Five Points

by Tyler Anbinder

  Dickens initially found the dance exhibition staged by five or six black couples unimpressive. But then a teenager, described by Dickens as “the wit of the assembly, and the greatest dancer known,” dashed onto the floor. “Instantly the fiddler grins, and goes at it tooth and nail; there is a new energy in the tambourine; new laughter in the dancers; new smiles in the landlady; new confidence in the landlord; new brightness in the very candles,” wrote Dickens as he thrilled to the dancer’s multitude of steps and dance styles. “Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-out, 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? And in what walk of life, or dance of life, does man ever get such stimulating applause as thunders about him, when, having danced his partner off her feet, and himself too, he finishes by leaping gloriously on the bar-counter and calling for something to drink . . .?”1

  The sixteen-year-old who mesmerized Dickens that night was William Henry Lane, one of the most influential dancers of the nineteenth century. Despite his fame, only the barest outlines of Lane’s biography are known. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Lane apparently honed his dancing skills with tutelage from black jig-and-reel dancer Jim Lowe. Moving to Five Points, Lane became known professionally as “Master Juba,” though whether this was a nickname chosen by African-American friends or a stage name dreamed up by a white promoter is unclear. As would become a tradition in African-American dance, Master Juba first demonstrated his prowess by imitating the best moves of his competitors before wowing audiences with his own innovations.

  According to the Herald, crowds squeezed into “Pete Williams’ place,” as Almack’s later became known, to see “this phenomenon, ‘Juba,’ imitate all the dancers of the day and their special steps. Then Bob Ellingham, the interlocutor and master of ceremonies, would say, ‘Now, Master Juba, show your own jig.’ Whereupon he would go through all his own steps and specialties, with never a resemblance in any of them to those he had just imitated.” When Lane performed in London in 1848, the British also found his combination of speed and grace astounding. “How could he tie his legs into such knots,” asked the Illustrated London News, “and fling them about so recklessly, or make his feet twinkle until you lose sight of them altogether in his energy?”2

  Although the Illustrated London News insisted that Juba and his African-American counterparts were the only original dancers in the world, white working-class New Yorkers took pride in their own dance styles. Young Walt Whitman noted that when butchers in their market stalls “have nothing else to do, they amuse themselves with a jig, or a break down.” Describing another style of dance popular with native-born whites, the author and critic Cornelius Mathews asserted that there was “more muscle expended in one shuffle than in a whole evening of [dance at] a fashionable party.” Irish immigrants brought their own forms to Five Points, including reels, jigs, and doubles. This last step, wrote one visitor to Ireland, “consists in striking the ground very rapidly with the heel and toe, or with the toes of each foot alternately. The perfection of this motion consists, besides its rapidity, in the fury in which it is performed.” All these styles could be found on display in Five Points’ famous dance halls.3

  Master Juba performing in London. Illustrated London News (August 5, 1848). Collection of the author.

  Just as boxing promoters purposely pitted Irish versus American or, in later years, white versus black boxers to increase interest in their bouts, theatrical agents organized dance contests between Juba and his “greatest white contemporary,” Irish-American John Diamond. Born in New York City in 1823, Diamond has been called “one of, if not the greatest jig dancers that the world ever knew.” Competing near Five Points at both the Chatham and Bowery Theaters beginning in 1844, the contestants were each paid the enormous sum of $500, indicating that such competitions must have attracted huge crowds. “No conception can be formed of the variety of beautiful and intricate steps exhibited by him with ease,” stated one contest handbill advertising Master Juba’s appearance. “You must see to believe.” The “winner” of these competitions is not recorded. But we do know that such contests, as well as the friendly rivalries between native-born whites, Irish immigrants, and African Americans within Five Points’ dance halls, had a profound influence on the direction of American dance. Each group incorporated favorite steps from their competitors’ dance idioms into their own. In Juba’s case, he adopted some of the high-stepping, foot-stomping style of the jig into his own footwork. It was from this interaction between African Americans dancing the shuffle and the Irish dancing the jig that “tap dancing” developed. Lane, the “most influential single performer of nineteenth-century American dance,” was the key figure behind the emergence of tap. A dance historian reported in 1948 that “the repertoire of any current tap dancer contains elements which were established theatrically by him.” The 1995 Broadway dance production Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk included an homage to Juba.4

