Trips Places Foods Stories Newsletters

Take your next trip with Atlas Obscura!

Our small-group adventures are inspired by our Atlas of the world's most fascinating places, the stories behind them, and the people who bring them to life.

Visit Adventures
Trips Highlight
Taktsang Lhakhang, also known as the “Tiger’s Nest”.
Bhutan • 11 days, 10 nights
Festivals & Temples of Bhutan
from
Macchu Picchu
Peru • 10 days, 9 nights
Peru: Machu Picchu & the Last Incan Bridges
from
View all trips
Top Destinations
Latest Places
Most Popular Places Random Place Lists Itineraries
Add a Place
Download the App
Top Destinations
View All Destinations »

Countries

  • Australia
  • Canada
  • China
  • France
  • Germany
  • India
  • Italy
  • Japan

Cities

  • Amsterdam
  • Barcelona
  • Beijing
  • Berlin
  • Boston
  • Budapest
  • Chicago
  • London
  • Los Angeles
  • Mexico City
  • Montreal
  • Moscow
  • New Orleans
  • New York City
  • Paris
  • Philadelphia
  • Rome
  • San Francisco
  • Seattle
  • Stockholm
  • Tokyo
  • Toronto
  • Vienna
  • Washington, D.C.
Latest Places
View All Places »
Mosaic in Beachfront Park.
Tsunami Walking Tour
Madam Yoko’s gravesite.
Madam Yoko’s Grave
Garden path.
Garden of the Presidential Mansion
Anabaptist Cages
Latest Places to Eat & Drink
View All Places to Eat »
The sign declares this the number-one gumbo shop in town.
Gumbo Hut Shioya
The pavlova comes crowned with jewel-like fruit.
Central Park Boathouse
The Village Tavern of Long Grove - exterior.
The Village Tavern
Hunter House Hamburgers
L’Escamoteur
Recent Stories
All Stories Video Podcast
Most Recent Stories
View All Stories »
Aerial view of Bell Labs Holmdel
How the Bell Labs Holmdel Complex Inspired ‘Severance’
1 day ago
Omni Parker House Hotel
The Omni Parker House: Inside the History of Boston’s Most Iconic Hotel
3 days ago
The cute capybara.
Animal Takeover: Brace Yourself for Adorable Hordes
4 days ago
The Codex Gigas (the Devil’s Bible) open to the portrait of the devil.
Codex Gigas: Who Drew the Devil in This Massive Medieval Bible?
5 days ago

No search results found for
“”

Make sure words are spelled correctly.

Try searching for a travel destination.

Places near me Random place

Popular Destinations

  • Paris
  • London
  • New York
  • Berlin
  • Rome
  • Los Angeles
Trips Places Foods Stories Newsletters
Sign In Join
Places near me Random place
All the United States New York State New York City Manhattan The Mulberry Bend

The Mulberry Bend

During the 19th century, you could pay for violence off a prix fixe menu on this Manhattan street.

New York, New York

Added By
Luke Spencer
Email
Been Here
Want to go
Added to list
The Mulberry Bend   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
The Mulberry Bend   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
Bandits Roost, off the Mulberry Bend in 1888.   Jacob Riis
The Mulberry Bend in 1896.   Jacob Riis
The beginning of the Mulberry Bend   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
The last of the intersections that made the Five Points   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
The last remaining buildings of the Five Points   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
  cait7911 / Atlas Obscura User
  cait7911 / Atlas Obscura User
Been Here
Want to go
Added to list

About

Columbus Park in downtown Manhattan is a peaceful place. Bounded by the government buildings of New York's Civic Center on one side, and by the outskirts of Chinatown on the other, it is home to pick-up basketball games and games of cards played long into the night under arc lamps by the elderly residents of Chinatown. Designed by the venerable Calvert Vaux of Central Park fame, it is one of the city's oldest and quietest public parks. 

But for most of the 19th century, it was one of the deadliest places on Earth. It was known by a different name then. This was the epicenter of the infamous Five Points neighborhood, which had the highest murder rate in the world. 

Five Points was part of the Sixth Ward of Manhattan, the so-called "Bloody Sixth." It was a disease-ridden, volatile slum, where inhabitants lived in appalling squalor, ravaged by epidemics of cholera, yellow fever, and typhus. The worst of the tenements, where those unfortunates who called them home lived in overcrowded rooms and cellars shared by up to 20 people at a time, were found along a particular stretch of Mulberry Street called the Mulberry Bend. So named because of the way the street angled sharply to avoid the festering Collect Pond, the Mulberry Bend was described by police beat reporter Jacob Riis as "the foul core of New York's slum." Consisting of a maze of squalid shacks and back alleyways blackened by grime, each with such evocative names as Bandit's Roost, Bottle Alley, and Ragpickers Row, the <i>New York Daily Tribune</i> wrote in 1850 of "the underground holes and corners...the narrow, dark, filthy cellar, where drunkenness, vice and misery fester in their fullest manifestation."

