Banca Stabile, an Italian immigrant bank, in the early 1900s.
-posted by Liana Grey
Friday, July 31, 2009
Immigration History on an Interactive Map
Newcomers to New York, an interactive map on the Museum of Eldridge Street's website, offers background on some of Lower Manhattan's immigration-related landmarks. To name a few: Italians used Banca Stabile (now the Italian American Museum) on Grand Street to store money, buy steamship tickets, and get documents translated; the graves of over 20,000 slaves were counted in the African Burial Ground, a cemetery near City Hall Park that was discovered by construction workers in the 1990s; and local political activists and writers (including Isaac Bashevis Singer) frequented the Garden Cafeteria, an eatery on East Broadway that opened in 1911, closed about seven decades later, and is currently the Wing Shoon Seafood restaurant.
Banca Stabile, an Italian immigrant bank, in the early 1900s.
-posted by Liana Grey
Banca Stabile, an Italian immigrant bank, in the early 1900s.
-posted by Liana Grey
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Opening and Closing - Guss' Pickles
A look at mom and pop shops that are leaving the neighborhood, and the businesses that are replacing them.
It's all over the local blogosphere: Guss' Pickles, the 90-year-old neighborhood staple on the corner of Broome and Orchard, is on its way out - to a larger, cheaper storefront in Brooklyn. Rent was getting too high, Lo-Down reports, and "when the city put a Muni Meter directly in front of [owner Patricia Fairhurst's] pickle barrels, blocking customers' access, it was the last straw."
Guss' may be famous for surviving decades of gentrification and demographic shifts, but it isn't the only place to buy briny cucumbers east of the Bowery. A quick browse on the web turned up a couple of relative newcomers that stay faithful to old-school preparation techniques (and may become, decades from now, the new neighborhood classics):
Pickle Guys
At his store on Essex Street (once the center of the neighborhood pickle industry), Alan Kaufman makes pickles from "an old Eastern European recipe, just as my mom used to make them." At one point, he even got a chance
to work with one of the owners of Guss' Pickles.
Rick's Picks
Founder Rick Field, a former TV producer, translated a childhood hobby into a business in 2004. His artisinal corn, beet, and green bean pickles are fancier and less traditional than Pickle Guys' or Guss', but they stem from family recipes and are a regular fixture at the annual International Pickle Festival on Orchard Street.
-posted by Liana Grey
It's all over the local blogosphere: Guss' Pickles, the 90-year-old neighborhood staple on the corner of Broome and Orchard, is on its way out - to a larger, cheaper storefront in Brooklyn. Rent was getting too high, Lo-Down reports, and "when the city put a Muni Meter directly in front of [owner Patricia Fairhurst's] pickle barrels, blocking customers' access, it was the last straw."
Guss' may be famous for surviving decades of gentrification and demographic shifts, but it isn't the only place to buy briny cucumbers east of the Bowery. A quick browse on the web turned up a couple of relative newcomers that stay faithful to old-school preparation techniques (and may become, decades from now, the new neighborhood classics):
Pickle Guys At his store on Essex Street (once the center of the neighborhood pickle industry), Alan Kaufman makes pickles from "an old Eastern European recipe, just as my mom used to make them." At one point, he even got a chance
to work with one of the owners of Guss' Pickles. Rick's Picks
Founder Rick Field, a former TV producer, translated a childhood hobby into a business in 2004. His artisinal corn, beet, and green bean pickles are fancier and less traditional than Pickle Guys' or Guss', but they stem from family recipes and are a regular fixture at the annual International Pickle Festival on Orchard Street.
-posted by Liana Grey
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
How to Research a Building Part 2
Earlier this month, I set off to research the history of random buildings in lower Manhattan, and discovered that 46 East Houston Street, a luxury condo just north of Little Italy, once housed immigrant apartments, a rowdy hotel and theater (known respectively as Scratch Hall and Dramatic Hall), and inventor Nikola Tesla's lab. Two mysteries remained: what did the original building look like? And did the lab and two halls ever coexist?
I headed down to the Municipal Archives office on Chambers Street to search its collection of tax photos - snapshots taken during the Great Depression of every single New York City building - for an image of the structure's exterior.
46 Houston in the 1940s, courtesy of the Municipal Archives
The hardest part wasn't locating 46 Houston in a cabinet full of microfilm; the images are organized by numbers assigned to buildings for tax purposes. Rather, it was threading the film through a malfunctioning scanner and printing out a decent copy. (During one attempt to use the machine, the spool used to secure the film to the scanner broke off.)
