Levine apartment, sewing station. Photo by DreamscapeVisions.
Showing posts with label Harris Levine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harris Levine. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
From Work Space to Space for Worship
What can a pair of tarnished candle sticks hidden away on a kitchen mantel tell us about a family?
For Harris and Jennie Levine, making a living in America meant using their small tenement apartment at 97 Orchard Street as both home and workspace. Harris, like many other Eastern-European immigrants at the turn of the century, made a living through piecework for the garment industry, eventually employing a handful of other workers in his family’s living room.
During the week Jennie and their children shared the space with Harris and his workers as they pieced together ladies’ dresses. Harris might have been cramped over the sewing machine situated near one of the few windows in the apartment, while up to half a dozen women stitched pieces of fabric alongside him in the living room. In the kitchen a presser, a senior male member of Harris’ staff, ironed the completed pieces next to the same stove Jennie would be using to cook and clean for her family.
On the kitchen mantelpiece are two candlesticks – small objects that tell a larger story of how the Levine family would have maintained their culture and religion in this home/work environment. With the Jewish Shabbat beginning at sunset each Friday evening, Jennie would have a limited amount of time in which to reclaim her home and transform it from a work space to a space of worship. She might have waited impatiently for the workers to leave on Fridays so she could move the dress model out of the center of the room, dust around the sewing machine, and put away the tools of Harris’ trade, like the bobbin, pattern tracer, and scissors.
Though Jennie wouldn’t be able to reclaim the space until Friday afternoons, she might begin her Shabbat shopping on Thursday nights or Friday mornings to gather all the necessary ingredients to prepare a proper meal, as none of this work could be done after sunset.
A New York Daily Tribune reporter visiting the neighborhood market on Fridays stated that “the people are massed so thickly on the pavements that it is only in aggressive fashion that one can make his way through the crowd. As for the middle of the street, there is no middle to be seen.” Homemakers like Jennie poured into the streets to gather last-minute ingredients for this weekly holiday.
For working families, Shabbat rituals helped transform the tenement into a special space for one day, with the aroma of stew and challah filling the apartment instead of freshly steamed dress pieces, and the sounds of song and prayer replacing the hum of the sewing machine. As sundown approached, Jennie would bring out the candlesticks, hidden on the mantel during the week, and place them prominently on a table to signify the beginning of the family’s day of rest. On Shabbat, the Levine family could find comfort in the old traditions, modified for a new home.
All photos by Battman Studios, Courtesy Lower East Side Tenement Museum.
- Posted by Shana Weinberg
For Harris and Jennie Levine, making a living in America meant using their small tenement apartment at 97 Orchard Street as both home and workspace. Harris, like many other Eastern-European immigrants at the turn of the century, made a living through piecework for the garment industry, eventually employing a handful of other workers in his family’s living room.
During the week Jennie and their children shared the space with Harris and his workers as they pieced together ladies’ dresses. Harris might have been cramped over the sewing machine situated near one of the few windows in the apartment, while up to half a dozen women stitched pieces of fabric alongside him in the living room. In the kitchen a presser, a senior male member of Harris’ staff, ironed the completed pieces next to the same stove Jennie would be using to cook and clean for her family.
On the kitchen mantelpiece are two candlesticks – small objects that tell a larger story of how the Levine family would have maintained their culture and religion in this home/work environment. With the Jewish Shabbat beginning at sunset each Friday evening, Jennie would have a limited amount of time in which to reclaim her home and transform it from a work space to a space of worship. She might have waited impatiently for the workers to leave on Fridays so she could move the dress model out of the center of the room, dust around the sewing machine, and put away the tools of Harris’ trade, like the bobbin, pattern tracer, and scissors.
Though Jennie wouldn’t be able to reclaim the space until Friday afternoons, she might begin her Shabbat shopping on Thursday nights or Friday mornings to gather all the necessary ingredients to prepare a proper meal, as none of this work could be done after sunset.
A New York Daily Tribune reporter visiting the neighborhood market on Fridays stated that “the people are massed so thickly on the pavements that it is only in aggressive fashion that one can make his way through the crowd. As for the middle of the street, there is no middle to be seen.” Homemakers like Jennie poured into the streets to gather last-minute ingredients for this weekly holiday.
For working families, Shabbat rituals helped transform the tenement into a special space for one day, with the aroma of stew and challah filling the apartment instead of freshly steamed dress pieces, and the sounds of song and prayer replacing the hum of the sewing machine. As sundown approached, Jennie would bring out the candlesticks, hidden on the mantel during the week, and place them prominently on a table to signify the beginning of the family’s day of rest. On Shabbat, the Levine family could find comfort in the old traditions, modified for a new home.
All photos by Battman Studios, Courtesy Lower East Side Tenement Museum.
- Posted by Shana Weinberg
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Meet Jeffrey Marsh, for Live! At the Tenement
Jeffrey Marsh is currently a costumed interpreter in the Live! At the Tenement program. I was lucky enough to speak to him in and out of character. See Jeffrey perform as Harris Levine tomorrow night at Live!.
