September 7, 2000 (original) May 2, 2006 (increase)[5]
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Historically, it was understood to encompass a much larger area, from Broadway to the East River and from East 14th Street to Fulton and Franklin Streets.
The Lower East Side is roughly bounded by East 14th Street on the north, by the East River to the east, by Fulton and Franklin Streets to the south, and by Pearl Street and Broadway to the west. This more extensive definition of the neighborhood includes Chinatown, the East Village, and Little Italy.[8] A less extensive definition would have the neighborhood bordered in the south and west by Chinatown, – which extends north to roughly Grand Street – in the west by Nolita and in the north by the East Village.[9][10]
As was true of all of Manhattan Island, the area now known as the Lower East Side was occupied by members of the Lenape tribe, who were organized in bands that moved from place to place according to the seasons, fishing on the rivers in the summer, and moving inland in the fall and winter to gather crops and hunt for food. Their main trail took approximately the route of Broadway. One encampment in the Lower East Side area, near Corlears Hook was called Rechtauck or Naghtogack.[18]
Early settlement
Corlears Hook (red arrow) is Crown Point in this British map of 1776; "Delaney's [sic] New Square" (blue square northwest of Corlears Hook) was never built
The population of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam was located primarily below the current Fulton Street, while north of it were a number of small plantations and large farms called "bouwerij" ("bowery", equivalent to "boerderij" in present-day Dutch). Around these farms were a number of enclaves of free or "half-free" Africans, which served as a buffer between the Dutch and the Native Americans. One of the largest of these was located along the modern Bowery between Prince Street and Astor Place, as well as the "only separate enclave" of this type within Manhattan.[19] These black farmers were some of the earliest settlers of the area.[20]
Gradually, during the 17th century, there was an overall consolidation of the boweries and farms into larger parcels, and much of the Lower East Side was then part of the Delancey farm.[20]
James Delancey's pre-Revolutionary farm east of post road leading from the city (Bowery) survives in the names Delancey Street and Orchard Street. On the modern map of Manhattan, the Delancey farm[21] is represented in the grid of streets from Division Street north to Houston Street.[22] In response to the pressures of a growing city, Delancey began to survey streets in the southern part of the "West Farm"[23] in the 1760s. A spacious projected Delancey Square—intended to cover the area within today's Eldridge, Essex, Hester and Broome Streets—was eliminated when the loyalist Delancey family's property was confiscated after the American Revolution. The city Commissioners of Forfeiture eliminated the aristocratic planned square for a grid, effacing Delancey's vision of a New York laid out like the West End of London.
Corlears Hook
The point of land on the East River now called Corlears Hook was also called Corlaers Hook under Dutch and British rule and briefly Crown Point during British occupation in the Revolution. It was named after the schoolmaster Jacobus van Corlaer, who settled on this "plantation" that in 1638 was called by a Europeanized version of its Lenape name, Nechtans[24] or Nechtanc.[25] Corlaer sold the plantation to Wilhelmus Hendrickse Beekman (1623–1707), founder of the Beekman family of New York; his son Gerardus Beekman was christened at the plantation on August 17, 1653.
On February 25, 1643, as part of Kieft's War, volunteers from the New Amsterdam colony killed forty Wiechquaesgecks at their encampment in the Massacre at Corlears Hook,[26] in retaliation for ongoing conflicts between the colonists and the natives of the area, including the natives' unwillingness to pay tribute and their refusal to turn over the accused killer of a colonist.[27]
The projection into the East River that retained Corlaer's name was an important landmark for navigators for 300 years. On older maps and documents, it is usually spelled Corlaers Hook, but since the early 19th century, the spelling has been anglicized to Corlears. The rough unplanned settlement that developed at Corlaer's Hook under the British occupation of New York during the Revolution was separated from the densely populated city by rugged hills of glacial till: "this region lay beyond the city proper, from which it was separated by high, uncultivated, and rough hills", observers recalled in 1843.[28]
As early as 1816, Corlears Hook was notorious for streetwalkers, "a resort for the lewd and abandoned of both sexes", and in 1821 its "streets abounding every night with preconcerted groups of thieves and prostitutes" were noted by The Christian Herald.[29] In the course of the 19th century, they came to be called hookers.[30] In the 1832 summer of New York City's cholera epidemic, a two-story wooden workshop in the neighborhood was commandeered to serve as a makeshift cholera hospital; between July 18 and September 15, when the hospital was closed as the epidemic wound down, 281 patients were admitted, both black and white, of whom 93 died.[31]
In 1833, Corlear's Hook was the location of some of the first tenements built in New York City.[20]
Corlears Hook is mentioned on the first page of Chapter 1 of Herman Melville's Moby Dick, first published in 1851: "Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see? ..." and again in Chapter 99—The Doubloon.
