Rating: 
Summary: Captures the Heart and Soul of New York City
Review: . . .
. . . W O W !!!
. . .
Long before it became fashionable to love NYC, I have loved this town with every bone in my body. Luc Sante stands alone in his unique perspective on NYC's true origins, including the stuff that some people would rather gloss over in the re-telling of history. But I find those very things to be part of what I love so much about it. Where else can you learn about historical nuggets like: - McGurks's Suicide Saloon
- the waterfront sailor-kidnapping industry
- the entire city-wide network of child criminals with their own social structure and entertainment establishments
- the life of a cop on the beat who must choose between corruption and dire poverty
- the Irish immigrants in their mud huts
- the months-long, open-combat gang wars that would completely shut down entire portions of the city, burying their war-dead in the sewer system
- the hilarious antics of live theater (where patrons in the cheap seats upstairs would openly gnaw on meat, and then fling the bones down to bounce off the hats of the higher-paying patrons below)
- the draft riots
- the waist-high piles of cloaca that lined nearly every street the way parked cars do now and all in the same book! I read this book on the day it was published, and have re-read it repeatedly ever since, flipping back and forth to favorite parts. And it's the one book in my house that I refuse to lend! (especially since everybody who notices it asks to borrow it). Lots of people "know" New York City, but they don't know it intimately. I feel privileged to have gained that distinction from reading this book. What a blast!
Rating: 
Summary: Everything in the Bowery Plus the Kitchen Sink
Review: ...Mr. Sante has obviously done a tremendous amount of research into this period in New York but does the reader a disservice by trying to fit EVERY single fact at his disposal into this book.
Because he is trying to fit in so many bare facts, the book feels somewhat disorganized, repetitive and leaden. ... - Many sections are comprised primarily of recitations of dull mechanical facts, without much context or character to make them interesting or vibrant. - Often these facts are couched in guesses and assumptions by the author, leading to sections filled with what feels like multiple repetitions of paragraphs something like the following: XXX ran the YYY Bar on ZZZ St. which was full of Bowery folk and pretty rowdy though maybe sometimes the swells from uptown would come in slumming. There were rumors of murders at the YYY and it probably was a hang out for prostitutes and it was periodically shut down by the police but reopened, until the building was torn down in the early 20th century. Bars AAA and BBB and CCC (on JJJ, KKK and LLL Streets respectively) were, in all likelihood, similar.<P... Admittedly, many of the stories and scandals and much of the reality of the period, particularly with regard to dives and brothels etc. may be lost and I applaud Sante for trying to gather together and present what is still around. Nevertheless a popular history needs to be able to make the period "pop" for the reader. Here there seems to be too little "through-line", I felt more as if I were reading a catalog, almost a sort of Domesday Book for the Bowery, than a history. There are interesting facts and observations to be found in this book. But you have to read through a lot of dross to get to them. All-in-all, I'm not sure it was worth the time.
Rating: 
Summary: I got through it
Review: A can't miss subject, which, in the hands of a more skillful writer, would have made a great book. The man who wrote this...well, no. I got through the book, but I won't ever read it, again. As a native New Yorker, I didn't feel like this book really captured anything. It's more for carpet-baggers and other more recent arrivals. Not a terrible book, by any means, but I wasn't sad to be done with it.
Rating: 
Summary: Great, readable intro to NY's wild years
Review: As a resident of a santized, tamed New York, I find it hard to imagine the city that Luc Sante describes in "Low Life." Can't say I would prefer living in those crime-ridden and poverty-stricken days, but you can't help feeling a bit let down by the modern city reading about the colorful crooks and decadent nightspots of a hundred years ago. Sante has a real gift for making New York history readable and entertaining at the same time he conveys large chunks of valuable information. At times the sheer volume of names and incidents gets a bit tiring, but Sante's unique, world-weary voice will keep you reading past the rough spots. Highly recommended for anyone who liked "Gangs of New York" or who has a taste for truth stranger than fiction.
Rating:
Summary: High Phrases and Low Places
Review: For Big Apple bookworms, this volume is a prize pick. Chock-full of fascinating facts, it has some of the tone and texture of Victorian prose while maintaining a modern perspective on poverty, ethnicity, and crime. The reader-to-be should be warned, however, that this pulp is no light read, and the employment of British slang, out-of-date terms, and otherwise esoteric language might be a bit hard to chew. But for those who crave juicy tidbits about old New York, the book is worth any amount of patience and persistence. Just keep a dictionary handy, and relish every word!
Rating:
Summary: Eye Opener
Review: I am a life long resident of New York & I am ashamed that I had a scant knowledge of the city that I love. Low Life changed all that. Low Life proves that the history of New York is both lurid and fascinating. Since reading Low Life, I have read several more histories of the city but Luc Sante's remains by far and away my favorite.
My advice: if you want to truly understand New York, read this book.
Rating:
Summary: The Ride of Your Life
Review: I have read this book four times in the last ten years or so. Once for research, the last three times for entertainment. Don't let "critics", who complain that Luc Sante's sources are questionable, prevent you from reading this book. Not every detail might be EXACTLY right; even when the comments are of doubtful origin, there's no doubt that they are valuable to students, first-timers and long-timers, to the subject of New York's history. This is not a scholarly textbook and it doesn't claim to be. Sante's style, and the illustrations that pepper the book, evoke the dark world of old New York. You'll find this book to be fascinating, provocative, and, in my case, inspirational. After I read this book, I began writing my novel called THE FIVE POINTS, which has recently been published. Thank you, Mr. Sante.
Rating:
Summary: The Ride of Your Life
Review: I have read this book four times in the last ten years or so. Once for research, the last three times for entertainment. Don't let "critics", who complain that Luc Sante's sources are questionable, prevent you from reading this book. Not every detail might be EXACTLY right; even when the comments are of doubtful origin, there's no doubt that they are valuable to students, first-timers and long-timers, to the subject of New York's history. This is not a scholarly textbook and it doesn't claim to be. Sante's style, and the illustrations that pepper the book, evoke the dark world of old New York. You'll find this book to be fascinating, provocative, and, in my case, inspirational. After I read this book, I began writing my novel called THE FIVE POINTS, which has recently been published. Thank you, Mr. Sante.
Rating:
Summary: REALLY cool
Review: Its just a cool book about old new york. All the sleeze and scum and drugs and prostitution and raw sewage of society is here to learn about. Learn about this amazing city before it became the glorious place with million dollar condo's and uppedy stores on 57th Street.
Rating:
Summary: REALLY cool
Review: Its just a cool book about old new york. All the sleeze and scum and drugs and prostitution and raw sewage of society is here to learn about. Learn about this amazing city before it became the glorious place with million dollar condo's and uppedy stores on 57th Street.
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