Homage And Disappearance

A lot of people who have never been to New York have heard the name “Five Points.” The neighborhood’s fame faded in the second half of the twentieth century, as bigger and more unsettling slums became famous, but the commercial success of the movie The Gangs of New York – a fictional drama based on a non-fiction book – brought some measure of fame back. In the news just yesterday, the city is putting up some street signs to commemorate, slightly, Five Points. This raises the question: why is it so hard to find remnants of such a notorious slum? The answer is quite simple: it’s been gradually wiped off the map.

To start, here’s the original street layout, circa 1852 (note that City Hall Park and the triangular block bounded by Chatham, Centre, and Chambers Streets, at the lower left, are inset maps and actually belong off the page to the upper left):

Almost every building shown here is long gone, as is a lot of the street layout and a lot of street names. In any case, the Five Points is just about dead center on the map: the intersection of Anthony, Orange, and Cross Streets creates five acute-angled blocks facing one another. The block to the northwest is a small park, labelled here as “Five Points Park” but often referred to as Paradise Square. This street configuration only dates to 1809; before that Anthony Street’s east end was at Centre Street. In 1854, Anthony Street was renamed for William Worth, Orange Street was renamed for Charles Baxter, and Cross Street was renamed Park Street after its southern end near City Hall Park. Since Five Points was already well known as a slum by then, it’s likely that the renaming was an effort to erase some of the fame. In 1868, Worth Street was extended east to Chatham Street at Chatham Square, Chatham Street’s intersection with the Bowery, as seen here in 1879:

(In passing, the crooked blocks around the foot of Mott Street, Pell Street, and Doyer Street were already becoming the original core of Chinatown.) So the name Five Points, which still continued in use, was no longer true. The physical embodiment of the name lasted only 59 years. Meanwhile, the reputation for the worst spot in the city shifted half a block to the “Mulberry Bend,” the portion of Mulberry Street between Park and Bayard. Jacob Riis helped make the Bend famous. The civic center – city offices, and city, state, and federal courthouses – were all clustered just to the south, around Chambers Street and City Hall Park. The City Beautiful movement led to plans to redevelop the are, combining an excuse to tear down an embarrassing slum with building new public buildings. Here’s 1923, with Chatham Street renamed as an extension of Park Row:

Mulberry Bend was addressed by tearing it down and turning into a park; both sides of Worth Street were cleared for new public buildings (a courthouse and a combination courthouse and office building). Park Street was cut in half, with the southern portion becoming literally the separation between a traffic island and the edge of Foley Square. By accident, five points were recreated, but the obtuse angle of the southern courthouse site ruins the effect. By 1930 the courthouses were built and space was being cleared for a new federal courthouse to the south:

By 1955, the new federal courthouse to the south was complete as was the new (city) Criminal Courts Building (AKA the new Tombs) to the north:

Finally, in 1991, a new federal courthouse was built east of the New York County Courthouse and connected to it by removing the streets, making yet another superblock. At some point after 1982 – I don’t know when and it’s surprisingly hard to find out – the buildings on the small triangular block between Park Street, Worth Street, and Mulberry Street were demolished and that land joined to Columbus Park, wiping out one of the last two remaining blocks of Park Street. In 1982, Park Street was also renamed for Frank Mosco. Here’s a current map:

Baxter Street now ends at Worth and Park Street is gone, leaving only two points. The center of the old neighborhood is pretty much under the new federal courthouse (the T-shaped building behind the hexagonal county courthouse). The late-nineteenth-century tenements of Chinatown are still there, literally next door, because the circa-1900 plans for expanding the civic center didn’t target them. One-block long Mosco Street is still there, although I’m amazed no one has suggested turning it into two building lots.

Maybe the street sign is a good idea. We wouldn’t want people to get lost.