A History of Gangs, Vice & Crime in New York City

Join authors Eric Ferrara, David Freeland, and special guests for a colorful journey through the Big Apple's lurid and illicit history of vice and crime. Explore the role that gangs and criminals played in the every day lives of 18th and 19th century New Yorkers, and trace the origins of the ties between organized crime and the labor and entertainment industries.

Eric Ferrara, author of A Guide to Gangsters, Murderers and Weirdos of New York City's Lower East Side (History Press, http://gmwbook.com), is founder and executive director of the Lower East Side History Project (http://leshp.org), and a fourth-generation, native New York/Lower East Sider.

David Freeland is the author of the new book, Automats, Taxi Dances, and Vaudeville: Excavating Manhattan's Lost Places of Leisure (NYU Press), an exploration of the city's forgotten but still-visible entertainment sites.  He is also the author of the book, Ladies of Soul.  As an historian and music journalist, his work has appeared in New York Press, No Depression, American Songwriter, Relix, Living Blues, South Dakota Review, Blues Revue, Goldmine, and Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Popular Musicians.

Using a section of his book as guide, Freeland will explore the connection between the criminal and entertainment worlds in New York's great forgotten vice district of the late 19th century, the Tenderloin, detailing the complex relationships that made the neighborhood a thriving city-within-the-city.

More info: www.nyhistory.org