Jews & The Notorious Five Point

The notorious Five Points neighborhood in Manhattan was memorialized by Martin Scorsese’s 2002 film “Gangs of New York.” It told of one of the worst slums that ever existed and the Irish and Nativist gangs that battled for neighborhood dominance. This highly fictionalized story took place in the 1850’s and 60’s but was based on a very real neighborhood centered in what is today’s Chinatown.

But did you know the real Five Points was also one of the first Jewish neighborhoods in New York City? Before the great Eastern European migration to the Lower East Side from 1880 to 1920, immigrant Jews with no money from mostly Eastern Europe, settled and suffered and built their synagogues within the confines of this notorious slum.

Join urban historian and educator Bradley Shaw as he walks you through “The Ould Sixth Ward” and tells of how this diverse group of residents dealt with the squalid and unsanitary conditions.

Some of the things you will learn about:

How the neighborhood came about

The people who lived there

The first Jewish garment district

The oldest Jewish cemetery in the US

The Jewish congregations of the area - some of the oldest in NYC

A Chinese response to a deadly Russian pogrom in 1903

Infamous streets and buildings

Your guide, Urban Historian and educator Bradley Shaw, was born on the Lower East Side, has a BA in History and Education from Brooklyn College and is a licensed NYC tour guide. He shares with us his love of the neighborhood and passion for its history. He has been a docent, walking tour guide and manager at the Museum at Eldridge Street for more than six years, in addition to doing walking tours for the LESJC, Context Travel and his own company NY History Tours.