Based on the book by herbert Asbury, Gangs of New á Studios. As of this writing, he is in his third month of production.

Based on the book by herbert Asbury, Gangs of New York addresses the miserable conditions faced by New York City immigrants and the violent struggles for power that have been facts of life for most of the city’s history. The film deals with one of the darkest periods of this history-beginning in the 1850s and leading up to the time of the Civil War. Clearly, though, this is not an obscure period piece, but a dynamic story-told on an epic level-that deals with issues that ring familiar today. Although all of New York’s streets are now paved-and perhaps, on the surface at least, more civilized-the power struggles are still just a fierce.

Scorsese, who has been working on this project for 30 years, has brought together a complex cast that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Daniel Day-Lewis, Liam Neeson, Jim Broadbent, Brendan Gleeson, John C. Reilly and Henry Thomas. Gangs began production in September 2000, and is scheduled to finish shooting in March. Moviemaker’s Adam Goldstein, who was granted a visit to the infamously closed set, takes us on a guided tour...

On the way to Block B, at the end of a road lined with umbrella pines, the strange and disorienting site of gentlemen milling about dressed in the fashion of mid-19th Century New York comes into view. In top hats, long coats and buckled boots, they converse in Italian, smoke cigarettes, read newspapers and talk on cell phones, waiting to be called to the set. Chinese extra’s with shaved heads, braided pony tails and slippers from the Peking Opera Company are mixing it up with the Italians. Some lie down and soak up the mild December sun. An assistant director approaches. “Como sei dice in Cinese, ‘silencio’?” he asks. (“How do you say ‘silence’ in Chinese?”) One robed, braided smart alec laughs and answers, not in Chinese, but right back in Italian “Zitta ti” (“Shut Up!”).

Down the road, a lone guard sits on the deserted set of the Five Points, a mostly Irish slum and the approximate location of today’s federal courthouse in downtown Manhattan. On this extraordinary set, production designer Dante Ferretti has recreated a detailed picture of the desperate conditions New York immigrants must have endured. From a brewery ans a squat, to tin cans littering the unpaved street and wreched laundry dangling outside battered wooden houses, the construction of the Five Points-realistic in virtually 360 degrees-gives Scorsese the utmost flexibility execution the camera movement he wants.

This miserable slum is where the main action of the film takes place. Here the film’s hero, Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns after 10 years in prison and meets the beautiful pickpocket Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz). DiCaprio’s character, who fights for the improvement of the immigrants’ lot, it is also intent on avenging the death of his father at the hands of Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis), the leader of a viscous, anti-immigrant gang.

Around the corner is the set of a New York pier, complete with lighthouse and sailing ships moored on an artificial harbor. Near the shipping office facades are a fish market, carts, crates and the gallows. Larry Kaplan, the set’s publicist, says that one of the scenes shot here involved a boatload of immigrants sailing in, being patriated, then immediately drafted and sent south on another ship to fight for the Union Army.

At the uptown set, which today might be around 19th Street and Broadway, Dante Ferretti oversees the repaving of a street on which New York’s privileged class spend their days, and where Diaz’s character visits to pickpocket the gentry. Along this thoroughfare are establishments like Delmonico’s Pub, Tilman’s Flowers and the P.T. Barnum Building. The legendary circus master is even a character in the film, as are many other famous historical figures, including newspaper magnate Horace Greeley.

On this set is also the office of Boss Tweed, New York’s notorious Tammany Hall boss, played by Jim Broadbent (Broadbent recently played William Gilbert in Mike Leigh’s Topsy Turvey). Tweed’s office is built to reflect the power, corruption and eccentricity that characterized his political machine. Dozens of bird cages occupy the rooms, and a portraid of George Washington hangs behind his desk. An antique sauna box sits not far from a bust of the boss himself. Paintings of Iroquois or Huron warriors decorate the hallway. And to fine-tune the opulence, a stuffed tiger guards the premises.

Nearby, inside a structure half the size of a football field, seamstresses prepare material for costumes. Dozens of shelves are lined with period clothing item: boots, buckles, fireman’s hats, top hats, ladies’ shoes. There are rows of coats, dresses, suits and military and police uniforms. One gets a sense of the range of social classes and institutions Scorsese needs to portray in this ambitious film.

John Cowell, the set’s costume dyer describes the creative laboratory he runs for Sandy Powell, the film’s costume designer. Today he is working on the fabrics for a big gang battle scene and trying to create what he descibes as a “ritualistic, timeless” mode of dress, which involves scraping, ripping, fraying and color-coding according to gang. All sorts of references have been explored, from historical dress to Richard Avendon’s photographs of American drifers in the west.

At a giant indoor stage, a number of fantastic sets have risen. In the shop of Bill the Butcher, the massive roots of a tree reach toward a counter where pickled ears sit in a jar. The underground set is dark and feels like a torture chamber. Next door is a theater where a performance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin is said to have ended in a riotous fruit fight instigated by the audience.

Just around the corner the principals, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz and dozens of extra’s, are before the camera on the set of a combination brothel-pagoda-gambling den-light club-opera house. Scorsese comes to view the shot on the camera monitors. He seems cheerful and relaxed and expresses his excitement at finally having been able to realize this project after so many years. He notes that almost no films have addressed either this time period or this subject.

One might be tempted to ask, ‘Why shoot a film about New York in Rome, of all places?’. The film’s producers might site the strength of the dollar versus the lire, or the enormous size and great resourses of Cinecittá Studios-where the entire film will ben shot. One also might be reminded that this is Dante Ferretti’s home base-or that Scorsese has always wanted to work here.