Skip to main content
Log in

From tanning to tea: The evolution of a neighborhood

  • Published:
Historical Archaeology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This study traces the transformation of an outlying industrial district in lower Manhattan into one of the city’s most densely populated working-class neighborhoods-Five Points. Using census research conducted for the Foley Square/Five Points project, the demographic as well as physical changes are discussed in the context of the district’s reputation as the city’s most notorious 19th-century slum. The evolving spatial organization of one of the excavated lots is used to provide a picture of living conditions and a backdrop for the interpretive studies that fill the rest of the volume.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Asbury, Herbert 1928 The Gangs of New York, An Informal History of the Underworld. Garden City Publishing Co., Garden City, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beaudry, Mary C., Lauren J. Cook, and Stephen A. Mrozowski 1991 Artifacts and Active Voices Material Culture as Social Discourse. In The Archaeology of Inequality, Randall H. McGuire and Robert Paynter, editors, pp. 150–191. Basin Blackwell, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blackmar, Elizabeth 1989 Manhattan for Rent, 1785–1850. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • 1995 Accountability for Public Health: Regulating the Housing Market in Nineteenth-Century New York City. In Hives of Sickness, Public Health and Epidemics in New City, David Rosner, editor, pp.42–64. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blumin, Stuart M. 1990 George G. Foster and the Emerging Metropolis. In New York By Gas-Light and other Urban Sketches, by George G. Foster, pp. 1–61. University of California Press, Berkeley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Borough of Manhattan Land Evidence 1785 Borough of Manhattan Land Evidence (Libers of Deeds, Mortgages and Other Transactions Affecting Realty Located in New York County). Office of the City Register for the Borough of Manhattan, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyer, Paul 1978 Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820–1920. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butt, Ender 1839 Prostitution Exposed; or, A Moral Reform Directory. Collection of the New York Public Library, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Council of Hygiene and Public Health 1866 Report of the Council of Hygiene and Public Health of the Citizens’ Association of New York Upon the Sanitary Condition of the City. D. Appleton, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dickens, Charles 1842 American Notes for Grand Circulation. John Longmans, London, England.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunshee, Kenneth H. 1952 As You Pass By: Directory of Forgotten Streets. Hastings House, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foster, George G. 1990 New York by Gas-light and other Urban Sketches. Edited and with an introduction by Stuart M. Blumin. University of California Press, Berkeley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, Michel 1992 The Archaeology of Knowledge. Pantheon Books, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilfoyle, Timothy J. 1992 City of Eros, New York City: Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790–1920. W.W.Norton and Company, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, Martin 1992 Small Things and the Mobile, Conflictual Fusion of Power, Fear, and Desire. In The Art and Mystery of Historical Archaeology, Essays in Honor of James Deetz, Anne Elizabeth Yentsch and Mary C. Beaudry, editors, pp. 373–399. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hodges, Graham R. 1986 New York City Cartmen, 1667–1850. New York University Press, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holland, Major 1757 Plan of the Northeast Environs of the City of New York. Reproduced in Valentine’s Manual of the Municipal Government of the City of New York, 1859. New York, NY.

  • Ignatiev, Noel 1995 How the Irish Became White. Routledge, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ingle, Marjorie, Jean Howson, and Edward S. Rutsch 1990 A Stage IA Cultural Resources Survey of the Proposed Foley Square Project, Manhattan, New York. Report to Edwards and Kelcey, Engineers, New York, NY. from Historic Conservation and Interpretation, Inc., New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kollect Map [1800–1825] Kollect Map, Artist unknown. Collection of the New York Historical Society, New York, NY.

  • Kouwenhoven, John A. 1953 Columbia Historical Portrait of New York. Columbia University Press, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ladies of the Mission 1854 The Old Brewery and the New Mission House at the Five Points. Stringer and Townson, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maerschalk, Francis 1754 Plan of the City of New York ca. 1754. Collection of the New York Historical Society, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCracken, Grant 1990 Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neville, Christopher P. 1994 Overlooking the Collect: Between Topography and Memory in the Landscape of Lower Manhattan. Master thesis, Columbia University, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • New York State Census 1855 Census Returns for the Sixth Ward of the City of New York in the county of New York. Department of Records and Information, City of New York Municipal Archives, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perris, William [1857–1875] Insurance Atlas of the City of New York. William Perris, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ratzer, Bernard 1767 Plan of the City of New York. Collection of the New York Historical Society, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenberg, Charles E. 1962 The Cholera Years. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosner, David 1995 Hives of Sickness, Public Health and Epidemics in New York City. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rutsch, Edward S. and Staff 1992 A Research Design for the Courthouse Block Including an End-of-Fieldwork Summary Report. Manuscript, John Milner Associates, Philadelphia, PA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scherzer, Kenneth A. 1992 The Unbounded Community: Neighborhood Life and Social Structure in New York City, 1830–1875. Duke University Press, Durham, NC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stansell, Christine 1987 City of Women. University of Illinois Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stokes, I. N. Phelps 1928 Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498–1909. Reprinted 1967 by Robert H. Dodd, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stott, Richard B. 1990 Workers in the Metropolis, Class, Ethnicity, and Youth in Antebellum New York. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • U.S. Bureau of the Census 1790 Population Schedules of the First Census of the United States, 1790. National Archives, Northeast Branch, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • 1800 Population Schedules of the Second Census of the United States, 1800. National Archives, Northeast Branch, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • 1810 Population Schedules of the Third Census of the United States, 1810. National Archives, Northeast Branch, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • 1820 Population Schedules of the Forth Census of the United States, 1820. National Archives, Northeast Branch, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • 1830 Population Schedules of the Fifth Census of the United States, 1830. National Archives, Northeast Branch, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • 1840 Population Schedules of the Six Census of the United States, 1840. National Archives, Northeast Branch, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Every, Edward 1972 Sins of New York As “Exposed” by the Police Gazette. Benjamin Blom, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wall, Diana diZerega 1994 The Archaeology of Gender, Separating the Spheres in Urban America. Plenum Press, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilenz, Sean 1984 Chants Democratic, New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788–1850. Oxford University Press, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yamin, Rebecca 1998a Wealthy, Free, and Female: Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century New York. In Tales of Five Points: Working-Class Life in Nineteenth-Century New York, Volume II, Rebecca Yamin, editor, pp. 316–339. Manuscript, John Milner Associates, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yamin, Rebecca (editor) 1998b Tales of Five Points: Working-Class Life in Nineteenth-Century New York. Manuscript, John Milner Associates, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yamin, Rebecca, Joseph Schuldenrein, and Maria L. Schleidt-Penalva 1995 Archeological and Geoarcheological Investigations Associated with the Construction of the Metropolitan Corrections Center Tunnel Under Pearl Street, Foley Square, New York. Report to Edwards and Kelcey Engineers, Inc., New York, NY and the General Services Administration, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Yamin, R. From tanning to tea: The evolution of a neighborhood. Hist Arch 35, 6–15 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03374389

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03374389

Navigation