Gangs of New York – History Review 2022

March 13, 2023



This video is a historical review of the 2002 Martin Scorcese film, Gangs of New York. It goes over the historical inspiration behind the film and evaluates where it is accurate and where it fudged the timeline a bit. It covers the Five Points in New York City, gang violence in 19th century New York, the Irish experience in the United States as immigrants, the Draft Riots of 1863 and race, and corruption and the Tammany Hall Democratic political machine.

The script should refer to the book “Gangs of New York” as “non-fiction book.” This was a scripting error.

Special thanks to my Patrons and Irish Thunder for being the executive producer of this episode!

https://www.patreon.com/historyclarified

Sources and References:

http://www.nychinatown.org/history/photos/fivepointsmiss2.html

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/manhattan-mayhem-72604720/

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=889102

Herbert Asbury – The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld

Race and Labor in the 1863 New York City Draft Riots

Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820-1920
By Paul Boyer

Five Points & Nineteenth Century New York with Tyler Anbinder –

Mary Ryan – Civic Wars

Noel Ignatiev – How the Irish Became White

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32 Comments
  1. Fantastic video. Great job pulling in historical quotes and references. Very well done and entertaining!

  2. Fun fact: Everyone was racist back then and there was no white man.

  3. I don't think this movie was even close to accurate. This movie portrayed mid 1800s America as some type of clown show..

  4. It can't be accurate because it doesn't have my great great GrandPappy in it walking around slapping tricks and cappin scallywags and perpetrators.

  5. glad we stayed at home.

  6. gang-banging is mythologized when white people do it.

  7. Annoyingly violent and long boring movie.

  8. I’m not entirely certain why the YouTube algorithm recommended this video, but I’m very glad that it did

  9. Oh dear you just went and brought up the awful Noel Ignatiev.A man whose views ( I want whites to die out) can be completely ignored.The Irish have always been white.

  10. The Irish built New York

  11. Are Americans aware of the Irish movie "my left foot", with Daniel Day-Lewis in the lead based and a true story? settle in for really great cinema and a movie of high critical acclaim. Another honourable mention "Angela's Ashes"'is just as highly rated…then if you interested in a crime comedy watch "Intermission", with Colin Farrell … there are loads more I could mention, lots of really good Irish cinema. .

  12. Wait, what? Irish are white?

    Man, turn your back for a second and the Micks are gettin' all uppity!

    To quote a brilliant line from Blazing Saddles, "We'll take the niggers and we'll take the chinks, but we won't take the Irish!"

  13. The most surprising piece of information, there was a time in this country when entire groups of people would struggle to be considered white. Ironic considering the lengths some people go to today to avoid that very label.

  14. Awesome video!

  15. The book is very good

  16. So the takeaway is the Democratic party has always been rotten to its core?

  17. What a crazy time period and place that would of been to live. I feel like you have a 8 percent chance of death any day.

    Awesome video! Very well done!

  18. As a Blackman and a native New Yorker! This movie is absolutely a piece of trash and a lie. I hate martin Scorsese forever for this garbage! SMH

  19. Great job, but please speak louder!

  20. The ending is great because it just shows that the whole thing was a sideshow and neither side had real power once the Federal government took notice.

  21. I love bill the butcher, Daniel day did a fkn steller job,greatest character ever

  22. The source material is not a novel. It’s a history.

  23. This should be the next red dead

  24. Damn good film!!!

  25. Reply
    I KNOW YA WRONG ♂️ March 13, 2023 at 8:20 am

    Dems haven't changed much then. They were obsessed with race all the way back to 1850 and before!

  26. a great depiction of historic democrat violence, bigotry and election fraud.

  27. +Genocide
    Not a potato famine

  28. If not for the Irish influx the south would have won the war !!!!! so imagine if the Irish had landed in the south port and been hired and joined the south this USA would be what ? I love to see a movie on what would be different !

  29. So basically New York's political Democratic Party has remained the same since the early 1800s that's no surprise

  30. Reply
    Roofers Nail Hardest March 13, 2023 at 8:20 am

    I watched this for the first time in 20 years the last time I did LSD. The narration makes it great for tripping.

  31. We're all bad, guys. Historically, all bad guys. Anyone who competes for survival and succeeds is a bad guy. His pity and charity does not diminish his bad guy status for neither him nor his ilk. Survival, especially successful survival, is evil.

  32. great vid very well researched and thought out. my personal opinion this flick could've been great but there was alot of severe overacting and after a while the violence aspect just felt way too exaggerated and over-emphasized to me. one thing i did like, though, was that they did a great job of emphasizing the dirtiness and even the "greasiness" of what life was like back then even for the affluent. the flick definitely got that point across very well.

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