New York City’s mid-19th century underworld: a history, a novel, a film

New York City’s mid-nineteenth century underworld has received considerable attention during the last two years. The «dangerous classes» and their neighborhoods are a major subject of Tyler Anbinder’s history of the Five Points (the intersection of five streets in lower Mahattan, now covered by court buildings and Chinatown), and the characters and setting of Kevin Baker’s novel and Martin Scorcese’s film. A focal event in each is the 1863 Draft Riots, when poor New Yorkers disrupted military..