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olks say history repeats itself, but I ain’t so sure it’s history repeatingitself so much as evil doing the job over an’ over. I know evil pretty good. Part of its

nature is that it ain’t ever done destroying. Sure, you’ll ght it, an’ ya might win the

battle for a bit, but just when you think you got things under control, and when youstart relaxing, or shift your worries to somethin’ else, bam, it picks up where it leftoff.This place, right here, is a good example: way back when, this ground wasn’there. It was a pond, called the Collect Pond. Not much evil happened here back inthose days that I know about, not until ’41. That was when the white colonists— we’re talking 1741, not 18 or 19—started hearing things about slaves rioting inother parts of the country. Somebody said they heard something about local slavesplanning to burn the city, kill the white men, take the white women, stuff like that.So there was a trial, and the colonists started killing off slaves. The killin’ grounds was on a little island in the middle of the Collect. Morethan a dozen Africans got burned at the stake; both whites and blacks got hanged.

Over the next fty years, people forgot about the killings, and got on with their

lives. But sewage and runoff from tanneries and mills ruined the Collect. People who lived near the freshwater pond started getting real sick, and reported outbreaksof typhus and cholera. So the city condemned the Collect. Everyone moved awayfrom it. A guy named Aaron Burr founded the Manhattan Company, which built acanal to drain it. You know Canal Street? That’s how it got its name. Then the city

lled the Collect in and got the bright idea to build on top of the landll. That job

got done in 1811.And then people started moving back in. They built big ol’ wood and brick

apartments and shops on top of the landll, but their houses started to sink and

tilt not ten years after they were erected. Then the sickness came back, along withmosquitoes who wanted to spread that sickness ‘round the neighborhood. So allthe nice folks moved out and the poor folks moved in. Poor folks gotta live some- where, right?So that’s how we got this slum. Story gets better, though I best not tell you itall now. For the time being, we’ll let it be said that this old part of town has had its

ups and downs; the evil ows and then it ebbs. And right now it’s owing.

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