Building Research Part 3 - A School for Immigrant Children Sponsored by the Astor Family

Now an apartment complex, once a school for underprivilged immigrant children

A reader suggested that I look into the history of the Fourteenth Ward Industrial School on Mott Street between Houston and Prince, founded in 1889 by the local nonprofit Children's Aid Society. Designed by architect Calvert Vaux (whose resume also includes Central Park), it's surprisingly opulent for a charity-run school, with bay windows, terracotta panels, and a jagged gable roof. And no wonder: it was funded by John Jacob Astor, whose wife, Charlotte, had supported a similar program in the neighborhood for over 25 years. (Children's Aid managed several schools throughout the city, predominantly serving the immigrant community.)

An original architectural drawing of another Children's Aid Society school, built in 1875 on East Broadway.

"For thousands of children the school has given an opportunity to obtain the training needed to make them self-supporting," the New York Times wrote in a piece on the school's innauguration. "A great deal of work has been done among the Italians, who have proved to be among the best students the school has ever had."

When Mrs. Astor died, her husband bought a lot at 256 Mott Street for $21,000 (previously the site of a frame house and a wooden cottage, and a stable where a brawl between Greek and Italian immigrants took place) and shelled out another $42,000 for a new schoolhouse's construction. The finished structure was dedicated to Charlotte.

A kitchen and dining hall occupied its "roomy basement," and the four above-ground floors housed classrooms, teachers' lounges, and workshops. "The building is heated by steam and well supplied with fire escapes," The Times made sure to note. "There is a small playground on the south side of the building, reached by a flight of steps from the basement." Which is long gone, now that the building's been divided into apartments.

-posted by Liana Grey

Farewell, Liana!

Today blog writer, intern, and all around awesome person Liana Grey had her last afternoon at the Museum. If you've enjoyed the blog over the last eight months it's because of Liana's enthusiasm and curiosity about all things Tenement Museum. A huge thanks to this talentened woman, and it goes without saying that we'll miss you tremendously!

If you'd like to come and fill Liana's shoes, send me an email. We're looking for a new intern researcher and writer to work with us about 6-8 hours per week, a minimum of one semester. Journalism or communications students are strongly encouraged to apply. Please send me your resume and a writing sample and let me know why you're interested in working for the Museum.

Getting the scoop on the Tea Cart Stories exhibit by artist Michele Brody.

- Posted by Kate Stober

A Hair-Raising Story

I thought you readers would be interested in this fun article about a woman in the UK who is about as devoted as we are to recreating authentic plastering techniques in her historic home.

As some of you might know, horse hair was mixed into the plaster used on the walls of 97 Orchard Street. A little scientific research tells us more. Not only do we know that the hair was from a horse, but we also know where the hairs came from - the body and the mane of the horse.

Below are two photographs that show some of the hairs at 200x magnification. The courser hair in the top photo is from the mane. Neat!



























- Posted by Derya Golpinar, Collections Manager / Registrar

Exploring Manhattan's Early Years at Tonight's Tenement Talk

Russell Shorto is the author of Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan, which is one of the core books at the Tenement Museum Shop. This readable, comprehensive history tells of the early days of New Amsterdam.

Since Island at the Center of the World is a few years old (Shorto's newest book is Descartes Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reson), the author doesn't make too many appearances supporting it. But as this month marks 400 years since Henry Hudson sailed into New York harbor, we thought it would be a perfect time to revisit the island's early days, and luckily Shorto agreed.

Funnily enough, he spent a while living in Holland recently, an experience he chronicled for the New York Times Magazine. You only have to read the beginning to fall in love with this man's writing:

PICTURE ME, IF YOU WILL, as I settle at my desk to begin my workday, and feel free to use a Vermeer image as your template. The pale-yellow light that gives Dutch paintings their special glow suffuses the room. The interior is simple, with high walls and beams across the ceiling. The view through the windows of the 17th-century house in which I have my apartment is of similarly gabled buildings lining the other side of one of Amsterdam’s oldest canals. Only instead of a plump maid or a raffish soldier at the center of the canvas, you should substitute a sleep-rumpled writer squinting at a laptop.

Hope you will all join us tonight at 6:30 PM at the Museum Shop, 108 Orchard Street.

- Posted by Kate Stober

This Week's Immigration News

American Apparel to dismiss 1,500 factory workers
(Los Angeles Times, September 3, 2009)
The employees couldn't prove their immigration status or had problems with their employment records, says the Los Angeles clothing manufacturer and retailer.