  The melting pot of dance found in Five Points contributed enormously to Master Juba’s innovations. But like many of the neighborhood’s residents, Juba left Five Points after becoming a star, joining an English dance troupe by 1848. Yet also like many Five Pointers, Juba did not live long enough to enjoy his success fully. Still in London, he died suddenly in 1852 at the age of twenty-seven.5

  CHAPTER SIX

  Play

  GIVEN THAT FIVE POINTERS lived hard, worked hard, and fought hard political battles, it should come as no surprise that they played hard, too. They joined volunteer fire companies that often seemed more determined to battle each other than to fight fires. Their favorite sport was bare-knuckle boxing. They also loved the theater, but even their passion for drama led to rioting. They gambled late into the night. They danced with abandon, until all hours. Although elite New Yorkers might disdain Five Pointers, working-class New Yorkers came from all over the city to join in the neighborhood’s rowdy, carefree style of fun.

  “THE CHEAPSIDE OF NEW-YORK; THE PLACE OF THE PEOPLE”

  Residents or visitors in search of a good time might find entertainment on virtually any block in Five Points. But the neighborhood street most associated with amusement—for Five Pointers and all working-class New Yorkers—was the Bowery. The Bowery began at the eastern edge of Five Points at Chatham Square and continued northward for several miles. Cornelius Mathews called the Bowery “the greatest street on the Continent, the most characteristic, the most American, the most peculiar.” Walt Whitman loved the Bowery because it presented “the most heterogeneous melange of any street in the city: stores of all kinds and people of all kinds are to be met with every forty rods.” In contrast to Broadway, with its fashionable shops and well-heeled merchants, the Bowery was “the Cheapside of New-York; the place of the People; the resort of mechanics and the laboring classes; the home and the haunt of a great social democracy. . . . You may be the President, or a Major-General, or be Governor, or be Mayor, and you will be jostled and crowded off the sidewalk just the same.” The variety of shops and amusements prompted one writer to call the Bowery “a city in itself,” while a South Carolinian marveled that it “looks like a vast holiday fair two miles long.”6

  A number of features contributed to the carnival atmosphere. Bowery merchants were among the first to use brightly lit signs and displays to attract customers. In addition, most of the best known Bowery businesses in the Five Points vicinity were raucous bars. Two cavernous beer halls, the Atlantic Garden and the Volks Garden, faced each other between Bayard and Canal Streets. The Atlantic (on the Five Points side of the street) was the better known of the two, sporting several bars, a shooting gallery, billiard tables, bowling alleys, and an orchestra. Octogenarian Charles Haswell remembered its “dense clouds of tobacco-smoke, and hurr
y of waiters, and banging of glasses, and calling for beer.” A few doors south of the Atlantic Gardens—at the southwest corner of Bayard and Bowery—was Paddy Worden’s saloon, the Worden House. People came from miles around to see the carved black walnut ceiling in its bar, though it attracted its regular customers primarily from the East Side’s “old sports,” fighters and gamblers. Across the street at the northwest corner of Bowery and Bayard stood the North American Hotel, which housed another popular bar and hosted many Five Points political gatherings.7

  Even if one had neither the money nor the inclination to patronize one of lower Bowery’s famous watering holes, there was plenty to see, do, and buy out on the sidewalks. Street vendors thronged the boulevard, peddling oysters, hot yams (generally sold by African Americans), freshly roasted peanuts, hot corn in season, and sweet baked pears that one lifted by the stems out of syrup-filled pans. “Coffee and cake saloons” beckoned those seeking a respite from the throng or some warmth in colder weather.8

