ABSTRACT
From Herbert Asbury’s The Gangs of New York (1927) to Tyler Anbinder’s recently published history of Five Points, this infamous place emerges as New York City’s mythic slum. It is a kind of standard against which all other neighbourhoods, past and present, are measured, a symbol so ingrained in New York City history buffs’ heads that they refuse to let go. Archaeological investigations conducted on a block adjacent to the heart of the neighbourhood in its heyday have brought to light a different side of life at Five Points. The material recovered suggests that Five Points’ residents achieved a kind of working-class respectability in spite of physically abysmal living conditions. Though convincing, the archaeological evidence is not nearly as dramatic as the stories about colourfully named gangs and nightly murders that are the fodder of Five Points’ reputation as a notorious slum. This article considers the function of maintaining the myth in the present and why the popular press and even some scholars insist on telling the same old story.