Report: Anti-Immigrant Climate Fueling Violence Against Latinos in N.Y. County
(Southern Poverty Law Center, September 2, 2009)
A new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center — Climate of Fear: Latino Immigrants in Suffolk County, N.Y. — documents racially motivated violence against Latinos in the community. SPLC researchers spent months interviewing Latino immigrants, local religious leaders and small business owners for the report.


LoHud Malayalees celebrate the harvest festival, Onam
(LoHud.com, September 2, 2009)
Malayalees in India celebrate Onam over 10 days with family gatherings, traditional dances, new clothes, processions, games, feasts, and colorful snake boat races. The Malayalee diaspora, which includes several thousand living in the Lower Hudson Valley, celebrate it with just as much enthusiasm.


Massachusetts Cuts Back Immigrants’ Health Care
(New York Times, August 31, 2009)
State-subsidized health insurance for 31,000 legal immigrants here will no longer cover dental, hospice or skilled-nursing care under a scaled-back plan that Gov. Deval Patrick announced Monday.

The Lower East Side Tenement Museum takes no opinion on these articles but rather encourages open dialogue on topics surrounding immigration.

The Ruins of Ellis Island

On the south side of Ellis Island, a non-profit organization called Save Ellis Island is working to recover a little-known part of immigration history.

Most people know that between 1892 and 1954, the Ellis Island Immigration Station was the primary immigration center for the United States. Over twelve million people arrived here after arduous journeys, seeking better lives and more opportunities in America.

Many people also know that before new arrivals (primarily those traveling in steerage) could disembark, they had to submit to a health and legal inspection. Approximately 90 percent of immigrants passed the "six second" health inspections, but those who did not were held for further inspections, treatments, and sometimes quarantine on the island’s south side.

Many people are unaware that an entire hospital ward exists here, taking up about half of the island's total land space. Twenty-nine structures, including a 750-bed hospital complex, measles ward, hospital director's house, and mortuary were once in active use.

An amazing number of medical conditions were seen by Ellis Island's doctors. According to the historic site's home page, "by 1916, it was said that a doctor could identify numerous medical conditions (ranging from anemia to goiters to varicose veins) just by glancing at an immigrant." Most of those quaranteened for contageous diseases like scarlet fever, thyphoid, or pink eye were eventually allowed into the country if cured of their afflictions. Only about 2% of immigrants were denied entry during the station's history.

Most of the buildings on the south side have been left to ruin. Although a fundraising campaign successfully renovated the entry hall and other buildings on the north side, which now house the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, the island's medical center sits abandoned.

Abandoned, but not neglected. For the past decade, Save Ellis Island has led the charge to stabalize and rehabilitate these structures.

In 2007, the south side’s Ferry Building, an Art Deco structure built by the Works Progress Administration in 1934, reopened. Here visitors can see an exhibit on the island's medical history or take a guided tour with one of Save Ellis's volunteer educators. Future plans include renovating the laundry, hospital outbuilding, and hospital lawn, among other spaces. The goal is to provide visitors with a full understanding of how Ellis Island operated.

Recently, some of our education staff were lucky enough to take a guided tour of the island's south side (one of the perks of working for a history museum). Here are their photos from the trip:

Building on the south side

Interior of an admin building

Laundry Facilities

- Posted by Penny King

Stories from the Archives - Ethnic Groups on the LES

Education Department Intern Billyskye has been combing through our archives and listening to the oral histories of former 97 Orchard St. tenants. He was particularly focused on finding excerpts that spoke to interethnic experiences on the Lower East Side. From Billyskye:

Many visitors commonly assume that tension existed between the different ethnic groups living on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. This belief stems from the logic that these groups, isolated by language and cultural barriers, kept to themselves. However, oral histories of the former residents of 97 Orchard Street shed a different light on the issue of tolerance.

Jacqueline Burnescu-Richter, who lived at 97 Orchard St. from her birth in 1919 until 1928, detailed the philosophy her mother and those around her imbued upon the next generation, saying that she, “learned to judge people by themselves, not what they were… there is good or bad in every race, creed, and color.”

Jacqueline’s oral history goes on to describe her close friendship with a Chinese girl who also lived in the neighborhood – a friendship that she maintained into adulthood. An interesting exchange of cultures took place between these two friends who frequently make expeditions to Chinatown and shared potato pancakes at the Burnescu home.

Sue Lesnick, another resident of 97 Orchard, explained this close camaraderie between the immigrants living in the area, saying, “We all got along very well… everybody was in the same category.”

While ethnic tension and violence swept across the United States, the immigrants on the Lower East Side found something they could use to relate to one another despite their obvious differences in background and culture. Sue describes the situation that all of these men, women and children were forced to confront, stating, “There was no such thing as play… it’s a fight for survival, that’s what it was in those days.”

- Posted by Kate Stober