By David Dayton McKean
The environment of Frank Hague's youth was as rough,
noisy, and lawless as was the Lower East Side where Alfred E.
Smith was growing up. The Horseshoe is today just an-
other dismal slum in a city of slums, populated chiefly by
Italian immigrants; but in the decades after the Civil War
it was filled with Irish, who spent as much time out-of-doors
as in, who engaged in innumerable brawls, kept pigs and
chickens in their houses, and supported forty saloons, all but
two of which were owned by Irishmen. The men worked for
the railroads, the Colgate Soap Company, or the Lorillard
Tobacco Company. Unskilled men earned a dollar a day and
skilled men a dollar and seventy-five cents. The railroad
tracks crossed the Horseshoe at street grade, and the coal
cars of the Erie on their way to New York were cheerfully
regarded as communal property, so that the families of Cork
Row and other Irish patches heated their houses or tenements
without cost to themselves.
For the smaller boys, it was a world of constant fighting,
one group against another, the boys from Cork Row against
the 'lace-curtain Irish' of Hamilton Square. Since the fierce
fights allowed for no rules, the boys became tough and –
proud of it. Stolen brass sold for thirty cents a pound to the
unquestioning junk-dealers of the Horseshoe, and the tenpound
brass journals from the trucks of freight cars provided
for many of the boys a ready source of pocket money. The
wagons of the Eagle Brewing Company, rumbling daily over
the cobblestoned streets, provided another tempting source
of revenue. With agility a team of three could in a few
seconds roll a half-barrel of beer from the rear of a moving
wagon to the street. The noise of the iron-shod wheels on the stones overcame the noise of the rolling barrel, soon
marketable at half-price at any of the back doors of the
saloons.
This Web version, edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
| Next |
| Main Menu |
|
|
|
|
Journal Square Package Shipping and Mailbox rentals
Global Mail accepts drop offs for all carriers. If the package is completely ready there is no charge. Passport photos and copies, too!
 |
| Featured Link |
Text Link Online Advertising Program
A text Link is your business name and a Link to Your Site in bold red text on one Line and a description of your services on the next. The GET NJ network serves thousands of visitors each day!
GRAVE ROBBER Jersey City Computer Repair
297 Griffith Street, Jersey City, NJ - In the Heights just off of Kennedy Blvd. - Very close to Journal Square and Union City, just five minutes away from Hoboken, Downtown Jersey City, Newport, and the Waterfront -
 |
|
|
|
|
|