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Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York

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Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York

By: Luc Sante  

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Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Description:
Luc Sante's Low Life is a portrait of America's greatest city, the riotous and anarchic breeding ground of modernity. This is not the familiar saga of mansions, avenues, and robber barons, but the messy, turbulent, often murderous story of the city's slums; the teeming streets--scene of innumerable cons and crimes whose cramped and overcrowded housing is still a prominent feature of the cityscape.

Low Life voyages through Manhattan from four different directions. Part One examines the actual topography of Manhattan from 1840 to 1919; Part Two, the era's opportunities for vice and entertainment--theaters and saloons, opium and cocaine dens, gambling and prostitution; Part Three investigates the forces of law and order which did and didn't work to contain the illegalities; Part Four counterposes the city's tides of revolt and idealism against the city as it actually was.

Low Life provides an arresting and entertaining view of what New York was actually like in its salad days. But it's more than simpy a book about New York. It's one of the most provocative books about urban life ever written--an evocation of the mythology of the quintessential modern metropplois, which has much to say not only about New York's past but about the present and future of all cities.


Description:
There are very few classics in the field of pop culture--the academic stuff tends to be too dry and the fun stuff is too quickly dated. This book by Luc Sante is the exception--in fluid prose liberally sprinkled with astute metaphors, Sante tells the story of New York's Lower East Side, circa 1840-1920. The personal histories of criminals, prostitutes, losers, and swindlers bring to life the social and statistical history that the author has meticulously researched. Not limiting himself to the usual sources, Sante finds his history in old copies of Police Gazette as well as actual police, fire, and social service records. Above all, what really makes this book work is the writing, which brings to life a culture of the streets that continues to form a silent influence on our contemporary popular culture.

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Best book about NYC underworld - This is a book I've read multiple times, both for the quality of the writing and an interest in the subject matter. It's not a chronological history, but rather an impressionistic vision organized by broad categories and full of memorable characters and anecdotes. If you have any interest in the history of Five Points or the Lower East Side, I recommend it highly.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
amazing stories... - this is my THIRD copy of this book; i gave the last 2 to friends.
living in nyc, it is amazing to see what our downtown neighborhoods were like a hundred years ago.
also: see "gangs of new york", a great companion to this.

highly recommended read (and some great photos as well).

Customer Review: 3 out of 5
living on the edge in NYC a century ago - Moderately interesting, if rambling and loosely edited, recounting of socially marginal individuals of various descriptions; I'd recommend "Five Points" instead

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Low Life - To simply state that Satne's Low Life is a "modern classic" and a "must read" book is to belittle what is a profoundly engulfing portrait of the greatest city in the world the roots from which many of it's moods stem.

One can pretend that the city has changed by looking at it's chain stores but behind every Starbucks in an attitude, an accent and a style that traces back years.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Culture, Vice, Survival - In the opening of this detailed, staggering account of Manhattan's history, we are told of the successful immigrant, of his numerous documentations, be they in print or film, and that instead, this book will encompass the large percentage of New York's early immigrant tenement residents who lived in poverty in the first slums.

Wherever you live or have lived in New York, you can relate to and appreciate this book. I live in what was called the Bloomingdale area of Manhattan (now UWS), which I've since learned was home to Manhattan's early wealthy families (hardly surprising) who in many cases would dip down to the Bowery dives, or, heaven forbid, Chinatown, for "taking in the culture" or, as it's more commonly known, slumming.

Low Life is detailed enough to be a textbook while still holding your interest; imagine a Zinn book focused on the early immigrant experience but only in NY, with the penmanship of Luc Sante. From the rivaling theater scenes on Broadway and the Bowery to the Chinese opium dens and the subsequent "war on drugs", from early building ornamentation to the enterprising cash schemes of saloon owners and theater management, this is not to be missed.

All in all, this is a fabulous text on Manhattan's rich history of the early immigrant story: culture, vice, and survival.

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