Reading Response 1
February 20, 2018, by Allen
The reading we did from Nigel Cliff’s The Shakespeare Riots displayed a detailed and gruesome account of New York in the late 1840s. It discusses the events and the tensions that led to the Astor Place Riots, one of the deadliest events in New York history. I had heard of these riots but did not know much about them, so I found this reading engaging and intense. I was able to discover more about the ways in which nativists and immigrants were pitted against each other which is crucial for understanding this time of history. This reading made me consider how the social and political climate within the streets of New York have changed and in doing so how they impact the people who live around them. People react to the streets of New York because that is where the heart of the city lies. One thing that stuck with me was the description of the theatres and the idea of specific places that people gather.
“The theatres had always been the great democratic gathering places, the only arenas where the people’s voice was louder than the elite’s.” Throughout time, there has always been a need for a place where people can gather and express themselves. Overtime, the location of this changes. Additionally, the ways that the Astor Place Opera House and Bowery Theatre were used socially and culturally at this time fascinated me. I often think of places like this today in the context of their cultural and artistic value without considering a larger impact. Different groups would use venues like this as a source of power. Additionally, the experience of Theatre and Opera have changed drastically over time which was interesting to learn about. Certain theatres required a subscription rather than individual tickets, giving it similar qualities to an exclusive club that displayed excess wealth.
Some of the ideas behind the riots are familiar and still relate to contemporary issues. Tensions between different groups are always present in a city like New York but play out in different ways. To this day, New Yorkers often have difficulty accepting people from out of town entering the city – people who are new to the city usually are believed to disrupt the flow of the streets and don’t understand the unspoken rules that New York has. Obviously, this does not necessarily manifest itself in the same ways that the tensions between the nativists and immigrants did, but it is still often a present mindset in New York.