Historical Footprints by Steven McCauley
Part of being from New York City is taking it for granted. Indifference to the spectacle is included in your inheritance. Another given is never leaving your own neighborhood. The only problem then is, inevitably you get stuck talking to someone who's traveled farther and seen more of the city in the three years since they moved here than you have in your whole life. You've got to strike a balance: you need to go out and see new things, but not end up like some freak on a double-decker bus with a camera strapped around your neck.
In the spirit of adventure, and powered by the confidence that nobody I knew would see me, I signed up for a walking tour of downtown Manhattan with Big Onion Walking Tours, a company supported by The New York Historical Society and whose guides hold advance degrees in fields like American History. The theme was "The Real 'Gangs of New York,'" a lesson all about the Five Points area, Boss Tweed, the Draft Riots; all the real stuff from the movie, with some of the remaining landmarks thrown in for visuals. It seemed liked the sort of knowledge a native should have on hand to dazzle visitors with my casual genius.
I guess I wasn't the first one to dream up that scenario. On an overcast afternoon with guaranteed rain, in the middle of a workday even, 22 other people showed up, and only four of them were from out of town. I wouldn't be incognito, but at least I hadn't been recognized by anyone.
The tour began on the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street, with City Hall in plain view. Our tour guide Jennifer, an NYU PhD student, starts by explaining that the building across the street on the north side is one of the oldest in New York, built in the 1840s, and the first to be constructed entirely from marble. All I see is a Modell's on the first floor with a union guy in front handing out flyers. He's also set up an oversized inflatable blue gorilla, whose significance is not as obvious as an oversized inflatable rat, but I imagine it's similar.
Then Jennifer asks the group why German and Irish immigrants were flooding New York in the early 19th century. I didn't come prepared for questions. I resort to a favorite classroom move and avoid all eye contact until someone else answers. Some old guy pipes up. Saved by the class brain, I lift my head back up and resume listening. We move halfway down the block, and Jennifer butters the group up with bawdy talk about the prostitution and gambling that went on in and around a long-gone building across Broadway. After she goes on for a bit, she stumps the tour with another question. Now not even the brain is saying anything. I stare at the ground and try to recede to the edge of the pack.
That's when I realize: I'm on a high-school field trip. My mind immediately shuts off, the result of four years of intense conditioning. I pay attention to everything other than what I'm supposed to, and quickly spot all the regular characters: there's the pretty boy, there's a couple of geeks; the brain, and a couple of others who don't know enough to not be so attentive, and, of course, the two requisite cute girls that somehow ended up distracting me in every single class.
No; the whole reason I went on this thing was to show some maturity for once, so I open my eyes up and try to learn something. Jennifer is entertaining; she knows her stuff, and you can see she cares about it to boot. She may be an NYU student, but she's also from the Bronx, so she can be forgiven. In between stops on the tour, I strike up a conversation with the class brain, who, by rule, turns out to be a really interesting person. He's a retired cop from Brooklyn, and he teaches a history course at a community college. The brain also turns out to be the father of the cute girls, which is probably another rule.
We get to the corner of Baxter and Worth streets, back behind the Supreme Court building, and Jennifer tells us this is half of the intersection that once gave Five Points its name. First, the neighborhood was a pond; then an industrial cesspool; then, for the entire 19th century, one of the country's most vile slums. Finally the government gave up and leveled the place. Now there's a park and a playground where the Five Points used to be.
That's about all I needed to know. If anyone ever asks, I've got a couple of pearls to show off. With the tour breaking up and the rain starting to fall, I skip across Mulberry Street to Tasty Dumpling, five for a dollar; which is another good thing to know if you're looking to impress someone. ¦