Gangs of New York

Welcome back!  I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving week!  I know I did and it was hard to get up this morning, especially in this uncharacteristically cold CA weather!  Did you do some shopping for Black Friday?  I did and can’t believe it but I’m almost done shopping!  It was nice to relax this weekend and catch up on some TV.  One of the things I watched was “Gangs of New York.”  I’ve seen it before but it was on The History Channel so we watched it again.  So, of course now I’m obsessed with historic New York and the Five Points District.

If you don’t know much about Five Points, it was a rough neighborhood, where there were several gangs fighting for territory.  Basically the locals were against the immigrants and there seemed to always be a problem, lots of crime and lawlessness.  Here are a few historical photos or drawings of the area:

If you’re interested in learning more about Five Points, I found a book that seems really interesting and I’m just starting it.  I can give you review later, but if you want to check it out, here is the link.

I found a really great blog post here that you can check out for more info on the film verses the true story as well.

If you want to see the fictionalized account, maybe start with the film…it’s great and here’s some trivia about the production:

• Martin Scorsese ends the film with a shot of the New York skyline which includes the World Trade Center Towers, even though the film was finished after the buildings were destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Scorsese chose to end with that shot because the movie is supposed to be about the people who built New York, not those who tried to destroy it.

• Leonardo DiCaprio accidentally broke Daniel Day-Lewis’ nose while filming a fight scene. Day-Lewis continued to film the scene despite the injury.
• Most of the gangs mentioned by name were real 19th-century New York gangs. Bill “The Butcher” Cutting is based largely on real-life New York gang leader Bill Poole, who also was known as “The Butcher” and had much the same prestige as Daniel Day-Lewis’ character.
• Daniel Day-Lewis became so uncomfortable with the greasy hairstyle he wore as Bill the Butcher that he shaved his head immediately after filming completed.
• Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio both took salary reductions to preserve the budget.

• The name “Dead Rabbits” has a second meaning rooted in the Irish-American vernacular of 1857. The word “Rabbit” is a phonetic corruption of the Gaelic word ráibéad, meaning “man to be feared”. “Dead” is a slang intensifier meaning “very.” “Dead Ráibéad” thus means a man to be greatly feared.
• Martin Scorsese hired “The Magician”, an Italian man famous for a 30-year career as a pickpocket, to teach Cameron Diaz about the art of picking pockets.
• Bill the Butcher has a scene with every main and supporting character in the film, a symbol of his vast influence in the Five Points.

• When Boss Tweed considers sex with a prostitute, Bill The Butcher warns him that she’s been “frenchified,” a 19th-century term for venereal disease.
• During filming Daniel Day-Lewis talked with his film accent during the entire time of production, even when he was not on the set.
• Bill says to Boss Tweed, “I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. So because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth.” The line is from the Bible (Revelations 3:15-16).
• One day, after the day’s filming was finished, Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese talked Daniel Day-Lewis into going out to eat with them. He refused to break character, and the waitress was afraid to go near him.
• Many of the characters portrayed in the movie are buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. The view of the skyline shown at the end is visible from Williamsburg, not from Green-Wood.
• Some of the remaining scaffolding on the back lot at Cinecittà Studios was reused by Mel Gibson for The Passion of the Christ (2004). The Roman praetorium is one of them.

All trivia courtesy of IMDB