Manhattan Read online

  As soon as they stepped into the street they were met with a barrage of rude curses and shouts from carters and wagoneers.

  “Mind where you’re goin ...”

  “Step out of the way you damn fools ...”

  “Are you gormless eejits all together …”

  Frightened and confused, they scurried back on to the sidewalk. As Emily caught her breath, she looked up and went pale. “Michael, he’s gone.”

  Michael looked across the street and muttered a curse. “Wait here.”

  Before she could stop him, he rushed into the street. Anger drove all fear from him. Disregarding the shouts and imprecations of drivers, he dodged in and around the wagons and miraculously made it to the other side without being trampled. He looked around frantically, but the man was nowhere in sight. He ran to the next corner, still no sign of him. On the next corner, he saw a man wearing a blue tunic with a line of brass buttons running down the front and a large eight-point star on his chest. He assumed he must be a policeman and ran up to him.

  “Excuse me, sir ...”

  The big policeman took a step back and wrinkled his nose in disgust. At first Michael was puzzled by the man’s behavior, but then it suddenly occurred to him that he must smell something awful. In the forty-three-day voyage, because of the shortage of water, they had only been able to take a handful of sponge baths. The clothes he was wearing he’d been wearing for at least three weeks. He took a step back, feeling ashamed.

  “Well,” the policeman said, twirling his baton, “what is it?”

  “We’ve just come off the boat, sir. This man came up to us and offered to take us to his uncle’s boardinghouse and—”

  The officer grinned knowingly. “Was he wearing a bright green tie?”

  “Yes. Exactly. Do you know him? He—”

  “Paddy, you’ve been swindled by a trickster.”

  “I… I don’t understand.”

  “It happens all the time. They’re called ‘runners’ and there are hundreds just like him. They prey on youse paddies coming off the boat promising to help their fellow countrymen and all that Irish malarkey. Did he get anything from you?”

  “My two bags.”

  “Consider yourself lucky. If he’d taken you to his ‘uncle’s’ boardinghouse I guarantee you the place would be a filthy hell-hole. Instead of comfortable rooms, you would be shoved into vermin-infested hovels with eight or ten other unfortunate souls at prices three or four times higher than what was proper. Consider yourself lucky he only got your bags. Was there anything of valuable in them?”

  “No, just some old clothes, a handful of books, and ...” His heart suddenly pounded in his chest. Sweet Jesus. There was something else. The money. The money Emily had made from selling her ring to the gombeen man. It was all they had in the world.

  Without another word, he spun on his heels and raced back to Emily. He was so distracted as he crossed the street that he was almost run down by a huge wagon loaded with beer barrels.

  Emily saw the look of fright on his face as he ran up to her. “Michael, what’s the matter?”

  He grabbed her by the shoulders. “I spoke to a policeman,” he said, gasping to catch his breath. “He told me we’ve been robbed. The bags are gone.”

  “Well, the devil take him and the bags. There was nothing of value in them anyhow.”

  “The money,” he said, hoarsely. “Emily, your money from the ring was in there.”

  She took his face in her hands and kissed him. “No, it wasn’t, Michael. I sewed the money into this very dress,” she said, twirling in a circle.

  A relieved Michael scooped her up and spun her around. “Oh, Emily, thank God one of us has some common sense.”

  “Put me down,” she said, feigning anger. “We’re making a spectacle of ourselves.”

  But of course, they weren’t. They would soon learn that New Yorkers paid absolutely no attention to the antics of other New Yorkers.

  “What’ll we do now?” she said, smoothing her dress.

  “We’re both exhausted. Let’s find lodgings, get a good sleep and a hot bath.”

  “That sounds wonderful.”

  They walked east on Canal Street dodging a relentless army of newsboys, peddlers, apple sellers, and hot-corn girls who all sang the same refrain: “Here’s your nice hot corn, smoking hot, smoking hot, just from the pot!”

  At the corner of Canal and Mulberry Street they spotted a small hotel.