Museum staff member Chris Neville pointed me to a resource he used back in his days as a historic preservation consultant: the New York Public Library's online collection of postcard-sized photos of streetscapes, which turned up a high-quality image of the original 46 Houston (also known as 300 Mulberry Street). I also found an 1868 illustration of the building, which apparently housed a police station at the time, infamous for handling criminals ranging from Boss Tweed to an Italian woman who murdered her lover.
A 1913 photograph and 1868 illustration, courtesy of the NY Public Library
A trip to the library's 5th Avenue branch helped me solve mystery number two. I typed Dramatic Hall into a database of 19th century newspapers, and the headline of a 1894 Daily Tribune article popped up: "Dramatic Hall Torn Down." On a microfilm scanner down the hall (luckily, nothing broke this time), I scrolled through the May 1st issue and found the article on the last page, in a section of paragraph-long news briefs about the openings and closings of various New York City businesses. I wasn't able to print a copy, so I retyped it here (look out for some rather amusing descriptions of the building, like "nightly abode of an army of tramps" and a "breeding ground for disease").
So what next? A friend requested that I look into her apartment building on Avenue B, an ornate red-brick tenement that looked identical back in the 1940's (it was built in 1900), save the laundromat now on the ground floor. What caught my eye in the Great Depression tax photo was the building next door: an elegant structure reminiscent of a synagogue. I couldn't recall seeing it last time I was in the neighborhood, so a friend and I took a stroll over to Alphabet City one afternoon to check it out. In the mystery building's place (or perhaps near it - there's an empty lot next to the tenement) sat a drab 6-story nursing home built in the 1980s.
60 Avenue B, today and in the 1940s, when it stood next to a stunning temple-like building, now an empty lot or perhaps replaced with the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation; it's hard to tell from the pictures.
Speaking of temples, my friend Madhavi told me, there's a Hindu one near 7th Street and Avenue B. She'd worshiped there a couple times, and was curious about its history. We headed up a couple blocks to 96 Avenue B, a rundown gray-brick building just steps from Tompkins Square Park.
A sari-clad woman with an Eastern European accent greeted us in the entryway of a two-room space cluttered with statues of deities, some strung with brightly colored garlands. In the back room, wood carving of religious scenes covered almost every inch of the walls. According to the temple's website, extensive renovations were conducted on the "simple East Village space" before it opened in 2003. ( It claims to be the first Hindu temple in New York City, but there are much older ones in Queens, like the 30-year-old Ganesha Temple in Flushing that recently underwent renovations.)
About a decade ago, 96 Avenue B housed a vintage clothing store, Metropolis, dubbed the city's "best and cheapest" by the New York Times. It was one of several outposts of hipster culture in the neighborhood, including a tattoo parlor and a leather goods shop.
For at least part of the 19th century, the building was a three story tenement with a "cloak and suit establishment" on the ground floor. The landlady, an elderly woman named Mrs. Louis Thielmann, was hosting her daughter and two young grandchildren in her top story apartment when a fire broke out, prompting a dramatic rescue by a fireman that happened to be across the street.
Once safely outside, according to an 1888 New York Times article describing the incident, both the landlady and her daughter bestowed kisses of gratitude on the fireman.
A two-story building at 96 Avenue B houses the Radhe-Shyam Temple. During the Great Depression, it was a tenement house.
Coming up next: the history of a tenement on Second Avenue once home to a restaurant and a handful of interesting residents. And hopefully, some answers about the mystery building that once sat near my friend's apartment building on the corner of 5th Street and Avenue B.
-Liana Grey
I headed down to the Municipal Archives office on Chambers Street to search its collection of tax photos - snapshots taken during the Great Depression of every single New York City building - for an image of the structure's exterior.
46 Houston in the 1940s, courtesy of the Municipal Archives
The hardest part wasn't locating 46 Houston in a cabinet full of microfilm; the images are organized by numbers assigned to buildings for tax purposes. Rather, it was threading the film through a malfunctioning scanner and printing out a decent copy. (During one attempt to use the machine, the spool used to secure the film to the scanner broke off.)
