Another view of the terrible conditions that existed in the Five Points District was expressed in an article in the May 14, 1951 edition of Newsweek. The article was entitled "Five Points to Happiness" and is reprinted below.
"When in 1850, the members of the Ladies Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Epicopal Church in New York discovered that the Rev. Lewis Pease had not preached a sermon in 2 days, they severed their connection with him. His mission stood near "Murderers Alley,' in lower Manhattan in an area known as the Five Points. Charles Dickens once described this section as an appalling 'world of vice and misery...men, women and boys slink off to sleep, forcing dislodged rats to move away in quest of better lodging.'
Mr. Pease believed in a neighbohood with 270 saloons and several times that many dance halls and bawdy houses, preaching the Gospel was not enough. The following year he established the Five Points House of Industry along with a Ladies Auxiliary of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Its goal was to educate and find work for residents of the most dismal slum in America. Since then over 45,000 children have been helped by that institution.