Depression-Era Talk Tonight

Tonight we have a talk with Kirstin Downey on Frances Perkins, the secretary of labor under FDR, who spearheaded much of the social welfare legislation of the 1930s.

Join us at 108 Orchard Street, 6:30-7:30 PM.

Image courtesy NYPL.

Around the Web

International Women's Day, first celebrated in the United States by factory laborers and suffragists in 1909, is a global day of awareness for women's rights.
[InternationalWomen'sDay.com]

Museums and events celebrating March 8 and Women's History Month locally.
[NYCGo.com]

At the Irish Shrine & Railroad Workers Museum in Baltimore, "the Museum's founder claims that the museum, now comprising two homes tucked into a block of two-and-a-half story brick rowhouses built in 1848, offers the earliest glimpse into urban immigrant life in the United States." Road trip anyone?
[The Urbanite]
[The Irish Shrine]

The retail transition on Delancey Street near the Williamsburg Bridge, where shops became a movie theater and then became more shops.
[Bowery Boogie]

Our neighor at 95 Orchard Street, Il Laboratorio del Gelato, will move to Ludlow Street in June.
[New York Times Diner's Journal]

Young Professionals: Drink In the LES!

Join us on Thursday for an awesome evening benefiting the Tenement Museum. Enjoy the artwork (featuring images from the Museum's collection!) and drink up: part of your bar tab will go back to the Museum. It's a win-win for everybody!

Mick Moloney, a Gorgeous Former Synagogue, and Brooklyn Brewery Beer

All of these things came together Tuesday night at a Tenement Talk entitled "If It Wasn't for the Irish and the Jews." Mick Moloney, an ethno-musicologist, specializes in 19th and early 20th century American music. He's particularly interested in the way that cultures intermingle in song. He's done a lot of work to investigate the American music scene in its early days.

His latest CD focuses on an unlikely cross-cultural collaboration between Irish and Jewish Americans at the end of the 19th century. Musicians, songwriters, and performers easily swapped identities based on the direction the music industry was going... George M. Cohan, for instance, the writer of such classics as "Give My Regards to Broadway" and "You're a Grand Old Flag" was the son of Irish immigrants whose family name was Keohane. His parents were in show business on the Vaudeville stage, so perhaps there was specific intent when they changed their name to Cohan, which at a glance seems like Cohen, a common Jewish name. Working with many Jewish songwriters and performers, Cohan likely took advantage of this misconception to gain a foot hold in his industry. As always in show biz, performers would change their names if it helped to insure their success.

Here's a bit of the title song, written and composed by William Jerome (ne Flannery) and Jean Schwartz:

What would this great Yankee nation
Really, really ever do?
If it wasn't for a Levy,
A Mon-a-han or Don-a-hue,
Where would we get our policemen?
Why Uncle Sam would have the blues
Without the Pats and Isadores.
You'd have no big department stores,
If it wasn't for the Irish and the Jews.

McDonald built the subway and his name we'll not forget.
A word of praise is due to Nathan Strauss.
For pasteurizing baby's milk,
the world owes him a debt.
He's a friend to every kiddie in the house.
Without Big Tim Sullivan what would the Bowry do?
Just ask the man that needs a pair of shoes.
There wouldn't be an East Side in the City of New York,
If it wasn't for the Irish and the Jews.

Below are some photos from our event, held at the beautiful Angel Orensanz Foundation Center on Norfolk Street. Many people asked on Tuesday about the building's history. It was formerly the Ansche Chesed Synagogue (constructed 1849). Click here for a link to a pdf history pamphlet.



Full-sized photos can be found directly on our Flickr page.

Thanks to all who joined us for the event!

- Posted by Kate

Sampling and Revisions: The L.E.S. deframed

The Tenement Museum is excited to let you know that some images from our collection are featured in a new exhibit at Gallery Bar, just up Orchard Street. The exhibit opens this evening, so join us for a drink and to check out the art.

