Detour 6.1
Excerpt from Sunshine and Shadow in New York
by Matthew Hale Smith (Hartford: J.B. Burr and Company, 1869). Pages 217-218
A Walk Up the Avenue
Leaving the City Hall about six o'clock on Sunday night, and walking through Chatham Square to the Bowery, one would not believe that New York had any claim to be a Christian city, or that the Sabbath had any friends. The shops are open, and trade is brisk. Abandoned females go in swarms, and crowd the sidewalk. Their dress, manner, and language indicate that depravity can go no lower. Young men known as Irish-Americans, who wear as a badge very long black frock-coats, crowd the corners of the streets, and insult the passer by. Women from the windows arrest attention by loud calls to the men on the sidewalk, and jibes, profanity, and bad words pass between the parties. Sunday theatres, concert saloons, and places of amusement are in full blast. The Italians and Irish shout out their joy from the rooms they occupy. The click of the billiard ball, and the booming of the ten-pin alley, are distinctly heard. Before midnight, victims watched for will be secured; men heated with liquor, or drugged, will be robbed; and many curious and bold explorers in this locality will curse the hour in which they resolved to spend a Sunday in the Bowery.
This image is excerpted from the Sanitary Map and Social Chart of the Fourth Ward. It did not appear in this book.
The Fourth Ward:
Life and Death in New York, 1860-1870
Primary Source Collection 6:
Descriptions of Fourth Ward Saloonsfrom James Dabney McCabe,Secrets of the Great City (Philadelphia: Jones Brothers, 1868)
6.1: From Chapter 36, "The Wickedest Man in New York" 6.2: From Chapter 44, "Kit Burns's"
| Abandoned females: | Prostitutes | |
| Bowery:: | One of the most important commercial thoroughfares in lower Manhattan. In the 1860s, it was extended south into the Fourth Ward, but today its southernmost point is at Chatham Square. In the mid nineteenth century, as Manhattan's population expanded north, the Bowery developed a reputation as a seedy district of cheap entertainment, low-quality shops, and cheap lodging houses. It became a skid row in the twentieth century, but is now undergoing some gentrification. | |
| Chatham Square: | Chatham Square was, as this article suggests, a seedy commercial district in lower Manhattan. It formed the intersection of Chatham Street, the Bowery, Oliver Street and East Broadway. The horse car lines of the Second Avenue Railroad entered the square from the Bowery and then looped through the Fourth Ward. | |
| Concert saloons: | Disreputable night clubs whose stage performances included dancing girls. Performers and waitresses sometimes also worked as prostitutes. Concert saloons were popular entertainment centers for men in the mid nineteenth century. | |
