Staten Island traditional oral history recalls the events of the initial response to the riots as a single noble defense, but in actuality had two outcomes. The main telling goes that citizens in Port Richmond, which was a ‘hop, skip, and jump’ away from Manhattan, pointed a cannon towards the bridge at Bodine’s Creek to …
Tag: New York City
The Draft Riots: Its Roots and Occurance
The New York City Civil War Draft Riots of 1863: Four Days of Unrest On the morning of July 13th, 1863, the American Civil War had been ongoing for two years. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Lincoln on the first of that year, freeing the slaves. The battle of Gettysburg had claimed its …
Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits
On the night of July 4th, 1857 tensions between the Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits culminated in a bang, starting a two day long riot that would captive the city. The New York Times described the scene: “a crowd of young vagabonds from Cow Bay and the neighborhood proceeded to the Bowery, at Nos. 40 …
Five Points – Paradise Square
“All that is loathsome, dropping and decayed is here” is the description Charles Dickens wrote in 1842 about Five Points. 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 New York City. Further north is Columbus …
Temperance
Prohibition didn’t just happen over night, so much as it was the result of decades of lobbying and fighting on a local and national level for the ban of alcohol. Starting in rural America and working its way in, the Temperance movement saw alcohol as the cause of most social issues that Progressives were fighting …
Disparity
The 18th Amendment banned the sale, transportation, and production of alcohol. This effectively prohibited the existence of alcohol in daily life in America. But by the letter of the law, ownership of alcohol was perfectly legal, so long as it was made pre-Prohibition and it wasn’t sold or moved elsewhere. This meant that the average …
Speakeasy
Music, dancing, having a good time with friends and strangers alike. What’s not to love about a night out on the town, enjoying New York’s nightlife? It certainly didn’t hurt that Speakeasies were the best way to get a drink in a Dry America. Bars didn’t just undergo a name change with the 18th amendment …
Police
The United States government established the Bureau of Prohibition to fight this new war, a federal task force with the sole purpose of cracking down on illegal alcohol trade and manufacturing. It met moderate success, and brought down numerous large scale operations and speakeasies across the country. Unfortunately, in the early days of the Bureau, …
Smuggling
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles make for more than just a setting for a movie. If it moved, smugglers found a way to load it up with booze and bring it to market. Although plenty of trucks, trains, and people brought alcohol in to the city, it was hard to match the shipping industry when it …
Lucky Luciano
At the end of a long, hard day in New York City, men and women from all races, countries, and classes treated themselves to a well-earned drink at their local bar. When all the bars shut down in January of 1920, all these people had no where to go, and more importantly, no where to …