About the Program
Richard Zacks recounts New York City in the 1890s, the hub of America's manufacturing and financial world as well as the home of an alternate economy, marked by casinos, brothels, and crime rings. These two worlds co-inhabited New York City until the election of Theodore Roosevelt as the city's police commissioner in 1895. Mr. Zacks recalls the future president's offensive against the city's reputation as "Sin City" that entailed internal battles with Roosevelt's police force and his appeal to two million New Yorkers to engage in other activities. Richard Zacks speaks with novelist Kevin Baker at the Tenement Museum in New York City.