The original location of Corlears Hook is now obscured by shoreline landfill.[32] It was near the east end of the present pedestrian bridge over the FDR Drive near Cherry Street. The name is preserved in Corlears Hook Park at the intersection of Jackson and Cherry Streets along the East River Drive.[33]
Immigration
The Lower East Side in the early 1900sThe Lower East Side and Lower Manhattan skyline photographed using Agfacolor in 1938.
The bulk of immigrants who came to New York City in the late 19th and early 20th centuries came to the Lower East Side, moving into crowded tenements there.[34] By the 1840s, large numbers of German immigrants settled in the area, and a large part of it became known as "Little Germany" or "Kleindeutschland".[20][35] This was followed by groups of Italians and Eastern European Jews, as well as Greeks, Hungarians, Poles, Romanians, Russians, Slovaks and Ukrainians, each of whom settled in relatively homogeneous enclaves. By 1920, the Jewish neighborhood was one of the largest of these ethnic groupings, with 400,000 people, pushcart vendors and storefronts prominent on Orchard and Grand Streets, and numerous Yiddish theatres along Second Avenue between Houston and 14th Streets.[20]
Living conditions in these "slum" areas were far from ideal, although some improvement came from a change in the zoning laws, which required "new law" tenements to be built with air shafts between them so that fresh air and some light could reach each apartment. Still, reform movements, such as the one started by Jacob Riis's book How the Other Half Lives continued to attempt to alleviate the problems of the area through settlement houses, such as the Henry Street Settlement, and other welfare and service agencies. The city itself moved to address the problem when it built First Houses, the first such public housing project in the United States, in 1935–1936. The development, located on the south side of East 3rd Street between First Avenue and Avenue A, and on the west side of Avenue A between East 2nd and East 3rd Streets, is now considered to be located within the East Village.[20]
By the turn of the twentieth century, the neighborhood had become closely associated with radical politics, such as anarchism, socialism, and communism. It was also known as a place where many popular performers had grown up, such as Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, George and Ira Gershwin, Jimmy Durante, and Irving Berlin. Later, more radical artists such as the Beat poets and writers were drawn to the neighborhood – especially the parts which later became the East Village – by the inexpensive housing and cheap food.[20]
The German population decreased in the early twentieth century as a result of the General Slocum disaster and due to anti-German sentiment prompted by World War I. After World War II, the Lower East Side became New York City's first racially integrated neighborhood with the influx of African Americans and Puerto Ricans. Areas where Spanish speaking was predominant began to be called Loisaida.[20]
By the 1960s, the influence of the Jewish and Eastern European groups declined as many of these residents had left the area, while other ethnic groups had coalesced into separate neighborhoods, such as Little Italy. The Lower East Side then experienced a period of "persistent poverty, crime, drugs, and abandoned housing".[20] A substantial portion of the neighborhood was slated for demolition under the Cooper Square Urban Renewal Plan of 1956, which was to redevelop the area from Ninth to Delancey Streets from the Bowery/Third Avenue to Chrystie Street/Second Avenue with new privately owned cooperative housing.[34]:38[36] The United Housing Foundation was selected as the sponsor for the project, which faced great opposition from the community.[37] Neither the original large-scale development nor a 1961 revised proposal was implemented,[34]:39 and it was not until 1991 that an agreement was made to redevelop a small portion of the proposed renewal site.[38]
The East Village was once considered the Lower East Side's northwest corner. However, in the 1960s, the demographics of the area above Houston Street began to change as hipsters, musicians, and artists moved in. Newcomers and real estate brokers popularized the East Village name, and the term was adopted by the popular media by the mid-1960s. As the East Village developed a culture separate from the rest of the Lower East Side, the two areas came to be seen as two separate neighborhoods rather than the former being part of the latter.[39][40]
By the 1980s, the Lower East Side had begun to stabilize after its period of decline, and once again began to attract students, artists, and adventurous members of the middle-class, as well as immigrants from countries such as Taiwan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, China, the Dominican Republic, India, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Poland.[20]
In the early 2000s, the gentrification of the East Village spread to the Lower East Side proper, making it one of the trendiest neighborhoods in Manhattan. Orchard Street, despite its "Bargain District" moniker, is now lined with upscale boutiques. Similarly, trendy restaurants, including Clinton St. Baking Company & Restaurant, are found on a stretch of tree-lined Clinton Street that New York Magazine described as the "hippest restaurant row" on the Lower East Side.[41][42]
In November 2007, the Blue Condominium, a 32-unit, 16-story luxury condominium tower, was completed at 105 Norfolk Street just north of Delancey Street. The pixellated, faceted blue design starkly contrasts with the surrounding neighborhood.[43] Following the construction of the Hotel on Rivington one block away, several luxury condominiums around Houston, and the New Museum on Bowery, this new wave of construction is another sign that the gentrification cycle is entering a high-luxury phase similar to in SoHo and Nolita in the previous decade.
