Five Points
The 19th Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum
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Narrated by:
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Joe Barrett
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By:
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Tyler Anbinder
About this listen
"The very letters of the two words seem, as they are written, to redden with the blood-stains of unavenged crime. There is Murder in every syllable, and Want, Misery and Pestilence take startling form and crowd upon the imagination as the pen traces the words." So wrote a reporter about Five Points, the most infamous neighborhood in 19th-century America, the place where "slumming" was invented.
All but forgotten today, Five Points was once renowned the world over. Its handful of streets in lower Manhattan featured America's most wretched poverty, shared by Irish, Jewish, German, Italian, Chinese, and African Americans. It was the scene of more riots, scams, saloons, brothels, and drunkenness than any other neighborhood in the new world. Yet it was also a font of creative energy, crammed full of cheap theaters and dance halls, prizefighters and machine politicians, and meeting halls for the political clubs that would come to dominate not just the city but an entire era in American politics.
From Jacob Riis to Abraham Lincoln, Davy Crockett to Charles Dickens, Five Points both horrified and inspired everyone who saw it. The story that Anbinder tells is the classic tale of America's immigrant past, as successive waves of new arrivals fought for survival in a land that was as exciting as it was dangerous, as riotous as it was culturally rich.
Tyler Anbinder offers the first-ever history of this now forgotten neighborhood, drawing on a wealth of research among letters and diaries, newspapers and bank records, police reports and archaeological digs. Beginning with the Irish potato-famine influx in the 1840s and ending with the rise of Chinatown in the early 20th century, he weaves unforgettable individual stories into a tapestry of tenements, work crews, leisure pursuits both licit and otherwise, and riots and political brawls that never seemed to let up.
Although the intimate stories that fill Anbinder's narrative are heart-wrenching, they are perhaps not so shocking as they first appear. Almost all of us trace our roots to once humble stock. Five Points is, in short, a microcosm of America.
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Jerry White's London in the Nineteenth Century is the richest and most absorbing account of the city's greatest century by its leading expert. London in the nineteenth century was the greatest city mankind had ever seen. Its growth was stupendous. Its wealth was dazzling. Its horrors shocked the world. This was the London of Blake, Thackeray and Mayhew, of Nash, Faraday and Disraeli. Most of all it was the London of Dickens. As William Blake put it, London was 'a Human awful wonder of God'.
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SO DETAILED..SO VERY VERY DETAILED.
- By Count B on 06-16-19
By: Jerry White
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Empire of Sin
- By: Gary Krist
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Empire of Sin re-creates the remarkable story of New Orleans' 30-years war against itself, pitting the city's elite "better half" against its powerful and long-entrenched underworld of vice, perversity, and crime. This early-20th-century battle centers on one man: Tom Anderson, the undisputed czar of the city's Storyville vice district, who fights desperately to keep his empire intact as it faces onslaughts from all sides.
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very interesting
- By Claireoline on 02-20-15
By: Gary Krist
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New World Coming
- The 1920s and the Making of Modern America
- By: Nathan Miller
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 18 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Jazz. Bootleggers. Flappers. Talkies. Model T Fords. Lindbergh's history-making flight over the Atlantic. The 1920s was also the decade of the hard-won vote for women, racial injustice, censorship, social conflict, and the birth of organized crime.
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My High School History Class Never Told
- By Charles Stembridge on 06-29-04
By: Nathan Miller
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Black Fortunes
- The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires
- By: Shomari Wills
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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The astonishing untold history of America's first Black millionaires - former slaves who endured incredible challenges to amass and maintain their wealth for a century, from the Jacksonian period to the Roaring '20s - self-made entrepreneurs whose unknown success mirrored that of American business heroes such as Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and Thomas Edison.
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True His/Herstory
- By Brazy Brazy on 06-25-18
By: Shomari Wills
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The Black Russian
- By: Vladimir Alexandrov
- Narrated by: Peter Marinker
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The Black Russian is the incredible story of Frederick Bruce Thomas, born in 1872 to former slaves who became prosperous farmers in Mississippi. After leaving the South and working as a waiter and valet in Chicago and Brooklyn, Frederick sought greater freedom in London, then crisscrossed Europe, and - in a highly unusual choice for a black American at the time - went to Russia in 1899. Because he found no color line there, Frederick made Moscow his home. He renamed himself Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas, married twice, acquired a mistress, and took Russian citizenship.
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US Born African Descendant 2 Russian Citizenship
- By Sheila Gibson on 03-14-15
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A Few Red Drops
- The Chicago Race Riot of 1919
- By: Claire Hartfield
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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On a hot day in July 1919, five black youths went swimming in Lake Michigan, unintentionally floating close to the white beach. An angry white man began throwing stones at the boys, striking and killing one. Racial conflict on the beach erupted into days of urban violence that shook the city of Chicago to its foundations. This mesmerizing narrative draws on contemporary accounts as it traces the roots of the explosion that had been building for decades in race relations, politics, business, and clashes of culture.