  “That looks decent enough,” Michael said. “Do you think we should we go in?”

  “Please. I don’t think I can walk another step.”

  Behind the desk an elderly man with bushy gray sideburns looked up and smiled. “Yes, may I help you?”

  “We’d like a room for the night,” Michael said.

  “I’m sure I can accommodate you.”

  As they stepped up to the desk, the man recoiled, as did the policeman earlier.

  Michael reddened, knowing the cause. “I apologize for our… appearance, but we just came off a boat and—”

  “Quite so,” the man said with a kindly smile. “I understand.” He opened the register. “That will be fifteen dollars a night.”

  Emily and Michael looked at each other indecisively. They both were thinking the same thing. That was an awful lot of money for just one night’s lodging.

  Emily made the decision for them. “Very well. We only have a handful of American dollars. Will you take English pounds?”

  The man shook his head. “I’m sorry, miss, that isn’t possible.”

  “Is there someplace where we can convert our money?”

  The man looked at the wall clock behind him and shook his head. “I’m afraid not. It’s past five and all the currency establishments are closed. There’s one at the entrance to the quay, you must have missed it.”

  “Look, we need a place to stay,” Michael said with a note of desperation creeping into his voice. He was bleary eyed with exhaustion and he knew Emily was too. “Can you offer us any advice?”

  The man scratched his chin. “How much American money do you have?”

  On the ship Emily had taught Michael how to count American currency, but he still didn’t trust himself. He gave the handful of bills to her.

  She quickly counted it. “Almost six dollars,” she said.

  “I’m afraid you will not get decent lodgings for that amount.”

  “Sir, we’re desperate,” Michael said. “We’ll convert our money tomorrow, but we need a place to stay tonight.”

  “I understand, but I’m not allowed to extend credit. There is, however, one place in the city that can accommodate you, but I hesitate to suggest it.”

  “Where?”

  “Have you ever heard of the Five Points?”

  Michael shook his head.

  “When tourists come to the city they always ask to see two things: the mansions of Washington Square Park and the hovels of the Five Points. It’s a very nasty part of town, but you will be able to find lodgings there. The Old Brewery charges between two and ten dollars a month. Bad houses can be had for five to ten cents a night.”

  Michael looked at Emily and shrugged. “What choice do we have? It’ll just be for a night.”

  Chapter Two

  It was called the Five Points because it was at the intersection of five streets—Mulberry, Worth, Park, Baxter, and Little Waterford. In the time of George Washington, the site of the Five Points was a pond surrounded by swamp-land. As the city began to expand, the swamp was drained and buildings were constructed on landfill.

  By the 1840s the Five Points had become a sinkhole of vice, degradation, and wretchedness populated by thieves, loafers, and vagabonds. It was a notorious breeding ground for disease, crime, poverty, wretched drunken misery, and every other vice imaginable. It was also a source of obscene profits for disreputable landowners who converted single family frame houses, boardinghouses—even stables and sheds—into a bewildering maze of rabbit warrens.

&n
bsp; Twenty-nine thousand people, most of them Irish, crammed into these hovels with two or three families sharing a single filthy space. The Old Brewery alone, which had once been an active brewery, housed over a thousand tenants. It had close to a hundred rooms with only a few having windows.

  When Charles Dickens visited the Five Points in 1842, he described the Five Points as “hideous tenements which take their name from robbery and murder: all that is loathsome, drooping, and decayed is here.”

  A survey in 1850 showed that in just one block there were thirty-three underground lodgings and twenty grog shops. The Police Gazette said the Old Brewery was “the wickedest house on the wickedest street that ever existed in New York.”

  Five Points was also the home of dozens of gangs who preyed on the poor and warred against each other. Among the more notorious of the colorfully named gangs were the Dead Rabbits, the Plug Uglies, the Roach Guards, and the Bowery Boys.