  Other street activities could be found off the Bowery, especially around Paradise Square at the Five Points intersection. “Punch and Judy” shows (said to be the first ever performed in the United States), street singers, and an Englishman who swallowed swords “clean up to their hilts” could all be found on the sidewalks in the 1830s and ’40s. Tumblers and jugglers would also appear, recalled Florry Kernan, “and throw somersaults, spin plates and eat live coals of fire, and afterward spin a hundred yards of ribbon from their mouths.” Musicians were everywhere, including bagpipe players in kilts and a “dark-skinned Savonyard, with organ and monkey, who would grind out ‘Moll Brooks,’ a Dutch waltz, and the ‘Fisher’s Hornpipe’” while his monkey in red coat and hat collected money.9

  By the late 1840s and 1850s, however, the Bowery had overtaken Paradise Square as the most popular Five Points location for fun and entertainment. Working-class New Yorkers from all over the city went there. Young men with their dates, as well as large, single-sex groups of journeymen and shop girls, cruised up and down the famous street simply to see and be seen.

  Many of these young men were known as “Bowery B’hoys,” members of one of the most colorful subcultures in the city’s history. The precise origin of the “Bowery B’hoy” is unclear. Americans had used the term “b’hoy” as early as 1834 to describe a working-class fellow who loved fun, adventure, hard drinking, and a night out with his pals (Bowery regulars pronounced the term “buh-hoy,” prompting the unusual spelling). But by the 1840s, the New York b’hoys, especially those who hung out on the Bowery, had developed a unique style of their own. The Bowery B’hoy dressed to be noticed. He wore

  a black silk hat, smoothly brushed, sitting precisely upon the top of his head, hair well oiled, and lying closely to the skin, long in front, short behind, cravat a-la sailor, with the shirt collar turned over it, vest of fancy silk, large flowers, black frock coat, no jewelry, except in a few instances, where the insignia of the engine company to which the wearer belongs, as a breastpin, black pants, one or two years behind the fashion, heavy boots, and a cigar about half smoked, in the left corner of the mouth, as nearly perpendicular as it is possible to be got. He has a peculiar swing, not exactly a swagger, to his walk, but a swing, which nobody but a Bowery boy can imitate.

  The Bowery B’hoy was not a dandy, however. The “heavy boots,” for example, were not worn for the sake of fashion but “for service in slaughterhouses and at fires.” Yet the Bowery B’hoy did want to dress well and look sharp.10

  “The Soap-Locks” by Nicholas Calyo gives some sense of the appearance of Bowery B’hoys dressed up for a night on the town. The posters advertise the typical amusements they favored. It is not clear what the “People’s albais” pouring from the can at the bottom right refers to. Collection of the New-York Historical Society.

  The Bowery B’hoy’s attitude was just as important as his wardrobe. According to George G. Foster, who studied him closely, “the governing sentiment, pride and passion of the B’hoy is independence—that he can do as he pleases and is able, under all circumstances, to take care of himself. He abhors dependence, obligation.” The B’hoy’s “thorough dislike of . . . aristocracy” drove him to be something of a political radical, as Foster found him typically “on intimate terms with men like [Mike] Walsh and [William] Leggett,” radical Democrats who sought to abolish the perks of privilege in the city’s political and economic life. Despite this love of autonomy and independence, the Bowery B’hoy did not shirk his commitments to friends and family. He prided himself on “his constancy and faithfulness to his domestic duties and responsibilities—his open abhorrence of all ‘nonsense’—the hearty manner in which he stands up on all occasions for his friend, and especially his indomitable devotion to fair play.” The Bowery B’hoys’ love of adventure even extended to the martial realm, with Foster noting that “many of the coolest as well as most daring acts of courage during the late Mexican war were performed by these men.” Bowery B’hoys were also among the first New Yorkers to leave for California when the gold rush began. Yet while the B’hoy might live anywhere in New York, and travel far and wide in search of adventure and glory, he felt most at home on the Bowery.11

  The Bowery B’hoy’s feats of bravery and glory were often inspired by a desire to impress his “G’hal.” According to Foster, “the g’hal is as independent in her tastes and habits as [the B’hoy] himself. Her very walk has a swing of mischief and defiance in it, and the tones of her voice are loud, hearty and free.” Like her male counterpart, the G’hal dressed flamboyantly in brightly colored clothing which one New Yorker remembered as “a cheap but always greatly exaggerated copy of the prevailing Broadway mode; her skirt was shorter and fuller; her bodice longer and lower; her hat more flaring and more gaudily trimmed; her handkerchief more ample and more flauntingly carried; her corkscrew curls thinner, longer, and stiffer, but her gait and swing were studied imitations of her lord and master, and she tripped by the side of her beau ideal with an air which plainly said, ‘I know no fear and ask no favor.’”12

