Roach Guards
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The Roach Guards were an ethnically Irish criminal gang in the Five Points neighborhood of New York City in the early to mid-19th century. The gang was originally formed to protect New York liquor mer
George Catlin painting of the Five Points, Manhattan, New York City in 1827 the slum territory of the "Roach Guards" and the other Irish criminal gangs
Five Points, Manhattan
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Five Points was a 19th-century neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The neighborhood, partly built on low-lying land that had filled in the freshwater lake known as the Collect Pond, was ge
Lodgers in Bayard Street Tenement, Five Cents a Spot, 1889. Photo by Jacob Riis
A 1798 watercolor of Collect Pond. Bayard's Mount, a 110-foot (34 m) hillock, is in the left foreground. Prior to being levelled around 1811 it was located near the current intersection of Mott and Grand Streets.
Coulthard's Brewery (built c. 1792), converted to a tenement later known as "The Old Brewery" after the financial Panic of 1837 and resulting economic depression
Five Points streets intersection painted by George Catlin in 1827. Anthony Street veers off to the left, Orange Street is to the right, and Cross Street runs left to right in the foreground. The dilapidated tenement buildings to the left of Anthony Street were torn down in 1832 as far back as Little Water Street, and the vacant, triangular lot that was left became known as "Paradise Square".