  It was into these miserable and frightening surroundings that Michael and Emily stepped. In their short time in the city, they’d almost gotten used to the pervasive stench of horse manure and urine. But here, the reek, even more powerful, was a combination of horse manure, urine, dead animals, stale beer, and rotting garbage through which pigs rooted for food scraps. The thick, malodorous air seemed to absorb the very light.

  The foul streets were lined with ancient tenements and low clapboard houses. Cellars ten feet below the street were lodging houses with little ventilation and no windows. At every corner were grog shops and pawnbrokers.

  People with unfocused eyes stumbled along sidewalks slippery with garbage and filth. Pale-faced, emaciated men slumped in doorways or lay stretched out on the filthy pavement. Dirty and slovenly women moved in and of darkened narrow alleyways carrying babies bundled in rags. Children, barefoot and dressed in grimy scraps of clothing, played in the garbage-strewn gutter. To her horror, Emily saw one child slumped in a doorway draining what was left in a bottle of whiskey.

  They stopped in front of a massive and unusual looking building. “What do you think that is?” Michael asked.

  “I don’t know. But it looks vaguely like an Egyptian tomb.”

  They kept walking and finally came to the hulking, dilapidated Old Brewery. To the side of the building was an alley three feet wide, which led to a room called the Den of Thieves. Seventy-five men, women and children, Negroes and white, made their homes there without furniture or other amenities. Many women were prostitutes and conducted their business there. The far end of the dark alley was known as Murderers Alley and was all that the name implied.

  Michael gripped Emily’s arm. “We can’t stay here.”

  “I don’t like the place either, but what other choice do we have?”

  Michael stared up at a looming, vaguely threatening, building and took a deep breath. “All right, let’s go in.”

  The gloomy hallway smelled of stale urine and sour beer. Cautiously, they climbed a broken, almost impassable, staircase. Most of the room doors were open and they saw that one room, barely twelve by fifteen feet, was inhabited by at least fifteen people.

  Emily was appalled when it occurred to her that here, in this claustrophobic place, was where these people ate, drank, and slept. Another room about the same size contained five Negro men and women.

  Suddenly, there was the scraping of boots on the stairs and a gruff voice shouted out of the gloom, “You, there. What are you doin’ here?”

  The owner of the voice was a middle-aged, red-faced man with a bulbous nose. He squinted at them suspiciously. “Well? What’s your business here?”

  Michael recoiled from the strong smell of whisky on the man’s breath. “We’ve come about a room.”

  “Oh. I thought you was one of them damn missionary do-gooders. They’re always coming in here and riling up my tenants.” He wiped his sweaty forehead with a dirty handkerchief. “I imagine I can accommodate you on that score. It’ll cost you four dollars a month. In advance.”

  “We only want to stay one night,” he said.

  “Well, that’ll cost you fifty cents.”

  He led them to the room with a closed door. He pushed it open without knocking. The tiny windowless room, barely eight by eight, was dimly lit by a single flickering candle. Its only occupant, a frail woman wrapped in a black shawl, sat huddled in the corner. The room was devoid of furniture, save for a pile of rags on which, presumably, the woman slept.

  “These two will be staying the night with you,” he said gruffly.

  In a shaky voice the frightened woman said, “But ... I paid for the entire room for meself.”

  The man’s laugh was harsh. “You expect the entire room to yourself, do you? Then I suggest you go over to Broadway and check into the Astor House. I’m sure they’ll honor your lady’s request.”

  He slammed the door, leaving the three occupants to stare at each other self-consciously. Finally, Emily broke the strained silence.

  “Hello,” she said, tentatively, “my name is Emily and this is Michael.”

  The woman pulled her shawl around herself defensively and nodded. “I’m Maureen. I’m supposed to have this room to meself, you know,” she said, accusingly.

  “Well, we know nothing about that. But we’re only staying the night.” Emily felt sorry for the pale, rail-thin woman who seemed terribly frightened about something.

  Cutting off all further conversation, the woman crouched down in the corner and blankly stared at the walls.

