Jacob Riis, Five Cents Lodging, Bayard Street, c. 1889. This image depicts the conditions of many of the tenement residencies common in the Five Points neighborhood.
- Church Monthly, March 1858, (as quoted in Monthly Record of the Five Points House of Industry 2, June 1858, pgs 34-35.
“The most notorious precinct of moral leprosy in the city, … a perfect hot-bed of physical and moral pestilence, … a hell-mouth of infamy and woe.” I could not resist highlighting this source as mixed primary/secondary source; this is a very biased radical opinion by a church periodical newspaper based upon its general views of the Five Points inhabitants, and aimed at depreciating the public view of these resident which was chosen to be quoted as a sentiment of the neighborhood in a trustworthy assessment that generally bases its information on solid fact drawn by observation.
- Monthly Record of the Five Points House of Industry 1, June 1857, pg 70.
As I stated above, this source is primary, since its material is mostly observational facts by a team of Methodist missionaries who went first hand throughout the residences and took accounts of the conditions, [An 1857 inspection found] “23 families-179 people in all-living in just 15 Rooms”.
- Tom Nolan (as quoted in U. Robinson, Hot Corn, pg 70).
This a primary source, since it is quoting a first-hand narrative of a Five Point’s resident. This seems to be trustworthy, since Nolan uses extremely graphic imagery to describe the filth of his prior residence “…shoe-mouth deep of steaming filth..”.