As has been noted in the sparks, this week’s readings were all about conflict. In fact I had guessed as much from the moment I saw the word “turf” in the syllabus topic title; it seems that, with the possible exception of astroturf, the word in all of its usages tends to imply some sort of violence.
We encounter it first in the articles of Sciorra and Reider, in the form of the sort of race-based conflict that we’ve touched upon so many times in class. In Reider’s piece we find the brutal attack of African Americans passing through Canarsie recounted with pride, all in the name of the need to “protect the Italian turf” from some imagined Black invasion. The evidence of turf-based race enmity is further laid out in Sciorra’s account of being criticized by his fellow Italians for participating in a demonstration on behalf of the African American community. Similar racial tensions, sparked by rampant crime, poverty, and disputes over the implications of the decentralization of the NYC education system for minority-heavy neighborhoods, appeared in Brownsville during the Civil Rights Era, led to a number of massive race riots which eventually forced President Johnson to address the issue with his subsequent anti-poverty campaign.
But New York City’s conflicts were not always based on the issue of race; regional and political concerns played their own roles in the battles of NY’s history. Anbinder cites the 19th century riots in Five Points (i.e. when a heavily mustachioed Daniel Day-Lewis killed Liam Neeson) as a chief example of conflict motivated primarily by political loyalties. While one may interpret the Bowery Boys reaction to the supposedly anti-Irish Metropolitan Police Act of 1856 as more evidence of race-based conflict, Anbinder argues that this was no the main issue at hand. As Jessica notes, the political leaders of the era were indeed fierce and highly respected men whose charisma earned them ardently faithful supporters among the gangs of Five Points. In no time at all, the inflamed loyalty of such highly political gangs (the Bowery Boys, the Mulberry Boys, the Dead Rabbits, etc.) had burst into outright turf war.
I have to admit, it’s pretty shocking to read about this level of large-scale violence, racially motivated or otherwise, rearing its head in so recent a portion of NYC’s history. Maybe I’m just overly sheltered, but I really could never imagine this sort of massive unrest boiling over in modern day NY; rioting just doesn’t seem to be part of the political vocabulary anymore. So, to all of the posts expressing the hope of a more peaceful future, I think we can rest easy in the knowledge that we are already a great deal better off than we were only 50-odd years ago.