If you'll be attending our Tenement Talk with Colm Toibin, you can swing by the gallery afterward.

If you can't make it downtown tonight, the Museum's Orchard Street Contemporaries group will be hosting a happy hour on March 11 as a mini Museum benefit. It's free, and a portion of the bar goes back to the Museum. Keep your eyes on this space for more details on that event.

 

Questions for Curatorial: Business in the Tenements

Curatorial Director Dave answers your questions.


What businesses operated out of 97 Orchard Street over the years? How do you know?

The Museum's researchers use many different sources to find out about the history of our tenement building. City directory records, newspapers, factory inspector reports, and oral histories are just a few of the resources available to us when researching retail or manufacturing businesses.

For instance, the 1917 city directory records the following businesses occupying the storefronts spaces of 97 Orchard Street:

• Claman Stove Repair (Morris and Irving Claman)
• Orchard Printing Co.
• The dry goods store of Louis Schocken
• The watchmaking shop of Louis Rudow

Another useful place to look are the telephone directories. While our building's residential tenants never had telephones, shopkeepers did. The New York Telephone Company’s Address-Telephone Directories listed the following numbers for the shops at 97 Orchard Street between 1929-1940:

1929:
Fisher, Harry Hosiery
Fischer & Schimmel Hosiery
Orchard Printing Co.
Scher, A. General Merchandise
Schimmel, Rubin Hosiery
Solomon, L Printer

1930:
Fischer & Schimmel Hosiery
Scher, A. General Merchandise

1931:
Reliable Jobbing Co.
S & D Underwear Corp.
Scher, A. General Merchandise

1933
S & D Underwear Corp.
Scher Jobbing House
Scherm Wm Jobber

1934
Duberman, H. Handbags
Scher’s Jobbing House Inc.
Scher’s Jobbing House Inc.
Seaboard Impt. Co.

1935
Duberman, H. Handbags
Gips & Mendesohn Inc. Hosiery
Seaboard Impt. Co.

1937
Auction Exchange
Gips & Mendesohn Inc. Hosiery

1939
Brandies, Herman Auctioneer
Brandies & Marcus Merchandise
Gips & Mendesohn Inc. Hosiery

1940
Gips & Mendesohn Inc. Hosiery
Scher, Wm. Auction Outlet

Does anyone want to share what a "jobber" is? I bet some of you readers know. Or worked as a jobber even?

Some of these businesses, including the auction house, will be part of the Museum's forthcoming "Minding the Store" exhibit, slated to open in early 2011.

Questions for Curatorial: Basement Businesses

Curatorial Director Dave answers your questions.

Did another business occupy the basement storefront adjacent to Schneider’s saloon during the late 1860s and 1870s?

According to the 1873 New York City Business Directory, 97 Orchard Street resident Heinrich Dreyer operated a real estate office with his partner, Christian Stark, in the building’s basement storefront.

A longtime real estate agent in Kleindeutschland, or Little Germany, Hanover-born Heinrich Dreyer frequently listed commercial properties for sale in German-language newspapers such as the New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung.

By 1873, Dreyer appears to have partnered with Wurttemberg-born Christian Stark. Available records indicate that in 1873, 28-year-old Stark lived with his mother, brother, and two sisters at 45 Forsyth Street.

Interestingly, the 1870 US Census indicates that Stark had previously owned a local liquor store. How did he get into the real estate business? Evidence suggests that, in 1870, his mother Catherine owned $20,000 worth of real estate. It is possible that she helped her son invest and enabled him to partner with Heinrich Dreyer.

More recent architectural probes in 97 Orchard Street's basement strongly suggests that the saloon took up the entire basement space. Therefore, it's likely that Dreyer and Stark operated their business out of the bar, which was a gathering space and often used for political meetings and social events.

Tomorrow, read about a few of the businesses that operated out of 97 Orchard in the early 20th century.