FAQ for
Gangs of New York (2002) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for Gangs of New York can be found here.

Gangs of New York is very loosely based on The Gangs of New York : An Informal History of the Underworld (1928), a true crime novel written by American writer Herbert Asbury [1889-1963]. It was adapted for the film by American screenwriters Jay Cocks, Stephen Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan and was nominated for "Best Original Screenplay" rather than as a screenplay adapted from another work (which gives an idea of what is meant by "very loosely".)

William Poole [1821-1855), also known as Bill the Butcher [played by Daniel Day-Lewis], was a member of the lower Manhattan's Five Points District anti-Irish gang known as the Bowery Boys.

It's an American Eagle. You can see a close-up here.

The word "Rabbit" is the phonetic corruption of the Irish word ráibéad, meaning "man to be feared". "Dead" is a slang intensifier meaning "very," as in "Dead on!." Thus, a "Dead Ráibéad" means a man to be greatly feared.

Almost at the epicenter of the Five Points are twin, 25-story middle-class apartment buildings designed by I.M. Pei (built in 1965 to lure the middle class back to the city.) They're on Worth St. Opposite them is Columbus Park and the terminus of Mulberry Street. The rest of the area consists of the Tombs (an old and famous jail where many noirs were filmed) and the courthouses you see featured in every NY-based courtroom drama. Ever since Little Water St was turned into a parking lot, back around 1966 or so, it lost its five points. Mulberry is the only street with the same name. Worth and Baxter were both point streets, Baxter used to be Orange and it ran on through the intersection there. Worth ended at the intersection, and was called Anthony. Park Row used to take a slightly different path, running through that intersection and connecting Mulberry and Orange (now Baxter).

Columbus Park is one of the oldest in Manhattan, dating from the 1890s, and was created largely at the instigation of noted journalist and photographer Jacob Riis. It used to be all buildings, and Riis was appalled at the fact that slum children had no safe place to play; the majority even suffered from rickets because of poor nutrition and little access to sunlight. Thanks to Riis, Columbus Park became a green oasis for poor immigrants, just as it is today, only instead of Irish or Italian immigrants, you're most likely to see Chinese immigrants playing mahjong or doing Tai Chi.

Take a virtual tour of Five Points here.

Yes. That is Green-wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. For more information on The Butcher's grave in Green-wood Cemetery, see here.

"Got any timber?" (got a light?)

"Bene" (alright)

Crushers (policemen)

Dust-up (fight)

Rowdy-dow (fight and as I learned mostly coined for political brawls)

Lay (the thief's enterprise, often used to expess any undertaking)

Wooden-coat (coffin)

Dead-rabbit (a brawler)

Sand (courage)

Bingo-boy (a drunk)

Mort (a woman)

Frenchified- have a venereal disease