Rating: 
Summary: Jewel in the Town
Review: As a contemporaneous take on nineteenth-century New York, this book is like an uncut gem found beneath an attic eave. Unpolished by political correctness, it supplies the reader with a raw perspective on a multicultural cityscape that bred probably the worst urban violence the land has seen. Modern scholarship has sometimes accused the author of exaggeration or outright mistake. But as far as cold, hard facts are concerned, there seems to be no glaring instance to which one can definitely point. A present-day historian may criticize Victorian views on class and ethnicity, but how can those removed by a century and a half know data better than a contemporary? Like much literature of the times, this volume makes for somewhat weighty reading, but is an invaluable resource for those interested in the subject.
Rating: 
Summary: Blurred and unorganized
Review: As much as I liked its topic, I found the book confused and confusing. It's mostly unclear in which time some events take place, while indications of place are mostly too detailed. It may have been difficult to come up with enough material for all the illustrous characters, but if there are gaps, why not just say so? Asbury makes clear at the beginning that this is not an academic treatise, but that does not give him the right to become unclear. The best parts are the minute descriptions of the Police and the Draft riots, and I found the beginning quite gripping, but the book soon lacks its initial zeal and focus, and the biographical descriptions did not live up to their subjects. There is a surprising lack of enthusiasm on Asbury's part. You don't have to love your subject - you may even hate it -, but your interest should, to a degree, affect the reader.
Rating: 
Summary: This will be one hot book in 2001..
Review: As someone whose been waiting for Gangs of New York to become a movie for about twenty years, I am delighted that Scorsese is finally doing it..this will be one hot book when it comes out so get it early before the media machine revs up..this will be one of the big hypes of next year..Leo and Cameron Diaz to start with..besides the book'sd a great read..u heard it here first..
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read, But Read With Some Skepticism
Review: Asbury's book is a classic. However it was written in 1928 and has the tendency to engage in excessive hyperbole and to accept uncritically just about every outlandish so-called contemporary report on New York during the "Gilded" age. For example most historians now admit that the number of dead during the New York City Draft Riots in July 1863 are from 100-200. Asbury states that a conservative estimate is 2,000! Some of his other characters do not ring particularly true. Putting that aside, this is an entertaining read. Anyone who reads this book and lives or works in New York City will never walk thorugh Chinatown (formerly the Five Points District), the Lower East Side, the Bowery, or Sixth Avenue from 25th Street to the mid West 50's (the old tenderloin district known as "Satan's Circus") without thinking about the ghosts of thugs gone by - "The Plug Uglies", "The Dead Rabbits," "The Whyos." etc. Fortunately an educated reader will also be able to spot fact from apocryphal stories and enhanced urban legends. This book is a good companion book to Luc Sante's "Low Life." It is a must for all New Yorkers in that it reminds us that crime and poverty and vice are not a 20th century phenomenon.
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Summary: Pulp fiction as History
Review: Asbury's book is highly readable, full of blood and thunder, loads of colorful characters and as many tall tales as there are pages. The book isn't so much a history as it is an impression. What Asbury captures is clearly an impression of the Five Points and its gangs in the public consciousness and folklore. This is a sort of "if it didn't happen this way, it should have" bit of storytelling. If you want actual history, look elsewhere. If you want a strong taste of American folklore, start reading. As has been noted, this isn't the story you'll find in the Scorcese film. And that's good. Reading "The Gangs of New York" actually illuminates the movie. You'll get a greater, grander sense of what Scorcese is getting at in his film. The book and the film are about American mythmaking. As Jimmy Stewart says at the end of "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "when legend become fact, print the legend."
Rating:
Summary: Vintage folklore
Review: For a book that purports to be a saga of history, "Gangs of New York" reads more like myth. Asbury's writing style inclines one to believe these are tales he's fabricated in the back of some bar rather than discover them in the depths of a research library. Though certain accounts (such as that of the Draft Riots) are certainly historically accurate, some passages read like sections of Paul Bunyan tall tales, including one detailing a gangster who had the lung-power to blow ships out of the East River. Whether Asbury meant to mix fact and legend so fluently is unspecified. Still, even a figurative reading of the book seems a bit to colloquial. For a tale of "blood and gore" it was unexpectedly boring, owing to the sometimes overdetailed accounts of gang-related occurrences. This is one work for which I can say the movie is far more entertaining- though, of course, the movie mixes and matches aspects of the book at will, making it a sort of second derivative attempt. Read Asbury's book as a sort of escapist crime drama, not as a serious historical work chronicling what was happening on the streets of New York.
