I was jonesing for a New York City gangster tale last week. I finally started Herbert Asbury’s Gangs of New York but quit when I realize that the book is less glorious embellishment and more fan fiction. Frustrated, I looked for a substitute and then remembered I purchased John Oller’s Rogues’ Gallery on a lark.
It aspires to be a corrective to Asbury’s highly fictionalized accounting which was held as a historical standard for years. Oller is more scholarly than smooth but this might scratch the itch if you’re looking for it. It talks about how large scale crime evolved in New York City from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of Prohibition, along with the methods and persons responsible for policing (or not) the city.
One of the big myths it dispelled, among others, is how the Five Points was a crime ridden slum. There were slummy parts and, of course, there was crime. But by and large most of the folks who lived in the Five Points were working class immigrants just trying to get by. It humanizes the city, as opposed to its cartoonish portrayals.
It’s not a comprehensive take by any means but its readable efficiency is owed to the fact that Oller picks one crime at a time, looks at it from both sides over several chapters and then writes out the historically accepted climax. I read some reviews saying that such a style frustrated folks. And I get it; this is very much a Your Mileage May Vary kinda read.
But it worked for me. It gave me a decent outlook into the growth of New York City (though I do need to finish Lucy Sante’s Low Life) and how criminality functioned, especially within the NYPD. I’ve always preferred facts with my non-fiction so I appreciated what it was trying to do.