Museum staff member Chris Neville pointed me to a resource he used back in his days as a historic preservation consultant: the New York Public Library's online collection of postcard-sized photos of streetscapes, which turned up a high-quality image of the original 46 Houston (also known as 300 Mulberry Street). I also found an 1868 illustration of the building, which apparently housed a police station at the time, infamous for handling criminals ranging from Boss Tweed to an Italian woman who murdered her lover.
A 1913 photograph and 1868 illustration, courtesy of the NY Public Library
A trip to the library's 5th Avenue branch helped me solve mystery number two. I typed Dramatic Hall into a database of 19th century newspapers, and the headline of a 1894 Daily Tribune article popped up: "Dramatic Hall Torn Down." On a microfilm scanner down the hall (luckily, nothing broke this time), I scrolled through the May 1st issue and found the article on the last page, in a section of paragraph-long news briefs about the openings and closings of various New York City businesses. I wasn't able to print a copy, so I retyped it here (look out for some rather amusing descriptions of the building, like "nightly abode of an army of tramps" and a "breeding ground for disease").
Workmen yesterday began to tear down the four story building on the north side of Houston Street midway between Mulberry and Mott Streets, which was a well-known place of amusement in war times when the next block in Houston Street was known as "murderer's row." The building was called "Dramatic Hall' for 20 years after the war, although it degenerated to a dance hall with a bar-room on the first floor, and regular theatrical performances disappeared from the place forever. Several years ago, it was turned into a cheap lodging house and became the nightly abode of an army of tramps, fairly earning the significant name of "Scratch Hall." It became such a breeding place for disease that the Health Board revoked its license. In late years it had been occupied as a furniture warehouse. A seven-story business structure is to be erected on the site of the old building.Tesla moved his lab into the top floor new building in 1896 (it would be interesting to find out what businesses occupied the other floors) - and it wasn't until nearly a century later that it was replaced with a luxury building. I browsed an interactive map of Manhattan for more details on the current building's status. Constructed in 1986, it's 12 stories high, about 86,746 square feet, and owned by the development firm Columbia 298 Mulberry.
So what next? A friend requested that I look into her apartment building on Avenue B, an ornate red-brick tenement that looked identical back in the 1940's (it was built in 1900), save the laundromat now on the ground floor. What caught my eye in the Great Depression tax photo was the building next door: an elegant structure reminiscent of a synagogue. I couldn't recall seeing it last time I was in the neighborhood, so a friend and I took a stroll over to Alphabet City one afternoon to check it out. In the mystery building's place (or perhaps near it - there's an empty lot next to the tenement) sat a drab 6-story nursing home built in the 1980s.
60 Avenue B, today and in the 1940s, when it stood next to a stunning temple-like building, now an empty lot or perhaps replaced with the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation; it's hard to tell from the pictures.
Speaking of temples, my friend Madhavi told me, there's a Hindu one near 7th Street and Avenue B. She'd worshiped there a couple times, and was curious about its history. We headed up a couple blocks to 96 Avenue B, a rundown gray-brick building just steps from Tompkins Square Park.
A sari-clad woman with an Eastern European accent greeted us in the entryway of a two-room space cluttered with statues of deities, some strung with brightly colored garlands. In the back room, wood carving of religious scenes covered almost every inch of the walls. According to the temple's website, extensive renovations were conducted on the "simple East Village space" before it opened in 2003. ( It claims to be the first Hindu temple in New York City, but there are much older ones in Queens, like the 30-year-old Ganesha Temple in Flushing that recently underwent renovations.)
About a decade ago, 96 Avenue B housed a vintage clothing store, Metropolis, dubbed the city's "best and cheapest" by the New York Times. It was one of several outposts of hipster culture in the neighborhood, including a tattoo parlor and a leather goods shop.
For at least part of the 19th century, the building was a three story tenement with a "cloak and suit establishment" on the ground floor. The landlady, an elderly woman named Mrs. Louis Thielmann, was hosting her daughter and two young grandchildren in her top story apartment when a fire broke out, prompting a dramatic rescue by a fireman that happened to be across the street.
Once safely outside, according to an 1888 New York Times article describing the incident, both the landlady and her daughter bestowed kisses of gratitude on the fireman.
A two-story building at 96 Avenue B houses the Radhe-Shyam Temple. During the Great Depression, it was a tenement house.
Coming up next: the history of a tenement on Second Avenue once home to a restaurant and a handful of interesting residents. And hopefully, some answers about the mystery building that once sat near my friend's apartment building on the corner of 5th Street and Avenue B.