  Michael looked around the room in growing frustration. With their bags stolen, they had only the clothes on their backs. “Emily, how can we stay here? We’ve no bedding nor blankets, nor ...”

  “It’s only for the night, Michael.”

  “All right, but at least we can open the door. It’s stifling in here.”

  As soon as he touched the doorknob, the woman screamed, “No, no, don’t open the door!”

  Startled by her outburst, he jumped back. “Why not? It’s terrible hot in here. There’s not a breath of air.”

  “Don’t open the door,” she shouted again, now almost hysterical. “For God’s sake, don’t open the door!”

  Emily knelt beside the woman. “What’s the matter, Maureen?” she said, soothingly. “Why can’t we open the door? It is awfully hot in here.”

  Maureen looked around, her eyes barely focusing. “There’s a man looking for me. I mustn’t let him find me. He’ll take me back to that terrible place. I won’t do that anymore.”

  “Maureen, how old are you?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  Emily was stunned. She judged the woman to be in her mid-forties. “Have you no family?”

  “They’re all back in Ireland. I came out here alone. When I got off the boat I was frightened and afraid. Then this man approached me. He was so kind. He said he would find me safe lodgings. He said he would find me a decent job. I went with him. But then he ...” Here she broke in to tears.

  Emily patted the woman’s hand. “Well, you’re safe with us. He won’t find you here.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “He’s a terrible man. Everyone in the Five Points is afraid of him.”

  Emily smoothed out the pile of rags. “Why don’t you get some sleep. Tomorrow, we’ll take you to the authorities. They’ll help you.”

  “He’ll find me. I know he will ...” Almost before her head touched the rags, the exhausted woman was asleep.

  Emily stood up. “The poor thing.”

  Michael stared at the sleeping woman and shook his head in dismay. “Emily, what kind of madhouse have I brought you to? This is not at all what I thought America was.”

  “I’m sure it’s not all like this. Tomorrow, we’ll convert our money to American dollars and then we’ll find decent accommodations. Let’s get some rest. I can’t keep my eyes open.”

  He blew out the candle and lay down on the floor next to her. Both exhausted, they quickly fell into a deep sleep.

  Sometime during the night, they wer
e awakened by sounds in the hallway of doors being banged open, followed by shouts of angry voices and scuffling feet. Just as Michael got to his feet to investigate, their door was violently flung open and a heavyset, brutish-looking man with beady eyes and a broad bent nose burst in. He held the lantern up, peered into the room, and spotted Maureen curled up in a ball pitifully trying to hide under her rags.

  “There you are, you little bitch,” he bellowed. He grabbed her by the hair. “You’ll come with me.”

  “Take your hands off her,” Michael said.

  The man looked at him with contempt. “And who might you be? Her pimp? Sorry, she’s my girl.”

  As Michael stepped forward to pull Maureen away from him, the man backhanded him sending him crashing into a wall. Michael came off the floor and charged the man, driving him into the opposite wall. The force of the impact made the man drop the lantern. Emily quickly righted it before it could start a fire.

  Michael drove his fist into the man’s gut and he went down with a loud exhalation of air. Michael pounced on him and drove his fist into the man’s face. The man rolled away and suddenly there was a knife in his hand. Michael jumped back as the man swung the knife in a wide arc toward his stomach.

  “So,” the man said, stumbling to his feet, “you think she’s worth your life, so be it.”

  He charged at Michael, but he was big and clumsy and drunk and Michael was able to sidestep him and yank his arm backwards. He heard a loud snap and the man screamed in pain as his arm broke. The knife clattered to the floor and Michael snatched it up. He pointed it menacingly at the man. “Get out of here. Now.”

  The man looked at Maureen then pointed a finger at Michael. “I’ll get you for this.” Then, holding his useless arm, he stomped out the room.

  Maureen was hysterical. “I told you he’d find me,” she wailed. “Oh, Jasus, what am I to do?”

  Emily put her arms around the distraught woman. “It’s all right, he’s gone. You’re safe now.” But the frightened look on Emily’s face belied her soothing words.