Join Carole Lawrence, author of the historical thriller Cleopatra’s Dagger, for a virtual tour of the dark side of the Gilded Age! Learn how the abuse of animals as sport in places like Kit Burns’ Rat Pit led to the creation of the country’s oldest animal protection society, the ASPCA Peek into the criminal culture of the Bowery B’hoys, still alive in popular myth and film; their clash with arch rivals the Dead Rabbits inspired the famous fight scene in The Gangs of New York See the disembodied hand from the Statue of Liberty, which sat in Madison Square Park for six years as a tourist attraction to raise money for the completion of the statue Learn how the enormous gap between the wealthy and poor led to riots, anarchy, and eventually social reform Find out how the squalor and poverty of New York tenement buildings led to the origin of the country’s first modern apartment building (originally called “French Flats”) familiar to us today