-Liana Grey
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Tenement Talks at BookTV.org
A few of our Tenement Talks have been filmed for CSPAN's Book TV, and they're available for online viewing.
Andrew Ross, author of Nice Work if You Can Get It, speaks about labor in America today. Originally aired May 10, 2009. Event took place on April 22, 2009.
Samuel D. Kassow, author of Who Will Write Our History, shares the amazing story of Emanuel Ringelblum, a Polish historian who recorded and secreted thousands of records of Jewish life in the Warsaw Ghetto. Originally aired February 21, 2009. Event took place on February 3, 2009.
Jay Dolan, author of The Irish Americans, gives an overview of this group's history, from the famine ships to JFK. Originally aired January 2, 2009. Event took place on November 11, 2008.
Andrew Ross, author of Nice Work if You Can Get It, speaks about labor in America today. Originally aired May 10, 2009. Event took place on April 22, 2009.
Samuel D. Kassow, author of Who Will Write Our History, shares the amazing story of Emanuel Ringelblum, a Polish historian who recorded and secreted thousands of records of Jewish life in the Warsaw Ghetto. Originally aired February 21, 2009. Event took place on February 3, 2009.
Jay Dolan, author of The Irish Americans, gives an overview of this group's history, from the famine ships to JFK. Originally aired January 2, 2009. Event took place on November 11, 2008.
Monday, July 27, 2009
A Hydrant in the Rear Yard
The water hydrant we bought for our rear yard exhibit, right, is identical to one in a period catalog.
Slowly but surely, we're recreating the yard behind 97 Orchard where residents used the bathroom, did laundry, and even socialized. In a basement collections room, archeological fellow Jessica MacLean is busy studying and cataloging artifacts dug out of the privy over a decade ago. And Melissa Cabarcas of the Curatorial Department is in the process of installing a period water hydrant manufactured by the Kupferle Foundry, a St. Louis company that's been churning out hydrants since the 1850s (the earliest version of this model is 1887, according to a patent we have).
According to a 1903 book compiling investigations made by the New York Tenement House Commission, backyard hydrants weren't always reliable. Tenants sometimes faced an inadequate water supply and had difficulty dragging water from the rear yard to higher floors. An inspector noticed, for instance, that a Second Avenue tenement's hydrant was broken and an Elizabeth Street building wasn't receiving enough water. "On the East Side and in Williamsburg, families were without water for whole hot summer days," he wrote. No matter the weather, areas surrounding the hydrants were coated with slimy stagnant water - a source of disgust for women who did their laundry there, but one of joy for children who used tenement yards as playgrounds.
-posted by Liana Grey
Factories in the Tenement
One of 97 Orchard's residents, Eastern European immigrant Harris Levine, operated a makeshift garment factory out of his apartment. He paid two unmarried Jewish women $8 -$9 a week to put the finishing touches on items and an old man about $12 a week to iron them. Curatorial Director Dave Favaloro discusses other businesses run from tenants' homes.
Knowledge of Harris Levine’s shop comes from the reports of the Department of the Factory Inspector. During the 1890s, inspectors investigated tenement apartments that were being used for garment production, as well as other types of manufacturing. According to the Department’s 1893 Report, in which Harris Levine was also listed, Austrian-born Herman Queller operated a broom and window brush factory out of his home at 97 Orchard Street. Queller appears to have employed one man to work alongside him. Although Herman Queller was Jewish, the Report records him as working nine hours on Saturdays, the Sabbath.
Herman Queller, date unknown
The 1893 Factory Inspectors Report also records Michael Schkedron operating a cigar factory out of his home at 97 Orchard Street. Although Museum researchers do not know where Schkedron hailed from, the Inspectors Report that he was both the proprietor and sole employee of his business, at which he worked approximately 70 hours a week, including 10 hours on Sunday.
At the time, the Department of Factory Inspectors claimed to have investigated only 1/5 of the total number of shops operating in tenement apartments, so it’s likely that other residents of 97 Orchard Street operated manufacturing businesses out of their homes. Moreover, the Factory Inspectors only listed addresses for the shops they inspected during the early 1890s. It’s very possible other shops were operating out of the home before and after the 1890s.
In some sense, Natalie Gumpertz’s dressmaking shop could also be considered a manufacturing enterprise even though it’s unlikely she employed anyone but her children. As mentioned above, it’s likely that other manufacturing enterprises employing non-family members operated at other times in 97 Orchard Street but, unfortunately, Museum researchers have found no evidence of their existence.
