The Five Points

In the 1800s there was one neighborhood in America known far and wide for being the most dangerous turf in the country, and possibly even the world. The Five Points, a slum in lower Manhattan where several streets converged, was famed as the home of thieves, prostitutes, and flamboyant Irish-American gangs.

A famous writer who had chronicled London's underside came to America and one place he had to see for himself was the Five Points. The place was so rough that even Charles Dickens was stunned. "Debauchery," he wrote, "has made the very houses prematurely old."