The Five Points and "Paradise Square"

The Five Points was formed by the intersection of Cross, Anthony, Little Water, Orange and Mulberry Streets in New York City's Lower East Side. In the center of the Five Points was a space known as "Paradise Square". The name bore little resemblance to the actual qualities of the space. "Paradise Square" was one of the only spaces in which New York City's poor were welcomed for recreation.



Image of Buildings Nearby the FIve Points - Image Via Wikipedia

Although originally the area was moderately peaceful through the first two decades of it's existence, yet around 1820 "Paradise Square" and the surrounding Five Points began to degenerate into one of the worst areas of the City and in fact the world. This paralleled the flight of middle and upper class New Yorkers to Upper Manhattan and was exacerbated by the draining and poorly done filling of the nearby Collect Pond. The amounts of murder vice and misery in this area rivaled even contemporary London's worst districts. The Points was populated by The North recently emancipated African Americans as well as by the recent arrivals of the Irish, whom were the vast majority of residents.

"More than 3,000 people huddled in Baxter Street from Chatham to Canal, a distance of less than half a mile, and one lot in that street, twenty five by one hundred feet, held slums which sheltered 286 persons. Around the Points and "Paradise Square" were 270 Saloons, several times that number of blind tigers, dance halls, houses of prostitution" (The Gangs of New York, by Herbert Asbury).



The Five Points - Image Via Wikipedia

Charles Dickens, referring to the Points wrote "This is the Place; these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Debauchery has made the houses prematurely old. See how 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" (American Notes, by Charles Dickens).

The area was plagued by rodents, dilapidated buildings overflowing with the poor and criminals alike. Murder, pickpocketing, theft, begging, drunken fighting, intoxication and sexual promiscuity were rampant. It must have been quite the place to visit. In one building, formerly a beer brewery a little girl was stabbed to death after foolishly showing a penny she had begged, and her body lay for 5 days before her mother buried her in a shallow grave in the floor.

Little was done to fix this the area until the 1850's by some reform minded ministers and liked minded volunteers. This area existed in one form or another until slum clearance efforts spear headed by Jacob Riis finally demolished the area between 1885 and 1895. Sadly, today the area once known as the Five Points and "Paradise Square" is gone and is located near Columbus Park. "Paradise Square" once a haven of crime and debauchery is located beneath the New York County Courthouse. What was once Anthony Street is today known as Worth Street. Much of Cross Street is gone, yet what remains is today Mosco Street. Orange Street became Baxter Street and Little Water Street is gone, with the New York County Courthouse and New York State Office Building sitting on it's former site.



Then and Now Map of Five Points - Image modified Sanborn Map

The Five Points is today beautiful area surrounded by loverly Columbus Park and the famous Courthouses surrounding Foley Square. The area chronicled in Herbert Asbury's masterful The Gangs of New York served as the inspiration for the film by the same name, directed by Martin Scorsese. Ironically this area once the most dangerous of the City and arguably the world sits beneath Foley Square, the center of New York's Courts and is known worldwide as "the grand steps walked up by everyone as they go to court" in the famed TV series Law and Order and countless movies. Although "Paradise Square" and the Five Points is long gone, it's remnant scars in New York's street grid can still be seen today.