Rating:
Summary: Vintage folklore
Review: For a book that purports to be a saga of history, "Gangs of New York" reads more like myth. Asbury's writing style inclines one to believe these are tales he's fabricated in the back of some bar rather than discover them in the depths of a research library. Though certain accounts (such as that of the Draft Riots) are certainly historically accurate, some passages read like sections of Paul Bunyan tall tales, including one detailing a gangster who had the lung-power to blow ships out of the East River. Whether Asbury meant to mix fact and legend so fluently is unspecified. Still, even a figurative reading of the book seems a bit to colloquial. For a tale of "blood and gore" it was unexpectedly boring, owing to the sometimes overdetailed accounts of gang-related occurrences. This is one work for which I can say the movie is far more entertaining- though, of course, the movie mixes and matches aspects of the book at will, making it a sort of second derivative attempt. Read Asbury's book as a sort of escapist crime drama, not as a serious historical work chronicling what was happening on the streets of New York.
Rating:
Summary: The Bible of Gangland Americana
Review: For the American Gangster and for those interested in their colorful rise in the halls of American folklore, this book can be considered nothing less than a classic to be ranked with Moby Dick and Last of the Mohicans. The title is simple, yet apt, but the content hits the reader with the force of a lead pipe. From the teeming streets of the 19th Century Lower East Side to the ivory towers of Tammany Hall in the early 20th Century, the 'Gangs of New York' leads you on a walk through Hell filled with violence, despair and the reality of the early immigrants life in squalor, where the only way of life was the street. This is an easy-to-read and thoroughly enjoyable history book written in the colorful, "oral" style of writing found with authors such as Harold Lamb. The characters are memorable, and their names will stay with you forever. Personalities such as Hell-cat Maggie, Baboon Connelly, Googy Corcoran, Paul Kelly, Monk Eastman, and Owney Madden fill the ranks of the legendary New York Gangs; The Dead Rabbits, The Plug Uglies, The Whyos, The Five-Points Gang, The Eastmans, and the Hells Kitchen Gophers. Witness their rise and fall, but watch out for flying bricks and bullets! The story of the gangster would not be complete without the police, for the story of the early rise and fall of the gangster is closely intertwined with the growing pains of the modern New York Police Department. Asbury illustrates the police relationship with the gangster, and highlights the police "riots" during the merger of the Municipal and Metropolitan police departments. The history of the NYPD is filled with greed, corruption, and and other problems associated with a department ruled by the ward bosses and political powerhouses of Tammany Hall, but it is also one of uncommon valor. The events described in this book on the Civil War Draft Riots are "edge of your seat", and the battles fought by the outnumbered police vs the rioters are as vicious as those fought by the men wearing the blue and the grey. This is a definite "Must-Read" for those interested in History AND Entertainment. Enjoy
Rating:
Summary: NYC is a picnic now
Review: Gives a welcome perspective on NYCs problems. Things were a lot worse 100-150 years ago when the politicians and police were really for sale. I love reading about the things that went down in the streets that I walk through every day. The book was written in the late 1920's and the attitude of the author is not very analytical; sometimes he seems to be repeating gang folklore. But that in itself is interesting - how people thought about these guys in their own time. He does seem a little breathless in his descriptions - makes me wonder if the general population of NYC felt as threatened as the author claims. But I read it with interest and am about to embark on another book about the five points that seems more historical and less hype.
I can't imagine how Scorsese is going to make this into a movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Big Disappointment
Review: Having bought this book about a year ago ...I anticipated it would be a true historical account of the Irish gangs, and an interesting insight to the New York of the "infamous" Five Points district in the 19th century. I was sadly disappointed to find the book to be part history, part lore, and a good part boring! Throwing light poles half way across Manhattan? Swimming around Manhattan 5 times (or whatever the crazy story was)? Please, give me a break, not at all what I expected. A down and dirty, true account of what life was really like back then would have been far more interesting if it had not been interlaced with ...tall tales...
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