More recently, the gentrification that was previously confined to the north of Delancey Street continued south. Several restaurants, bars, and galleries opened below Delancey Street after 2005, especially around the intersection of Broome and Orchard Streets. The neighborhood's second boutique hotel, Blue Moon Hotel, opened on Orchard Street just south of Delancey Street in early 2006. However, unlike The Hotel on Rivington, the Blue Moon used an existing tenement building, and its exterior is almost identical to neighboring buildings. In September 2013, it was announced that the Essex Crossing redevelopment project was to be built in the area, centered around the intersection of Essex and Delancey Streets, but mostly utilizing land south of Delancey Street.[44]
Demographics
The census tabulation area for the Lower East Side is bounded to the north by 14th Street and to the west by Avenue B, Norfolk Street, Essex Street, and Pike Street. According to the 2010 United States Census, the population of Lower East Side was 72,957, an increase of 699 (1.0%) from the 72,258 counted in 2000. Covering an area of 535.91 acres (216.88ha), the neighborhood had a population density of 136.1 inhabitants per acre (87,100/sqmi; 33,600/km2).[2] The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 22.6% (16,453) White, 10.9% (7,931) African American, 0.2% (142) Native American, 24.9% (18,166) Asian, 0.0% (13) Pacific Islander, 0.3% (191) from other races, and 1.6% (1,191) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race were 39.6% (28,870) of the population.[3]
The racial composition of the Lower East Side changed moderately from 2000 to 2010, with the most significant changes being the White population's increase by 18% (2,514), the Asian population's increase by 10% (1,673), and the Hispanic / Latino population's decrease by 10% (3,219). The minority Black population experienced a slight increase by 1% (41), while the very small population of all other races decreased by 17% (310).[45]
The Lower East Side lies in Manhattan Community District 3, which encompasses the Lower East Side, the East Village and Chinatown. Community District 3 had 171,103 inhabitants as of NYC Health's 2018 Community Health Profile, with an average life expectancy of 82.2 years.[46]:2,20 This is higher than the median life expectancy of 81.2 for all New York City neighborhoods.[47]:53 (PDF p. 84) Most inhabitants are adults: a plurality (35%) are between the ages of 25–44, while 25% are between 45–64, and 16% are 65 or older. The ratio of youth and college-aged residents was lower, at 13% and 11%, respectively.[46]:2
As of 2017, the median household income in Community District 3 was $39,584,[48] though the median income in the Lower East Side individually was $51,649.[4] In 2018, an estimated 18% of Community District 3 residents lived in poverty, compared to 14% in all of Manhattan and 20% in all of New York City. One in twelve residents (8%) were unemployed, compared to 7% in Manhattan and 9% in New York City. Rent burden, or the percentage of residents who have difficulty paying their rent, is 48% in Community District 3, compared to the boroughwide and citywide rates of 45% and 51%, respectively. Based on this calculation, as of 2018[update], Community District 3 was considered to be gentrifying: according to the Community Health Profile, the district was low-income in 1990 and has seen above-median rent growth up to 2010.[46]:7
Culture
"Cliff Dwellers" by Bellows, depicting the Lower East Side as it was in the early 20th centuryKatz's Delicatessen, a symbol of the neighborhood's Jewish cultural history
Immigrant neighborhood
One of the oldest neighborhoods of the city, the Lower East Side has long been a lower-class worker neighborhood and often a poor and ethnically diverse section of New York. As well as Irish, Italians, Poles, Ukrainians, and other ethnic groups, it once had a sizeable German population and was known as Little Germany (Kleindeutschland). Today it is a predominantly Puerto Rican and Dominican community, and in the process of gentrification (as documented by the portraits of its residents in the Clinton+Rivington chapter of The Corners Project.)[49]