  Although it may be easy to reconstruct the appearance of the Bowery B’hoy and G’hal, determining exactly which New Yorkers were attracted to this subculture is much more difficult. “Who are the b’hoys and g’hals of New York?” asked Foster in 1850. “The answer to this question, if it could be completely efficient, would be one of the most interesting essays on human nature ever written.” According to Cornelius Mathews, the B’hoy was “sometimes a stout clerk in a jobbing-house, oftener a junior partner in a wholesale grocery, and still more frequently a respectable young butcher with big arms and broad shoulders, in a blue coat, with a silk hat with a crape wound about its base, and who is known familiarly as a ‘Bowery Boy!’” Charles Haswell agreed that the “Bowery Boy . . . was not an idler and corner lounger, but mostly an apprentice, generally to a butcher.” The G’hal tended to work “in the press-room, the cap-sewing or the book-folding establishment.”13

  These trades were dominated by native-born workers. That the Bowery B’hoys were primarily American-born is confirmed by the only statement we have from a self-described B’hoy. Recalling the Astor Place Riot of 1849, John Ripley remembered years later that “I was at that time what was known as a ‘Bowery Boy,’ a distinct ‘gang’ from either the ‘know-nothing’ or ‘Native American’ parties. The gang had no regular organization, but were a crowd of young men of different nationalities, mostly American born, who were always ready for excitement, generally of an innocent nature.” Ripley implies that although the Bowery B’hoys were not nativists per se, patriotic chauvinism was part of their persona. Given that at least some were Irish immigrants, Ripley’s more nuanced account of the Bowery B’hoy subculture rings truer than Alvin Harlow’s assertion in Old Bowery Days that “the Bowery Boy gang was . . . anti-Irish, anti-Catholic, anti-British, anti-anything that was exotic or unfamiliar.”14

  Nonetheless, this subculture does appear to have appealed primarily to the native-born. Playwrig
ht Benjamin Baker gave his wildly popular B’hoy and G’hal characters the names “Mose” and “Lize” (short for Moses and Eliza), names one could never mistake for Irish Catholic. Inasmuch as 90 percent of adult Five Pointers were foreign-born by 1855, not many could have perceived themselves as B’hoys or G’hals. But many Five Pointers of the previous generation probably did see themselves in that mold before they moved out of the district. Frank Chanfrau, who portrayed Mose so convincingly that the B’hoys would accept no other actor in the role, was a former ship carpenter born in Five Points at the corner of the Bowery and Pell Street. It was also said that he and Baker based “Mose” in part on a grocer, Moses Humphrey, who lived on Mulberry Street from about 1827 to 1842. So while the Bowery B’hoy subculture probably had relatively few followers in Five Points by the time it became well known in the early 1850s, the neighborhood did contribute significantly to its formation.15

  The Bowery B’hoy was a relatively fleeting phenomenon—recognized only in the late 1840s and virtually extinct by the Civil War (though Hollywood created its own 1940s version with such films as Pride of the Bowery, Bowery Blitzkrieg, and Bowery Battalion). But a second subculture with adherents in Five Points—that of the “sporting men”—flourished into the early twentieth century. Sporting men spent most of their time gambling, drinking, and fighting in saloons that catered to their ilk. Whereas Bowery B’hoys held regular jobs, consistent employment was anathema to the self-respecting sporting man. Isaiah Rynders, as we have seen, earned a living at various times through gambling, training racehorses, and intimidating voters. But most sporting men did not achieve Rynders’s fame or political status. More typical was Owen Kildare, who supported himself by working occasionally as a bouncer, fighting a sparring match, or teaching uptown dandies how to box. Although forgotten today, the “old sports” of New York formed a subculture as colorful and well known as that of the Bowery B’hoy.16