Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New YorkMacmillan + ORM, 8 mar. 2016 - 584 pagini The classic social history of corruption and vice in nineteenth-century NYC: “A cacophonous poem of democracy and greed, like the streets of New York themselves” (John Vernon, Los Angeles Times Book Review). Lucy Sante’s Low Life is a portrait of America’s greatest city, the riotous and anarchic breeding ground of modernity. This is not the familiar saga of mansions, avenues, and robber barons, but the messy, turbulent, often murderous story of the city’s slums; the teeming streets—scene of innumerable cons and crimes whose cramped and overcrowded housing is still a prominent feature of the cityscape. Low Life voyages through Manhattan from four different directions. Part One examines the actual topography of Manhattan from 1840 to 1919; Part Two, the era’s opportunities for vice and entertainment—theaters and saloons, opium and cocaine dens, gambling and prostitution; Part Three investigates the forces of law and order which did and didn’t work to contain the illegalities; Part Four counterposes the city’s tides of revolt and idealism against the city as it actually was. Low Life is one of the most provocative books about urban life ever written—an evocation of the mythology of the quintessential modern metropolis, which has much to say not only about New York’s past but about the present and future of all cities. |
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Pagina
... houses and bagnios . An extraordinary number of edifices survive that formerly housed the worst deadfalls in the city , from Kit Burns's Rat Pit to McGurk's Suicide Hall . I was instinctively drawn to such places, in fact and in ...
... houses and bagnios . An extraordinary number of edifices survive that formerly housed the worst deadfalls in the city , from Kit Burns's Rat Pit to McGurk's Suicide Hall . I was instinctively drawn to such places, in fact and in ...
Pagina
... houses sprinkled along one side of the avenue , while across the way ramshackle frame houses are perched on eroding hillocks , high above the graded road . In an 1890 photograph of a block of West 133rd Street , clusters of three and ...
... houses sprinkled along one side of the avenue , while across the way ramshackle frame houses are perched on eroding hillocks , high above the graded road . In an 1890 photograph of a block of West 133rd Street , clusters of three and ...
Pagina
... houses , starting in 1793 ; gas lighting in 1825 ; electric arc lights in 1882. As business activities increased , Broadway was the first avenue to divest itself of residences , bit by bit , eventually making itself wholly commercial up ...
... houses , starting in 1793 ; gas lighting in 1825 ; electric arc lights in 1882. As business activities increased , Broadway was the first avenue to divest itself of residences , bit by bit , eventually making itself wholly commercial up ...
Pagina
... houses along the span . Among these avenues and east of them lay a patchwork quilt of ethnic settlements that periodically shifted or expanded with barely visible capillary motion . The German presence , which dominated the Lower East ...
... houses along the span . Among these avenues and east of them lay a patchwork quilt of ethnic settlements that periodically shifted or expanded with barely visible capillary motion . The German presence , which dominated the Lower East ...
Pagina
... houses on Mott and Pell Streets in the 1870s and over the years spread in four directions , gradually gradually absorbing the progressively abandoned ethnic settlements around it . A bit to its north was one of the larger of the city's ...
... houses on Mott and Pell Streets in the 1870s and over the years spread in four directions , gradually gradually absorbing the progressively abandoned ethnic settlements around it . A bit to its north was one of the larger of the city's ...
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American arrested became began blocks bohemian Bowery Boys boxes Broadway Brooklyn Brown Brothers buildings called cards Charles Chatham Chatham Square Chinatown Chinese Chuck Connors city's Civil Club Connors cops crowd dance Dead Rabbits decades district dives dollar door drink early East Side established eventually featured fight fire Five Points floor Fourteenth Street gambler gambling gangs gangsters George girls Greenwich Village Harlem Hell's Kitchen Hotel houses hundred Irish Island Jack Jacob Riis John killed known later Lexow Committee lived lotteries Lower East Side Manhattan Market Mock Duck Morrissey movie murder Museum neighborhood night nineteenth century opened opium P. T. Barnum Park Parkhurst Photograph play police political popular prostitutes raided reform riots River rooms saloon slums sort Square stage Tammany Hall Tenderloin tenements thieves Third Avenue turn Tweed uptown vice Ward West Whyos William women York City