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Excellent book!
- By Eric Leafblad on 06-03-18
By: Claire Hartfield
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Last Call
- The Rise and Fall of Prohibition
- By: Daniel Okrent
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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A brilliant, authoritative, and fascinating history of America’s most puzzling era, the years 1920 to 1933, when the U.S. Constitution was amended to restrict one of America’s favorite pastimes: drinking alcoholic beverages. Okrent reveals how Prohibition marked a confluence of diverse forces, including the growing political power of the women’s suffrage movement and the fear of small-town, native-stock Protestants that they were losing control of their country to the immigrants of the large cities.
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Very Thorough Historical Review
- By Pierre on 11-12-12
By: Daniel Okrent
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Black Detroit
- A People's History of Self-Determination
- By: Herb Boyd
- Narrated by: James Shippy
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The author of Baldwin's Harlem looks at the evolving culture, politics, economics, and spiritual life of Detroit - a blend of memoir, love letter, history, and clear-eyed reportage that explores the city's past, present, and future and its significance to the African American legacy and the nation's fabric.
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Selective Recall
- By Rick on 07-19-17
By: Herb Boyd
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America's Women
- 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Gail Collins
- Narrated by: Jane Alexander
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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America's Women tells the story of more than four centuries of history. It features a stunning array of personalities, from the women peering worriedly over the side of the Mayflower to feminists having a grand old time protesting beauty pageants and bridal fairs. Courageous, silly, funny, and heartbreaking, these women shaped the nation and our vision of what it means to be female in America.
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Not all there
- By Dirk Williams on 04-02-12
By: Gail Collins
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City of Scoundrels
- The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago
- By: Gary Krist
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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When 1919 began, the city of Chicago seemed on the verge of transformation. Modernizers had an audacious, expensive plan to turn the city from a brawling, unglamorous place into "the Metropolis of the World". But just as the dream seemed within reach, pandemonium broke loose and the city’s highest ambitions were suddenly under attack by the same unbridled energies that had given birth to them in the first place.
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Great History of a Great City
- By Cookie on 08-30-12
By: Gary Krist
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Snow-Storm in August
- The Passions That Sparked Washington City's First Race Riot in the Violent Summer of 1835
- By: Jefferson Morley
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Editor and investigative reporter Jefferson Morley has been widely published in national periodicals and is the author of the critically acclaimed nonfiction work Our Man in Mexico. An eye-opening look at Washington’s first race riot, Snow-Storm in August also offers revealing profiles of Arthur Bowen, the slave blamed for the riot, and “Star Spangled Banner” lyricist Francis Scott Key, a defender of slavery who sought capital punishment for Bowen.
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An interesting
- By BDHumbert on 08-27-18
By: Jefferson Morley
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The White Devil's Daughters
- The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown
- By: Julia Flynn Siler
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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During the first hundred years of Chinese immigration - from 1848 to 1943 - San Francisco was home to a shockingly extensive underground slave trade in Asian women, who were exploited as prostitutes and indentured servants. In this gripping, necessary book, best-selling author Julia Flynn Siler shines a light on this little-known chapter in our history - and gives us a vivid portrait of the safe house to which enslaved women escaped.
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Well researched
- By Qats reads on 08-05-19
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The Graves Are Walking
- The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People
- By: John Kelly
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
It started in 1845 and lasted six years. Before it was over, more than one million men, women, and children starved to death and another million fled the country. Measured in terms of mortality, the Great Irish Potato Famine was one of the worst disasters in the 19th century-it claimed twice as many lives as the American Civil War. A perfect storm of bacterial infection, political greed, and religious intolerance sparked this catastrophe.
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Unforgettable, Haunting, and a Compelling Warning
- By Carole T. on 08-22-12
By: John Kelly
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Give My Regards To Broadway!
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Tough Criticism But Fair
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Incomplete history, but fun. Performance is poor.
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Old New York
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Based on the acclaimed multi-volume series, City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York, Jewish New York reveals the multifaceted world of one of the city's most important ethnic and religious groups. Spanning three centuries, Jewish New York traces the earliest arrival of Jews in New Amsterdam to the recent immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union.
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Gotham
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THANK YOU!!!!!
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New York
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INCREDIBLE!
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Paddy Whacked
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In Paddy Whacked, best-selling author and organized crime expert T. J. English brings to life nearly two centuries of Irish American gangsterism, which spawned such unforgettable characters as Mike "King Mike" McDonald, Chicago's subterranean godfather; Big Bill Dwyer, New York's most notorious rumrunner during Prohibition; Mickey Featherstone, troubled Vietnam vet turned Westies gang leader; and James "Whitey" Bulger, the ruthless and seemingly untouchable Southie legend.
