Dear Don,

The 4th Ward is on the lower east side of New York in what is called New
York County. The south east boundary of this ward is the East River, the
north west boundary, Division Street. The New York side of the Brooklyn
Bridge enters the City in this Ward. The section was characterized by
boarding houses, saloons, warehouses on the river front, chandleries,
tanneries, slaughterhouses in the 1850s, not to mention tenement
dwellings. My family lived on different streets in this ward--Cherry,
Oak, Water, Oliver. Many of these streets are gone, giving way to the
Alfred E. Smith housing project. Al Smith was, of course, from this
section. Although it was in the 1850s predominantly Irish, it became
Italian and then Jewish as the immigration patterns changed. But the
catholic church was St. James, 23 Oliver Street NY NY 10038. The church
has records from 1827. This area used Calvary Cemetery which was
actually in Queens County. There are reasonably good death records if
your ancestor died in about the 1850s. Write to the Municipal Archives,
31 Chambers St. NY NY. if your people were poor, they could have landed
in the poor house or the hospital on Blackwell's Island. there is a web
site. Use a search engine and it should turn up.

Get "The Historical Atlas of New York City" by Eric Homberger for a
quick and dirty overview of the city. Sheila Block