Since the immigration waves from Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century, the Lower East Side became known as having been a center of Jewish immigrant culture. In her 2000 book Lower East Side Memories: A Jewish Place in America, Hasia Diner explains that the Lower East Side is especially remembered as a place of Jewish beginnings for Ashkenazi American Jewish culture.[50] Vestiges of the area's Jewish heritage exist in shops on Hester and Essex Streets, and on Grand Street near Allen Street. An Orthodox Jewish community is based in the area, operating yeshiva day schools and a mikvah. A few Judaica shops can be found along Essex Street, as are a few Jewish scribes and variety stores. Some kosher delis and bakeries, as well as a few "kosher style" delis, including the famous Katz's Deli, are located in the neighborhood. Second Avenue in the Lower East Side was home to many Yiddish theatre productions in the Yiddish Theater District during the early part of the 20th century, and Second Avenue came to be known as “Yiddish Broadway”, even though most of the theaters are now gone. Songwriter Irving Berlin, actor John Garfield, and singer Eddie Cantor grew up here.
Since the mid-20th century, the area has been settled primarily by immigrants, primarily from Latin America, especially Central America and Puerto Rico. They have established their own groceries and shops, marketing goods from their culture and cuisine. Bodegas have replaced Jewish shops, and there are mostly Roman Catholics.
In what is now the East Village, earlier populations of Poles and Ukrainians have moved on and been largely supplanted by newer immigrants. The immigration of numerous Japanese people over the last fifteen years or so has led to the proliferation of Japanese restaurants and specialty food markets. There is also a notable population of Bangladeshis and other immigrants from Muslim countries, many of whom are congregants of the small Madina Masjid, a mosque on First Avenue and 11th Street.
Chinese residents have also been moving into Lower East Side, and since the late 20th century, they have comprised a large immigrant group in the area. The part of the neighborhood south of Delancey Street and west of Allen Street has, in large measure, become part of Chinatown. Grand Street is one of the major business and shopping streets of Chinatown. Also contained within the neighborhood are strips of lighting and restaurant supply shops on the Bowery.
While the Lower East Side has been a place of successive immigrant populations, many American Jews relate to the neighborhood in a strong manner, and Chinatown holds a special place in the imagination of Chinese Americans,[54][55] just as Astoria in Queens holds a place in the hearts of Greek Americans. It was a hub for ancestors of many people in the metropolitan area, and much depicted in fiction and films.
In the late 20th century, Jewish communities have worked to preserve a number of buildings historically associated with the Jewish immigrant community.[57][58][59] Notable sites include:
Bialystoker Synagogue– 7–11 Willet Street, originally built in the Greek Revival style for the Willett Street Methodist Episcopal Church in 1826, and acquired in 1905 for the Orthodox Jewish congregation.[65][66]
Little Fuzhou (Chinese:小福州; pinyin:Xiǎo Fúzhōu; Foochow Romanized: Siēu-hók-ciŭ), or Fuzhou Town (Chinese:福州埠; pinyin:Fúzhōu Bù; Foochow Romanized: Hók-ciŭ-pú) is a neighborhood within the eastern sliver of Chinatown, in the Two Bridges and Lower East Side areas of Manhattan. Starting in the 1980s and by the 1990s, the neighborhood became a prime destination for immigrants fromFuzhou, Fujian, China. Manhattan's Little Fuzhou is centered on East Broadway. However, since the 2000s, Chinatown, Brooklyn became New York City's new primary destination for Fuzhou immigrants, resulting in a second Little Fuzhou that has far surpassed the original as the Fuzhou cultural center of the New York metropolitan area, and is still rapidly growing in contrast to Manhattan's Little Fuzhou that is shrinking under gentrification.
