has inspired a cultural phenomenon. From the graphic novels, to the show there have been two separate Walking Dead video games ( one inspired from the comics and one creating the backstory of the Dixon brothers, who are not in the graphic novels) The Walking Dead has inspired a whole new brand of TV. The Talking Dead, a talk show on after The Walking Dead, features insights into the show and interviews with celebrity nerds and cast members of the show. The Talking Dead with use of Twitter, Facebook and other social networking has allowed humans in real time to ask great questions that you can answer anywhere else. The Walking Dead has inspired many simpler games on Facebook and a Dead-Yourself app where users can put zombie effects on to their pictures. The Walking Dead has inspired a massive haunted house at last year Universal Halloween Horror nights at Universal Studios Florida. The designers builds sets from the show so that guests attending the event would see and feel from Rick’s perspective the fear of Atlanta where the Walking dead is set. The haunted house garnered critical reviews, saying it was one of the best ever and the events had massive attendance based on The Walking Dead. The Zombie phenomenon, has inspired real people to get real serious about what they would do if/when the zombies come. Personally, i have thought about a plan but have not purchased supplies or really practiced anything. There are people who have built bunkers, saved food and trained their families with guns and first ain in the event of an apocalypse.