The bloody, two-day “Great Gang Fight” of 1857

Lower Manhattan’s Five Points district was a wretched place in pre–Civil War New York.

As if poverty and disease weren’t bad enough, powerful gangs—backed by local politicians and ignored by a disorganized police department—ruled the neighborhood.

Such a heavy gang presence meant that violence was a normal part of life. But the Great Gang Fight—also known as the Dead Rabbits Riot—that broke out on July 4, 1857 was something else.

That evening, groups of Five Points gangs, such as the Dead Rabbits and Plug Uglies, invaded a nearby Bowery Boys clubhouse. A vicious brawl with other street gangs continued the next day.

About 1,000 gang members armed with paving stones, axes, and other weapons fought along Bayard Street between Baxter and the Bowery (as seen in the illustration above). Other thieves joined in, looting houses and keeping the police at bay.

Federal troops finally stopped the violence on the afternoon of July 5th. Officially, eight men were killed, but it’s thought that dying fighters were carried off by fellow gang members, then buried in secret.

What happened to Paradise Square?

That very auspicious name was given to the neighborhood built in the early 19th century over the site of Collect Pond.

A pristine body of water in colonial times, Collect Pond was basically an open sewer by 1800. It was located near today’s Centre and Lafayette Streets.

The city filled the pond in 1811, and Paradise Square sprang up over it, according to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

But Paradise Square only lasted a few decades. The water table was so high, the neighborhood began sinking—and emitting a rancid smell, prompting affluent families to leave.

By the 1830s it was known as Five Points, the notorious slum that was a breeding ground for crime, gangs, and disease.

The Paradise name lived on until the early 1900s in the form of Paradise Park, as seen in the NYPL postcard above. It was renamed Columbus Park in 1911.

The East Village, aka “Mackerelville”

Mackerelville—isn’t that an illustrious name? Centered at First Avenue and 11th Street, it was the mid–19th century term for today’s East Village.

And you know with a name like that—a mackerel was slang for a procurer or pimp—it had to be an awful place to live.

Second only to the legendary Five Points district in poverty, Mackerelville was a hotbed of gangs, gin mills, and other social ills, as this New York Times letter, from December 17, 1858, explains.

Other articles refer to Mackerelville’s “cholera heaps” and “uneducated denizens.” By the 1870s, it seems, the name was on the outs.

“The locality where the children will be taken from was once well known as Mackerelville, and consists of several squares of tenement buildings, all densely crowded with poor families,” reports an 1873 New York Times article about a charity boat trip.

A legendary dancer gains fame in Five Points

Lower Manhattan’s Five Points slum, populated mainly by Irish immigrants and African Americans, was the city’s poorest, filthiest, most crime-ridden neighborhood in the 1840s.

But out of Five Points came a performer who wowed crowds in the U.S. and England and was immortalized by Charles Dickens as “the greatest dancer known.”

Master Juba was his stage name. Born William Henry Lane in 1825 in Rhode Island, he came to Five Points in his teens and began competing against Irish-born dancers in saloons and dance halls, eventually moving on to minstrel shows and, later, touring Great Britain.

His style blended African steps with Irish jig moves. On his trip to New York in 1842, Charles Dickens saw Master Juba perform and was bowled over. Dickens had this to say in American Notes, his account of his trip:

“Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut; snapping his fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the backs of his legs in front, spinning about on his toes and heels like nothing but the man’s fingers on the tambourine; dancing with two left legs, two right legs, two wooden legs, two wire legs, two spring legs–all sorts of legs and no legs—what is this to him?”

Above, an engraving of Master Juba dancing, from Dickens’ American Notes. 

Master Juba is considered the father of tap, jazz, and step dancing. His death in 1852 at age 27 has been attributed to malnutrition and his physically strenuous schedule and style.