Five Points: The Sinking New York Slum That Gave Birth to Tap Dance

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Before it was the most notorious slum in New York, Five Points was Collect Pond, a spring fed lake 48 acres across and 60 feet deep that supplied Manhattan's drinking water. Breweries, tanneries, and a slaughterhouse poisoned it. Pierre Charles L'Enfant proposed cleaning the pond and building a park around it, but the city chose to fill the basin with loose soil, brush, and street sweepings. The fill rotted, leaked methane, and never compacted, so the new houses sank and the middle class fled.

Into the cheapest housing in the city came two groups shut out everywhere else: Black New Yorkers freed in a slow emancipation that ended on July 4th, 1827, and Irish Catholics escaping the great famine. Their forced closeness produced tension, disease, and riots, and also the first large scale voluntary racial integration in American history. This episode follows the neighborhood from its poisoned ground to its erasure beneath Columbus Park and the courthouses of Foley Square.

At Almack's, a Black owned dance hall also known as Pete Williams Place, Irish jigs met the African shuffle in dance battles that produced tap, popularized by Master Juba.
When cholera struck in June 1832, wealthy New Yorkers blamed bad air and immorality instead of the missing sewers.
The penny press claimed the Old Brewery tenement saw a murder a night for 15 years, though the 1850 census counted only about 220 residents there.
The Dead Rabbits riot of 1857 began on July 4th, drew an estimated 800 to 1,000 gang members, and ended only when the state militia arrived.
After Jacob Riis published How the Other Half Lives in 1890, the city razed Mulberry Bend and hired Calvert Vaux to build the park that opened in 1897.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(16184)

The Art of Adult Friendship: Why Quality Matters More Than Quantity

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!In this episode of pplpod, we explore how our understanding of friendship changes as we grow old...

9 Nov 18min

Summer Explained: The Science, History, and Traditions of the Warmest Season

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!In this episode of pplpod, we explore summer, the season most closely associated with sunshine, ...

7 Nov 18min

Sir Patrick Stewart: From Shakespeare to Star Trek, the Life and Legacy of a Legend

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!In this episode of pplpod, we explore the extraordinary life of Sir Patrick Stewart, the acclaim...

7 Nov 49min

Larry David: The Genius of Social Awkwardness, Seinfeld, and Curb Your Enthusiasm

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!In this episode of pplpod, we explore the life and career of Larry David, the comedian, writer, ...

6 Nov 38min

Why Australian Shepherds Aren't From Australia

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!In this episode of pplpod, we explore the history of the Australian Shepherd, an intelligent, en...

5 Nov 45min

Labrador Retriever: From Newfoundland Fishing Dogs to Modern-Day Heroes

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!In this episode of pplpod, we explore the remarkable history of the Labrador Retriever, one of t...

4 Nov 53min

Discovering Ireland: A Journey Through History, Culture, and the Wild Atlantic Way

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!In this episode of pplpod, we explore Ireland through the philosophy of slow travel: go slower, ...

3 Nov 48min

Willie Hutch: An Overnight I'll Be There Lyric and The Mack's Soundtrack

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!William McKinley Hutchins was born in Los Angeles in December 1944 and raised in Dallas, where h...

2 Nov 21min