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First Half - 4 Stars - Second Half - 2 Stars
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American Colossus
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In a grand-scale narrative history, the bestselling author of two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize now captures the decades when capitalism was at its most unbridled and a few breathtakingly wealthy businessmen utterly transformed America from an agrarian economy to a world power.
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8 Thoughts on 'American Colossus'
- By Joshua Kim on 06-10-12
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To Rule the Waves
- How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World
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Performance
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Story
To Rule the Waves tells the extraordinary story of how the British Royal Navy allowed one nation to rise to a level of power unprecedented in history. From the navy's beginnings under Henry VIII to the age of computer warfare and special ops, historian Arthur Herman tells the spellbinding tale of great battles at sea, heroic sailors, violent conflict, and personal tragedy - of the way one mighty institution forged a nation, an empire, and a new world.
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Superb and easy to listen to.
- By Mrs. on 02-16-17
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Japan's Infamous Unit 731
- Firsthand Accounts of Japan's Wartime Human Experimentation Program
- By: Hal Gold, Yuma Totani - foreword
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- Unabridged
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Story
Some of the cruelest deeds of Japan's war in Asia did not occur on the battlefield, but in quiet, antiseptic medical wards in obscure parts of China. Far from front lines and prying eyes, Japanese doctors and their assistants subjected human guinea pigs to gruesome medical experiments in the name of science and Japan's wartime chemical and biological warfare research. Author Hal Gold draws upon a wealth of sources to construct a portrait of the Imperial Japanese Army's most notorious medical unit, giving an overview of its history and detailing its most shocking activities.
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Excellent read. Bad narration.
- By Jason on 04-01-22
By: Hal Gold, and others
What listeners say about Five Points
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Eric Ohlson
- 06-05-24
The revelatory facts
Interesting but an at tines a ponderous narrative.which could have used a few less statistics.
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- zane compton
- 08-27-24
the detail
the detail of everything, the history of American started there. love the book. would listen again
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- Patrick V. Milord
- 11-12-20
A Historical Masterpiece
This book is an essential work on NYC history. Very well written and very thorough. It should be in the library of every Native New Yorker.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Sian Gibby
- 04-10-23
Why the accents???
I had to stop listening because of the reader’s terrible accents when reading quoted passages. Just read them in a normal way, for crying out loud! Your Irish accent is not great, and even if it were, it’s distracting. Spoiled what I know is a good book.
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- Hector D. Montes
- 08-21-24
Very Interesting and Informative
Great narration and storytelling. Do yourself a favor and purchase this audio book. You will not regret it.
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- Bart Saint Bart
- 10-08-19
Extensive and Sweeping.
I went into this listen wishing to hear about 19th century street gangs and heard a whole helluva lot more. Highly recommended.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Jim Braunstein
- 08-19-19
Great historical piece
If you have any interest in this historic neighborhood, listen to this well researched, well written and well narrated audiobook. I think you will have a much better understanding of this unique part of New York history after you have listened.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Angela Lavell
- 10-27-21
Informative Documentary
The book had a lt of statistical information. I was looking for a "story" more than a forensic analysis and struggled to get through the book.
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- paige sacher
- 02-22-22
fascinating and horrific at the same time
The narrator was excellent and the story is completely engrossing. I just looked up the photos of The five points. A must read if you love New York history.
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- wylie smith
- 04-10-23
there is a good book in here - with some pruning
Anbinder certainly seems to know his facts. Unfortunately, he can run off reams of data that go from fascinating to numbing to boring. I would happily trade more than half of the tales of squalor and filth for a bit more pre-history of the Five Points district. If Anbinder defined the Five Points district beyond the intersection, I missed it.There is too much overload of data and not enough definition of the district itself. Part of my critique is due to the nature of Audible itself as the listener is given neither nor photos. A visit to Wikipedia cetainly enhanced my comprehension of this narrative.
Anbinder talks about Jacob Riis and his photos changing the perception of this slum area. The photos by Riis on Wikipedia are intensely more moving than the prose of Anbinder. (I have not seen the book, so photos and maps may be provided, but they are essential, at least to me.) Anbinder's narrative is not helped by Joe Barrett's narration. The prose and the reading prompted me to ratchet up the speed as I got bored/numbed by some of the data.
But Anbinder did make valid points and a lot of the facts were new to me. Unfortunately they were buried under repetitious data which only seemed to be there to show how how assiduous Anbinder was in his research. If the book has maps and images, it would be preferable to the Audible version, but, as I noted, it needs to be pruned.
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