\u201cCripple\u201d jumped out at me while reading \u201cThe Gangs of New York,\u201d Herbert Asbury\u2019s book that inspired Scorcese\u2019s movie of the same name. While describing the Bowery at the turn of the last century he said, \u201cProbably no American City has ever been able to boast of resorts as depraved as\u2026 the Cripples\u2019 Home, and the Billy Goat, all in Park Row\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asbury also names more \u201cdives\u201d and says they were frequented not only by gangsters, but beggars, addicts, and \u201cthose homeless dregs of humanity who have never been know otherwise than as Bowery Bums.\u201d It sounds to me like many of them would, today, be considered people with disabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would like to think that the \u201cCripples\u2019 Home\u201d name carried for its disabled habitues some of the swagger that we now associate with cripple \u2014 defiant and proud outsiders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cCripple\u201d jumped out at me while reading \u201cThe Gangs of New York,\u201d Herbert Asbury\u2019s book that inspired Scorcese\u2019s movie of the same name. While describing the Bowery at the turn of the last century he said, \u201cProbably no American City has ever been able to boast of resorts as depraved as\u2026 the Cripples\u2019 Home, and […]<\/p>\n