The slums were deadly enough, but the violent gangs that patrolled the Five Points, even more so. These vicious bands of murderers, extortionists, and thieves like the Chichesters, the Forty Thieves, and the Dead Rabbits made the Mulberry Bend lethal. Fighting pitched battles with their arch enemies the Bowery Boys, they were eventually clamped down on by the New York City Police Department after the Civil War, only to resurface as the even deadlier Whyos. An insight into the daily lives of the Whyos comes from gang member Piker Ryan, arrested in 1884. He was found carrying a list of services offered by the gang, starting with "punching" ($1) and carrying through to "both eyes blacked" ($3), "nose and jaw broke" ($7), "(black)jacked out" ($15), "ear chewed off" ($15), "leg or arm broke" ($19), "shot in the leg" ($20), "stab" ($21.50), and ending with "Doing the Big Job" (AKA murder for $100 and up). 

By the end of the 19th century, due in large part to the campaigning efforts of journalist Riis, public outcry called for the slums of the Five Points to be cleared. The gambling dens, saloons, and slaughterhouses were razed and replaced with Calvert Vaux's park. Almost all of the rows of tenement buildings were demolished, all except one, the most infamous of all. Visitors today walking up the southern part of Mulberry Street, with no fear of attack from roving Whyos or Dead Rabbits, will notice about halfway along Columbus Park that the street angles sharply away. Here is a row of old brick houses, all that remains of what was once the old Five Points, the still standing Mulberry Bend. 

Related Tags

Roads Crime Crime And Punishment Aletrail

Know Before You Go

The Mulberry Bend can be reached by walking up Mulberry Street from Worth Street or walking down Mulberry Street from Bayard Street.

Community Contributors

Added By

Luke J Spencer

Edited By

hana, chaaaaaarlie, dlc31723, cait7911

  • hana
  • chaaaaaarlie
  • dlc31723
  • cait7911

Published

November 21, 2014

Edit this listing

Make an Edit
Add Photos
Sources
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whyos
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Points,_Manhattan
  • http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2009/03/charles-dickens-and-five-points.html
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry_Bend
  • http://www.urbanography.com/5_points/5p5.html
The Mulberry Bend
48-50 Mulberry Street
New York, New York, 10013
United States
40.715142, -73.999439
Get Directions

Nearby Places

Chinatown Ice Cream Factory

New York, New York

miles away

Mei Lai Wah

New York, New York

miles away

Chinatown's Bloody Angle

New York, New York

miles away

Explore the Destination Guide

Photo of New York

New York

New York

Places 406
Stories 90

Nearby Places

Chinatown Ice Cream Factory

New York, New York

miles away

Mei Lai Wah

New York, New York

miles away

Chinatown's Bloody Angle

New York, New York

miles away

Explore the Destination Guide

Photo of New York

New York

New York

Places 406
Stories 90

Related Places

  • Dead Woman’s Crossing

    Weatherford, Oklahoma

    Dead Woman's Crossing

    This highway overpass was named after the tragic disappearance of a young mother who got mixed up with the wrong people.

  • Nutshell Studies Diorama

    Baltimore, Maryland

    Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death

    Eighteen miniature death-scene dioramas.

  • Globe, Arizona

    The 1910 Gila County Sheriff's Office and Jail

    A historic jail preserves etchings from over a century of incarcerated people in a town with a rough and tumble past.

  • Napier Prison

    Napier, New Zealand

    Napier Prison

    New Zealand's oldest prison holds a dark history and the scars of a deadly earthquake.

  • Peter the dog.

    Brisbane, Australia

    Queensland Police Museum

    It's home to the taxidermy remains of Peter, the dog who helped convict a murderer.

  • The Hanging Stanes.

    Edinburgh, Scotland

    The Hanging Stanes

    A pair of stones embedded in an Edinburgh street memorialize one of the city's last public hangings.

  • Ledburn, England

    Bridego Bridge

    The site of the notorious Great Train Robbery of £2.6 million, one of the biggest heists in English history.

  • Z Ward.

    Glenside, Australia

    Z Ward

    A perfectly preserved abandoned criminal asylum in South Australia.

Aerial image of Vietnam, displaying the picturesque rice terraces, characterized by their layered, verdant fields.
Atlas Obscura Membership

Become an Atlas Obscura Member


Join our community of curious explorers.

Become a Member

Get Our Email Newsletter

Follow Us

Facebook YouTube TikTok Instagram Pinterest RSS Feed

Get the app

Download the App
Download on the Apple App Store Get it on Google Play
  • All Places
  • Latest Places
  • Most Popular
  • Places to Eat
  • Random
  • Nearby
  • Add a Place
  • Stories
  • Food & Drink
  • Itineraries
  • Lists
  • Video
  • Podcast
  • Newsletters
  • All Trips
  • Family Trip
  • Food & Drink
  • History & Culture
  • Wildlife & Nature
  • FAQ
  • Membership
  • Feedback & Ideas
  • Community Guidelines
  • Product Blog
  • Unique Gifts
  • Work With Us
  • About
  • FAQ
  • Advertise With Us
  • Advertising Guidelines
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms of Use
Atlas Obscura

© 2025 Atlas Obscura. All Rights Reserved.