Jeffrey, who are you portraying here at the museum?
I will go back in time more than a hundred years and be Harris Levine who lived in the building in 1898.
What responsibilities do you shoulder to keep your character accurate?
One of our speakers, Karen Lomen, called it a delicate illusion. It’s my job to keep that world of 1898 intact from the tour’s start to its finish. There’s a whole comprehensive, cohesive world that these [visitors playing the role of newspaper] reporters can tap into.
How do you maintain the interest of your audience?
Well there are so many layers to costumed interpreting. Part of it is being charming; part of it is using tools like soliciting help from the people you’re talking to, respecting them so that that turns into a respect for the interpreter. And having the tools that [program coordinator] Sarah Litvin gave to us really helps in that space.
How is it different to play this role than to simply be an educator?
Oh goodness. Well, it’s a heck of a lot more fun, not that educating’s not fun. It’s all fun but this is some of the most fun that I’ve had here. It uses my actor self as well. I moved to New York to do this – performing and acting. And when I first started at the Museum, this was going to be my day job, I was going to have to slog through and do plays and performing another way. But I’m utterly delighted to have it all fold together with this program. I can use those muscles for acting well beyond what is my motivation. I get to use my third person experience as an educator to take on a whole new role. And as I experience the Museum in a new way, hopefully visitors will too.
A lot of us have felt that this is so special. It feels like we shouldn’t be allowed to do it. It’s so much fun. It’s supposed to be about educating and the history and all of that stuff but this program has taught us that that process of interpreting the past, of looking at these lives, can be so interesting and so fun to us. That will translate, I think, in two directions.
You’ve told me what’s the most fun about this program. What’s most nerve-wracking about it?
Really keeping a respect for the lives we’re talking about. Nerve-wracking may not be the best way to put it. But that is the main focus because he’s an actual person and I want to have as much reverence as I can have for his whole story, the complexity of his life. It’s easy to be charming and entertaining, but we also want to convey how it may not have been in that living situation. That complexity can inform the interpretation as well.
Now, as a reporter for the New York Times all the way back in 1898, some questions with Harris Levine…
I just want to know a little bit about your family…
You know I can’t read the Times? You know that? But when it comes out, you tell…
I’ll tell you how it goes. Could you tell me about your family and how you make a living?
Living? You mean work?
Yes.
Well, that Mrs. Goldberg next door, she got a joke for everything. She come running in last week and she said, “Well you know in America, in English, they got the word “home.” Got four letters in there: W – O – R – K.
So you work in your home?
I do work in my home. We got the contract now from the goniff on Hester Street. He tell me this color’s gonna be in for the fall. I think it’s schlecht. It’s bad. But he says ladies gonna be wearing that color head to toe in the fall. Rose is what it’s called. Rose here, rose there, rose in the kitchen and every part of the apartment.
Do you make all of this clothing yourself?
We sew. It comes to us cut. It’s delivered up here.
I see. And do you have a wife? Children?
I do. Jennie. She comes with me. We get married right before we come. And now we got three. Max just been born. He’s new. Jennie’s not here though. She’s down with the fish peddler trying to get two herrings for a penny. The kids went with here because they want to get out. It’s so hot in here. So Jennie’s gonna be sad; she missed American reporter.
What do the kids usually do each day?
Pauline plays a game… well, she’s at that age where she wants me to be nice, right? So she goes and she waits for the coal truck to come by and she chase after. Anything that falls off that truck, she get it and she bring it to me. She brought me three pieces last week. And the other one’s a baby. You know what he does? Lie around. You know what happens if I lie around all day? We don’t eat. [Laughs.]
Williamsburg Bridge, looking east from Manhattan to the
East River. Lower East Side Tenement Museum (c) 2010I was wondering if you could tell me how New York differs from your old home?
You seem like you have a nice home here but if you could change one thing about the tenement, what would it be?
Listen, you heard of this place, Brooklyn? In a minute, we’re all gonna be the same city. Over there, they tell me, if you’re Jewish, you work in one place, you open the door, walk out, down the street even, open another door and that’s where you live.
So you’d like to move to Brooklyn?
Yes, a neighborhood called Williamsburg. Work here, live over there. That’s enough.
Jeffrey, who are you portraying here at the museum?
I will go back in time more than a hundred years and be Harris Levine who lived in the building in 1898.
What responsibilities do you shoulder to keep your character accurate?
One of our speakers, Karen Lomen, called it a delicate illusion. It’s my job to keep that world of 1898 intact from the tour’s start to its finish. There’s a whole comprehensive, cohesive world that these [visitors playing the role of newspaper] reporters can tap into.
How do you maintain the interest of your audience?
Well there are so many layers to costumed interpreting. Part of it is being charming; part of it is using tools like soliciting help from the people you’re talking to, respecting them so that that turns into a respect for the interpreter. And having the tools that [program coordinator] Sarah Litvin gave to us really helps in that space.
