Five Points Movie Analysis

Gangs of New York mostly took place in the streets of Five Points and Paradise Square. Five Points was named for the points created by the intersections of Park, Worth and Baxter Streets. By the mid-1800s, Five Points was known as New York City’s most notorious slum neighborhood. It was home to an infamous, overcrowded tenement., which throughout the movie is portrayed as a very dangerous place. This is said to be true, Five Points is alleged to have sustained the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. According to an old New York urban legend, “the Old Brewery, an overcrowded tenement on Cross Street housing 1,000 poor, is said to have had a murder a night for 15 years, until its demolition.” Five Points was also portrayed as a very

dirty place, this is also accurate because the poor sanitary conditions, overcrowded housing, and lack of even the minimal health care made little areas such as Five Points ideal for the development and transmission of these diseases. Several epidemics swept the City of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which originated in Five Points.
Another major point of the movies is that there was a huge debate over immigrants in Five Points. “The area was filled with immigrants trying to make a new life in a foreign city. Five Points was also a place where politicians "bought" votes in "stolen elections" Once in New York, immigrants from the same country tended to live in the same neighborhoods. And young men from those neighborhoods tended to form gangs. Among the most notorious gangs, in the mid 1800s, were those from the Irish section of Five Points. and gangs, like the Irish-immigrant "Dead Rabbits," came together.” (history.com). The Dead Rabbits and the Brower Boys were a huge part of the movie Gangs in New York. “These two rival gangs fought over 200 gang battles in a span of 10 years beginning in 1834, and they often outmanned the police force and even the state militias. They were also in the forefront of the Dead Rabbits Riot and the New York Draft Riots.” (Wikipedia.com). The Dead Rabbits were all about the welfare and benefit of immigrant groups and minorities, while the Brower Boys were absolutely against immigrants and minorities.
Bill The Butcher,” as a butcher in real life, Poole could accurately hit a target from 20 feet.

He had served an “apprenticeship” with the Bowery Boys, was known to gouge out the eyes of his foes, stood more than six feet and weighed more than 200 pounds”(Wikipedia). The Irish-immigrant gangs of Five Points, who owed were under the power of the Democrats of Tammany Hall, were afraid of Poole. Even the Dead Rabbits whose chief carried a dead rabbit impaled on a pike avoided him. Although the movie "Gangs of New York" extends his life by eight years, Bill the Butcher was actually killed in 1855. Bill was actually killed during a bar fight where he was shot in the leg and then shot in the chest twice. One bullet going through his heart and one going through his abdomen. Despite his wounds, Poole lived for fourteen days after the shooting, to the amazement of his doctors, who said it was unnatural for a man to stay alive so long with a bullet in his heart. He soon took his last breathe as his friends watched him

die.
During the movie “Gangs of New York” there is a scene where men are rioting because of the “Draft Law”.

The Draft law states that any male individual over the age of 18 can be forced to be in the military. The only way to get out of it was to pay 300 dollars. This caused a problem because the wealthy were able to escape the draft because they were willing to pay 300 dollars. The poor on the other hand barely had enough money to feed themselves or their families so they got angry and started to riot. Which were later called the “Draft Riots”. Most men had absolutely no training for the military so they knew they would be setting themselves up if they cooperated with the

Draft.
Gangs of New York is important to history because even though it isn’t a 100% accurate it depicts the true lives of people during that time. All the struggles the poor went through and all the things the rich got away with. Before this movie I didn’t even now about Five Points and im sure most of my class mates can agree. The movie is a good example of a way to show the life of people living in the Five Points.