- Miriam Margolyes continues retracing Charles Dickens's trip through America and finds herself going out on a night patrol with officers of the NYPD. She also visits Roosevelt Island, makes an unexpected discovery at the New York Public Library and is incarcerated in the notorious "Tombs" prison.
- Margolyes takes a train from New England to New York City's Grand Central Station. Dickens talks about Broadway and the TV program shows us scenes of modern Broadway.
Margolyes sits on a rock in Central Park with Michael Patrick Hearn, author of The Annotated Christmas Carol and they discuss Dickens's fury with American newspapers and publishers pirating his works. Mr. Hearn says that the newspapers were outraged that Dickens was advocating reciprocal copyright laws, but in the same issue where they chastised Dickens, they were pirating American Notes, publishing it right on the front page.
Dickens commented that the social reform he hoped to see in America was not working. "This is not the republic I came to see," he said.
Dickens wrote about pigs wandering up and down the city streets. Margolyes says she is thankful we don't see anything like that today.
Dickens talked about the colors of women's clothing, men's whiskers, and the general hubbub of New York traffic as the camera shows what those look like in the 21st century.
Tour guide Michael Emyrs shows Margolyes where the Park Theater stood on Park Row. This is where the famous Boz Ball took place on Valentine's Day, 1842. 3,000 people in full dress attended. It was the social event of the decade. Mr Emyrs shows her some music written for the Boz Ball that had been thought to be lost.
He also shows her where Five Points, Manhattan was (about where Baxter Street meets Worth Street) and where the Tombs stood. (Just north of Foley Square where the Dept. of Health building is). There is nothing remaining of Five Points today.
Margolyes visits the modern Tombs, just a few blocks north of the original, at White and Centre Streets. Captain Helmie, who is in charge, gives her a guided tour. She comments that it is much as she expected it to be. The cells are almost like a low-end hotel room. There is a basketball court on the roof of the Tombs. Margolyes thinks it is almost cruel that the inmates have a magnificent view of Manhattan but they can't go out to enjoy the Big Apple.
Margolyes then takes the tram to Roosevelt Island in the middle of the East River. When Dickens visited the island it was called Blackwell's Island, though Dickens jokingly said he couldn't recall if it was Long Island or Rhode Island. Dickens was impressed with the New York Lunatic Asylum there. But when Margolyes visits, the building is a ruin. She talks with a real estate developer who plans to build luxury apartments there.
Just as Dickens traveled with two policemen to Five Points, Margolyes tours the 6th Police Precinct, which covers West Greenwich Village, with two police officers. She watches the police officers handle a domestic violence incident.
Margolyes goes to the New York Public Library's main branch on 5th Avenue to visit the Berg Collection, a horde of Dickensiana. The curator, Dr. Issac Gewirtz shows her various items that had belonged to Dickens including a writing desk, a letter opener with a pet cat's paw, a diary with entries written in shorthand that might be referring to Ellen Ternan and a reference to "George Silverman's Explanation." There is also an inkwell, still containing some dried ink, and Dr. Gewirtz allows her to hold Dickens's very small pen in her hand.
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