The Tombs: Five Points' Notorious House of Detention

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Places & Travel, History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2019

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

EPISODE 291: Some might find it strange that the Manhattan Detention Complex -- one of New York City's municipal jails -- should be located next to the bustling neighborhoods of Chinatown and Little Italy. Stranger still is its ominous nickname -- "The Tombs". Near this very spot -- more than 180 years ago -- stood another imposing structure, a massive jail in the style of an Egyptian mausoleum, casting its dark shadow over a district that would become known as Five Points, the most notorious 19th-century neighborhood in New York City. Both Five Points and the original Tombs (officially "New York City Halls of Justice and House of Detention") was built upon the spot of old Collect Pond, an old fresh-water pond that was never quite erased from the city's map when it was drained via a canal -- along today's Canal Street. But the foreboding reputation of the Tombs comes from more than sinking foundations and cracked walls. For more than six decades, thousands of people were kept here -- murderers, pickpockets, vagrants, and many more who had committed no crimes at all. And there would be a few unfortunates who would never leave the confines of this place. For the Tombs contained a gallows, where some of the worst criminals in the United States were executed. Other jails would replace this building in the 20th century, but none would shake off the grim nickname. Boweryboyshistory.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Bowry Boys Episode 291, The Tooms, 5 Points Nitorious House of Detention.
0:07.2	Hey, it's The Bowry Boys!
0:08.8	Hey!
0:09.9	Support for The Bowry Boys is provided by our listeners.
0:13.6	Join us for as little as $1 a month by visiting patreon.com slash Bowry Boys.
0:22.4	Hi there, welcome to The Bowry Boys. This is Greg Young.
0:25.6	And this is Tom Myers.
0:27.2	And The Bowry Boys podcast is returning to the neighborhood of 5 points.
0:32.7	The notorious place made famous in gangs of New York, an infamous place of vice,
0:38.3	squalor, and crime, legendary in New York City history.
0:42.8	Yes, it was home to all of those things, Greg, but it was also home to some real landmarks of order.
0:49.4	And one of those things was The Tooms.
0:52.4	Or its official name, The New York Halls of Justice and House of Detention.
0:58.7	This was a prison in Lower Manhattan located just on the border of the 5 points neighborhood,
1:04.3	whose very name has caused generations of New Yorkers to shutter.
1:09.2	This was no ordinary prison or jail.
1:13.2	It was a massive size in the style of an Egyptian mausoleum and was so famous,
1:19.5	notorious in its day, perhaps, that detention centers that are near that spot today still wear that
1:26.0	nickname, The Tooms. Since it was originally constructed in the 1830s, this house of detention,
1:32.8	or those who would replace it, those other tombs that would replace it, has figured into countless
1:38.0	stories that we've told on the show. There has been a part in many stories, Greg, where a prominent
1:43.2	figure in the story gets hauled off down to The Tooms. From Mad Amre Still to Boss Tweed,
	...

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