Meet the Lustgartens

As part of its research for “Minding the Store,” the Museum is working to locate the living descendants of 97 Orchard Street’s shopkeepers, particularly those whose stories will feature prominently in the exhibit itself. One of those shopkeepers is Israel Lustgarten and his family.

In an unrestored, partially-furnished “instructive ruin” apartment, we will tell the story of the Austrian-Jewish Lustgartens and their kosher butcher shop, which was located at 97 Orchard Street c. 1890-1902. In 1899, it was one of 131 kosher butcher shops on the Lower East Side. During the May 1902 kosher meat riot, the front window of the Lustgarten butcher shop was smashed.

Recently, with the assistance of Research Intern Danielle Charlap, the Museum located Louise Almy, who is the great-granddaughter of Israel and Goldie Lustgarten and the granddaughter of Fanny Lustgarten and Louis Graubard, who also worked in his in-laws' butcher shop. Now living in California, Louise has donated several photographs featuring the family, a sample of which appears below.

Portrait of Israel Lustgarten, date unknown.
Collection of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

The patriarch of the Lustgarten family, Israel hailed from town of Stanislau, Austria in what is today Galician Poland. Sometime in the early 1880s, Israel, Goldie, and their six children left Stanislau for New York.

The Lustgarten Family c. 1887 in front of their 262 Broome Street kosher butcher shop.
Pictured left to right: Goldie (mother), Fanny (daughter), Joseph (son), William (son), Bertha (daughter), Rebecca (daughter), and Israel (father).
Collection of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

In 1889, the Lustgartens left 262 Broome Street and moved to 97 Orchard Street. That each member of the family appears with an apron in the photo above suggests the degree to which the Lustgarten’s butcher shop was a family business.

Portrait of Goldie Lustgarten, date unknown.
Collection of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

If you look closely, you can see that Goldie is wearing a sheitel or wig, which suggests that the family was observant. This might have been as much a business strategy as a religious disposition; observant customers would have sought out and patronized observant kosher butchers.

Fanny Lustgarten, date unknown.
Collection of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

In 1889, Israel and Goldie’s eldest daughter, Fanny, married Romanian-born butcher Louis Graubard at the Eldridge Street Synagogue. Museum researchers believe that Louis worked in his father-in-law’s butcher shop at 97 Orchard Street and that he and his wife also took up residence in a separate household in the building. Indeed, the married couple’s first two children, Simon and Meyer Graubard, were born at 97 Orchard Street, in 1892 and 1895, respectively.

Louis Graubard, date unknown.
Collection of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

Louis later went on to become a political operative in Tammany Hall and served as the Democratic captain in the Ninth Election District of the Eighth Assembly District.

-Posted by Dave Favaloro, Director of Curatorial Affairs