Lubaba Abbas Kazmi
Thursday, October 25, 2018
Bridge Project 3
The Lower East Side, a neighborhood in the southern part of Manhattan in New York City, is the most historic and fascinating neighborhoods in New York. It is recognized as the iconic neighborhood to which thousands of Americans can trace their roots as wave after wave of immigrants have arrived hoping to start a new life. The streets of this area are infused with the same energy and diversity with vivid embodiment of the historical sense of the place.
Since the past two decades, it is the neighborhood that rules night life in Manhattan. It has all the staple elements: lively crowds to jam packed bars on every block. I could see that it has a balance of the high and the low culture, with shabby bars close to cocktail dens. True to its musical roots, this neighborhood has plenty of concerts featuring local bands.
My group and I spotted a few attractions as well. These included the Tenement Museum and Katzi’s Deli. The neighborhood has some beautiful graffiti to offer. The small and personal touches make the Lower East Side a vibrant place. We also explored a plenty of shops and boutiques hidden in pockets across the neighborhood.
However, the Lower East Side has had its fair share of disruptive past. It gave birth to Corlears Hook under Dutch and British rule, also known as Crown Pointduring the British occupation. On February 25, 1643, volunteers from Amsterdam colony murdered thirty Wiechquaesgecks, a native African tribe, at Corlears Hook, due to the issues between colonists and the natives. In 1816, Corlears Hook became scandalous for streetwalkers and was openly known for thieves and prostitutes. After becoming the Red-Light district, men and women selling themselves became known as hookers.
According to Wikipedia, The Dutch community of New Amsterdam was predominantly located near the Fulton Street while the northern side had a few large farms called bouwerij (bowery). Close to these farms were distinct areas Africans Americans which served as an intervening shield between the Dutch and Native Americans. One of the largest enclaves was situated between Prince Street and Astor Place. These black farmers were the earliest settlers. Immigrants transmitted in the 19thand early 20thcenturies to tenements in the Lower East Side. German immigrants settled in the area around the 1840s and parts of it were eventually known as “Little Germany”. Later groups of Italian and Eastern European Jews, Greeks, Hungarian, Romanian, Russian, Slovaks and Ukrainians, started settling in this side of the city. By 1920, Jews were the largest ethnic group with a population of 400,000. However, the living conditions of these slums were far from ideal.
The 20thCentury brought changes to this neighborhood. It started getting associated with radical politics like anarchism, socialism, and communism. It also became known for being a place where famous performers had grown up, like the Marx Brothers, Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Jimmy Durante and Irving Berlin. Following this, more radical artists like the Beat poets and writers were associated with this neighborhood. The Beat Generation was a literary movement started by a group of authors who influenced American culture and politics with their work after World War II.
While researching got the history and culture of the neighborhood, I came across an article revealing the top 10 secrets of Lower East Side. According to the writer, in the 1980s, this neighborhood started to sustain after its decline in the past. It started attracting students, artists and middle-class people as well as immigrants from countries like India, Japan, Bangladesh, China, Dominican Republic, Korea, Philippines, and Poland. Finally, by the early 2000s, the Lower East Side started becoming the trendiest in Manhattan with posh boutiques, classy restaurants including Clinton St. Baking Company and Restaurant. It has been a lower-class worker neighborhood with an ethnically diverse yet poor section of the city. Since mid-20thcentaury this neighborhood inhabited immigrants from Latin America who have set their own grocery shops, stores and goods from their culture. In addition to this, this area has multiple historic synagogues like “Kheila Kedosha Janina” (the only Greek synagogue in Western Hemisphere). There is also a Hare Krishna temple, several Buddhist houses and Muslim mosques of worship that I spotted while I was visiting the neighborhood.
The Germans decreased in number by early 20thcentury due to the General Slocum disaster, and the anti-German sentiments provoked by World War I. After World War II, subsequently, the Lower East Side became New York’s first racially amalgamated neighborhood with Africans Americans, Spanish and Puerto Ricans.
Progressively, by the 1960s, there was a decline in the Jewish and eastern European groups as they left the area. However, other ethnic groups formed into a separate neighborhood, such as Little Italy. The Lower East Side has faced a period of poverty, crime, drugs and poor housing. According to an informative YouTube video by Tanduy de Thuret, on the LES, its demographics changed gradually as hipsters, musicians, and artists started settling in. Real estate brokers spread the East Village name and the term was picked up by the mid 1960s media. With the economic development of a culture separate from the Lower East Side, the two areas got independent recognition.
Since the past two decades, it is the neighborhood that rules night life in Manhattan. It has all the staple elements: lively crowds to jam packed bars on every block. I could see that it has a balance of the high and the low culture, with shabby bars close to cocktail dens. True to its musical roots, this neighborhood has plenty of concerts featuring local bands.
My group and I spotted a few attractions as well. These included the Tenement Museum and Katzi’s Deli. The neighborhood has some beautiful graffiti to offer. The small and personal touches make the Lower East Side a vibrant place. We also explored a plenty of shops and boutique hidden in pockets across the neighborhood.
What I gathered after conducting an extensive research on the Lower East Side was that the vibrancy the neighborhood offers today is due to its tumultuous past and other events that have taken place. The people are the heart of it and there is an unfathomable nuances and charm in the neighborhood. All in all, I believe that delving deeper into the neighborhood and its past has taught me heaps about the same and I believe that its rich history truly offers a lot to the city and has made its own mark on the skyline of New York City as we know it.
Works Cited
“Lower East Side.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Oct. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_East_Side#Immigrant_neighborhood.
Thuret, Tanguy de. “History of New-York City : Walk On The Lower East Side.” YouTube, YouTube, 18 Mar. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NyZVZbABVQ.
“The Top 10 Secrets of NYC’s Lower East Side.” Untapped Cities, 27 Sept. 2018, untappedcities.com/2017/09/20/the-top-10-secrets-of-nycs-lower-east-side/.
Fishbein, Rebecca. “9 Facts You May Not Know About The Lower East Side.” Gothamist, gothamist.com/2016/04/22/les_history_lower_east_side.php.
