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Home  »  The Battle with the Slum  »  Page 272

Jacob A. Riis 1849–1914. The Battle with the Slum. 1902.

Page 272

may for the moment forget, will be ours until we have dragged other things than our pavements out of the mud.
 
 
A Tammany-swept East Side Street before Colonel Waring’s Day.
 
 
 
The Same Street when Colonel Waring wielded the Broom.
 
  Even the colonel’s broom would have been powerless to do that for “the Bend.” That was hopeless and had to go. There was no question of children or playground involved. The worst of all the gangs, the Whyós, had its headquarters in the darkest of its dark alleys; but it was left to the police. We had not begun to understand that the gangs meant something to us beyond murder and vengeance,