A two-day civil disturbance in New York City evolving from what was originally a small-scale street fight between members of the Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys into a citywide gang war, which occurred July 4&ndash;5, 1857. Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force&mdash;brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police&mdash;the fighting spiraled into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot in 1849 and the biggest scene of gang violence until the New York Draft Riots of 1863. Order was restored by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford. 

 Included within newspaper "Four scenes from the riot in the Sixth Ward, New York City between the "Bowery Boys" and the "Dead Rabbits" showing: women and men throwing brickbats down on the police, a "Dead Rabbit," a "Bowery Boy," and a "Dead Rabbit," falling at the feet of policeman Shangles"  

Dead Rabbits and Bowery Boys riot

 The Five Points was a neighborhood in downtown New York renowned for poverty and widespread criminality. Several gangs collectively known as the Five Points Gang ruled the neighborhood's organized crime activity. Under their rule, Five Points gained international notoriety for having the highest murder rate of any slum in the world and stories of violent confrontation between warring gangs became legendary. 

 One of the most dangerous areas controlled by the Five Points gangs pictured in 1896 at the height of gang influence in the area. The original street has now been changed in layout and replaced with Mulberry Street. The area was the original home of several of the most dangerous Irish gangs in the Five Points who lived in cramped tenement buildings surrounding the bustling high street.  

Jacob Riis, who took this photo, called Bandit's Roost 'the vilest and worst to be found anywhere.' Riis identified a tenement in his photo of Bandit's Roost as 59 &amp;frac12; Mulberry Street, the area of New York's Columbus Park where people now sit on benches and warm themselves in the sun    

 The 'X' denotes where police discovered a dead body. The body of a man was discovered in the alleyway behind a tenement building in the Five Points. According to local sources in one building known as the 'Old Brewery' there was at least one murder per night at the height of the gang's power  

 Pick-pocketing was one of the main rackets controlled by gangs in the Five Points who would divide up the loot from successful robberies. Alcoholism and poverty went hand-in-hand in the neighborhood which meant crude techniques like the one pictures were devastatingly effective and allowed thieves to easily get away with the crime  

An Irish-American gang who took their name from an old Irish-American militia, pictured relaxing in the docks near the Five Points. The original Montgomery Guards were an Irish-American militia company that formed in Boston in 1837 and were forced to disband the following year due to extreme nativist and anti-Catholic sentiment in the city    

 Shows Five Points and Mulberry Bend which served as a focal point for gang violence. Jacob Riis once described it as the 'foul core of New York's slums'.  

Five Points

Gangs of New York

An Irish American criminal street gang active in Lower Manhattan in the 1830s to 1850s. The Dead Rabbits were so named after a dead rabbit was thrown into the center of the room during a gang meeting, prompting some members to treat this as an omen, withdraw, and form an independent gang. Their battle symbol was a dead rabbit on a pike. They often clashed with Nativist political groups who viewed Irish Catholics as a threatening and criminal subculture. The Dead Rabbits were given the nicknames the "Mulberry Boys" and the "Mulberry Street Boys" by the New York City Police Department because they were known to have operated along Mulberry Street in the Five Points.   

Dead Rabbits

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