Tag: Bowery Boys

Morrisey and Poole

John Morrissey and William “Bill the Butcher” Poole were the heads of their respective gangs, the Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys. Morrissey, an Irishman, was affiliated with Tammany Hall while Poole was an enforcer for the Know-Nothing party, a nativist organization that was against the influx of Catholic immigrants. Their rivalry came to a …

Read more

Five Points – Paradise Square

“All that is loathsome, dropping and decayed is here” is the description Charles Dickens wrote in 1842 about Five Points.[1]Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/675/675-h/675-h.htm. As you walk in the Civil Center of New York City today, you are surrounded by giant Classical structures, whose pillars and steps lead into court rooms of …

Read more