Knowledge of Harris Levine’s shop comes from the reports of the Department of the Factory Inspector. During the 1890s, inspectors investigated tenement apartments that were being used for garment production, as well as other types of manufacturing. According to the Department’s 1893 Report, in which Harris Levine was also listed, Austrian-born Herman Queller operated a broom and window brush factory out of his home at 97 Orchard Street. Queller appears to have employed one man to work alongside him. Although Herman Queller was Jewish, the Report records him as working nine hours on Saturdays, the Sabbath.
Herman Queller, date unknown
The 1893 Factory Inspectors Report also records Michael Schkedron operating a cigar factory out of his home at 97 Orchard Street. Although Museum researchers do not know where Schkedron hailed from, the Inspectors Report that he was both the proprietor and sole employee of his business, at which he worked approximately 70 hours a week, including 10 hours on Sunday.
At the time, the Department of Factory Inspectors claimed to have investigated only 1/5 of the total number of shops operating in tenement apartments, so it’s likely that other residents of 97 Orchard Street operated manufacturing businesses out of their homes. Moreover, the Factory Inspectors only listed addresses for the shops they inspected during the early 1890s. It’s very possible other shops were operating out of the home before and after the 1890s.
In some sense, Natalie Gumpertz’s dressmaking shop could also be considered a manufacturing enterprise even though it’s unlikely she employed anyone but her children. As mentioned above, it’s likely that other manufacturing enterprises employing non-family members operated at other times in 97 Orchard Street but, unfortunately, Museum researchers have found no evidence of their existence.
Friday, July 24, 2009
This Week's Current Immigration News
Sheriff Joe (The New Yorker)
In this compelling profile, writer William Finnegan explains how Sheriff Arpaio earned his reputation as "America's Toughest Sheriff." Joe Arpaio, of Maricopa County, Arizona, is one of hundreds of participants in a U.S. Department of Homeland Security program called 287(g), which delegates federal immigration enforcement to local law enforcement agencies. Arpaio's harsh treatment of inmates and his raids on Latino towns have resulted in the loss of health accreditation for his county's jails and an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Report Says Immigration Agents Broke Laws and Agency Rules in Home Raids (New York Times)
On Wednesday the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law released a report stating that federal immigration authorities have violated their own rules and the Constitution in hundreds of raids throughout New York and New Jersey. Federal agents acted without judicial search warrants or failed to obtain informed consent for raids. While the raids were supposed to find dangerous criminals, Latinos with civil immigration violations were the target of the vast majority of arrests.
Census Bureau: immigrants and miserly pensions may save Britain (The Guardian)
Around the globe, many countries face aging populations. The shrinking labor pools may strain the economies of the United States, China, Japan, and Italy, just to name a few. However, in Britain, high net immigration will offset a smaller labor pool (as aging workers retire). The total dependency ratio (the ratio of children and pensioners to the total population) is predicted to fall between now and 2020 to the lowest of any large European nation.
-posted by Penny King
In this compelling profile, writer William Finnegan explains how Sheriff Arpaio earned his reputation as "America's Toughest Sheriff." Joe Arpaio, of Maricopa County, Arizona, is one of hundreds of participants in a U.S. Department of Homeland Security program called 287(g), which delegates federal immigration enforcement to local law enforcement agencies. Arpaio's harsh treatment of inmates and his raids on Latino towns have resulted in the loss of health accreditation for his county's jails and an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Report Says Immigration Agents Broke Laws and Agency Rules in Home Raids (New York Times)
On Wednesday the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law released a report stating that federal immigration authorities have violated their own rules and the Constitution in hundreds of raids throughout New York and New Jersey. Federal agents acted without judicial search warrants or failed to obtain informed consent for raids. While the raids were supposed to find dangerous criminals, Latinos with civil immigration violations were the target of the vast majority of arrests.
Census Bureau: immigrants and miserly pensions may save Britain (The Guardian)
Around the globe, many countries face aging populations. The shrinking labor pools may strain the economies of the United States, China, Japan, and Italy, just to name a few. However, in Britain, high net immigration will offset a smaller labor pool (as aging workers retire). The total dependency ratio (the ratio of children and pensioners to the total population) is predicted to fall between now and 2020 to the lowest of any large European nation.
-posted by Penny King
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