How is it different to play this role than to simply be an educator?
Oh goodness. Well, it’s a heck of a lot more fun, not that educating’s not fun. It’s all fun but this is some of the most fun that I’ve had here. It uses my actor self as well. I moved to New York to do this – performing and acting. And when I first started at the Museum, this was going to be my day job, I was going to have to slog through and do plays and performing another way. But I’m utterly delighted to have it all fold together with this program. I can use those muscles for acting well beyond what is my motivation. I get to use my third person experience as an educator to take on a whole new role. And as I experience the Museum in a new way, hopefully visitors will too.
A lot of us have felt that this is so special. It feels like we shouldn’t be allowed to do it. It’s so much fun. It’s supposed to be about educating and the history and all of that stuff but this program has taught us that that process of interpreting the past, of looking at these lives, can be so interesting and so fun to us. That will translate, I think, in two directions.
You’ve told me what’s the most fun about this program. What’s most nerve-wracking about it?
Really keeping a respect for the lives we’re talking about. Nerve-wracking may not be the best way to put it. But that is the main focus because he’s an actual person and I want to have as much reverence as I can have for his whole story, the complexity of his life. It’s easy to be charming and entertaining, but we also want to convey how it may not have been in that living situation. That complexity can inform the interpretation as well.
Now, as a reporter for the New York Times all the way back in 1898, some questions with Harris Levine…
I just want to know a little bit about your family…
You know I can’t read the Times? You know that? But when it comes out, you tell…
I’ll tell you how it goes. Could you tell me about your family and how you make a living?
Living? You mean work?
Yes.
Well, that Mrs. Goldberg next door, she got a joke for everything. She come running in last week and she said, “Well you know in America, in English, they got the word “home.” Got four letters in there: W – O – R – K.
So you work in your home?
I do work in my home. We got the contract now from the goniff on Hester Street. He tell me this color’s gonna be in for the fall. I think it’s schlecht. It’s bad. But he says ladies gonna be wearing that color head to toe in the fall. Rose is what it’s called. Rose here, rose there, rose in the kitchen and every part of the apartment.
Do you make all of this clothing yourself?
We sew. It comes to us cut. It’s delivered up here.
I see. And do you have a wife? Children?
I do. Jennie. She comes with me. We get married right before we come. And now we got three. Max just been born. He’s new. Jennie’s not here though. She’s down with the fish peddler trying to get two herrings for a penny. The kids went with here because they want to get out. It’s so hot in here. So Jennie’s gonna be sad; she missed American reporter.
What do the kids usually do each day?
Pauline plays a game… well, she’s at that age where she wants me to be nice, right? So she goes and she waits for the coal truck to come by and she chase after. Anything that falls off that truck, she get it and she bring it to me. She brought me three pieces last week. And the other one’s a baby. You know what he does? Lie around. You know what happens if I lie around all day? We don’t eat. [Laughs.]
Williamsburg Bridge, looking east from Manhattan to the
East River. Lower East Side Tenement Museum (c) 2010I was wondering if you could tell me how New York differs from your old home?
Rev. Goldstein – the rabbi in Plonsk where I’m from – said, “You know what about New York City? They got no God there. They got this new god they call money. And take a look - it’s true.
Listen, you heard of this place, Brooklyn? In a minute, we’re all gonna be the same city. Over there, they tell me, if you’re Jewish, you work in one place, you open the door, walk out, down the street even, open another door and that’s where you live.
So you’d like to move to Brooklyn?
Yes, a neighborhood called Williamsburg. Work here, live over there. That’s enough.
Monday, July 27, 2009
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, May 29, 2009
A Tale of Two Garment Districts
Long before New York's Garment District became synonymous with the square-mile section of Midtown West between 34th and 42nd streets, clothing was produced by hundreds of immigrants in the Lower East Side. 97 Orchard’s own Harris Levine ran a garment shop out of his apartment after arriving with his wife from Poland in the 1890s, paying 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. (Learn more on our Piecing It Together Tour.) There were at least 23 such makeshift factories on the stretch of Orchard Street between Broome and Delancey. 180 still operate in the entire Lower East Side today (you can recognize them by the steam coming out of pipes near windows) and though demographics have shifted over the years, the shops continue to rely on immigrant labor.
During the Great Depression, Rosaria Baldizzi, an Italian immigrant living in 97 Orchard, was forced to find work in a factory (photographed above) in the city's "official" midtown Garment District. To see how the neighborhood was depicted in movies, books, and plays at the peak of its fame, check out this 50-minute lecture by historian Warren Shaw, courtesy of the Gotham Center.
-posted by Liana Grey
During the Great Depression, Rosaria Baldizzi, an Italian immigrant living in 97 Orchard, was forced to find work in a factory (photographed above) in the city's "official" midtown Garment District. To see how the neighborhood was depicted in movies, books, and plays at the peak of its fame, check out this 50-minute lecture by historian Warren Shaw, courtesy of the Gotham Center.
-posted by Liana Grey
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