Since the 2010s, the Fuzhou immigrant population and businesses have been declining throughout the whole eastern portion of Manhattan's Chinatown due to gentrification. There is a rapidly increasing influx of high-income, often non-Chinese, professionals moving into this area, including high-end hipster-owned businesses.[67][68]
The neighborhood has become home to numerous contemporary art galleries. One of the first was ABC No Rio.[69] Begun by a group of Colabno wave artists (some living on Ludlow Street), ABC No Rio opened an outsider gallery space that invited community participation and encouraged the widespread production of art. Taking an activist approach to art that grew out of The Real Estate Show (the take over of an abandoned building by artists to open an outsider gallery only to have it chained closed by the police) ABC No Rio kept its sense of activism, community, and outsiderness. The product of this open, expansive approach to art was a space for creating new works that did not have links to the art market place and that were able to explore new artistic possibilities.
Other outsider galleries sprung up throughout the Lower East Side and East Village—some 200 at the height of the scene in the 1980s, including the 124 Ridge Street Gallery among others. In December 2007, the New Museum relocated to a brand-new, critically acclaimed building on Bowery at Prince. A growing number of galleries are opening in the Bowery neighborhood to be in close proximity to the museum. The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, which opened in 2012, exhibits photography featuring the neighborhood in addition to chronicling its history of activism.
As the neighborhood has gentrified and become safer at night, it has transformed into a popular late-night destination. Orchard, Ludlow and Essex between Rivington Street and Stanton Street have become especially packed at night, and the resulting noise is a cause of tension between bar owners and longtime residents.[70][71] Furthermore, as gentrification continues, many established landmarks and venues have been lost.[72]
The Lower East Side is the location of the Slipper Room, a burlesque, variety and vaudeville theatre on Orchard and Stanton. Lady Gaga, Leonard Cohen and U2 have all appeared there, while popular downtown performers—including Dirty Martini, Murray Hill, and Matt Fraser—often appear. Variety shows are regularly hosted by comedians James Habacker, Bradford Scobie, Matthew Holtzclaw, and Matt Roper, under the guise of various characters.
Police and crime
The NYPD 7th Precinct (top) and FDNY Engine Co. 15/Ladder Co. 18/Battalion 4 (bottom) are housed in the same building
The Lower East Side is patrolled by the 7th Precinct of the NYPD, located at 19+1⁄2 Pitt Street.[74] The 7th Precinct, along with the neighboring 5th Precinct, ranked 48th safest out of 69 patrol areas for per-capita crime in 2010.[75]As of 2018[update], with a non-fatal assault rate of 42 per 100,000 people, the Lower East Side and East Village's rate of violent crimes per capita is less than that of the city as a whole. The incarceration rate of 449 per 100,000 people is higher than that of the city as a whole.[46]:8
The 7th Precinct has a lower crime rate than in the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 64.8% between 1990 and 2019. The precinct reported 0 murders, 7 rapes, 149 robberies, 187 felony assaults, 94 burglaries, 507 grand larcenies, and 18 grand larcenies auto in 2019.[76]
Engine Company 15/Ladder Company 18/Battalion 4 – 25 Pitt Street[78]
Engine Company 9/Ladder Company 6 – 75 Canal Street[79]
Health
As of 2018[update], preterm births and births to teenage mothers are less common in the Lower East Side and East Village than in other places citywide. In the Lower East Side and East Village, there were 82 preterm births per 1,000 live births (compared to 87 per 1,000 citywide), and 10.1 births to teenage mothers per 1,000 live births (compared to 19.3 per 1,000 citywide).[46]:11 The Lower East Side and East Village have a low population of residents who are uninsured. In 2018, this population of uninsured residents was estimated to be 11%, slightly less than the citywide rate of 12%.[46]:14
The concentration of fine particulate matter, the deadliest type of air pollutant, in the Lower East Side and East Village is 0.0089 milligrams per cubic metre (8.9×10−9oz/cuft), more than the city average.[46]:9 Twenty percent of Lower East Side and East Village residents are smokers, which is more than the city average of 14% of residents being smokers.[46]:13 In the Lower East Side and East Village, 10% of residents are obese, 11% are diabetic, and 22% have high blood pressure—compared to the citywide averages of 24%, 11%, and 28% respectively.[46]:16 In addition, 16% of children are obese, compared to the citywide average of 20%.[46]:12
Eighty-eight percent of residents eat some fruits and vegetables every day, which is about the same as the city's average of 87%. In 2018, 70% of residents described their health as "good", "very good", or "excellent", less than the city's average of 78%.[46]:13 For every supermarket in the Lower East Side and East Village, there are 18 bodegas.[46]:10
The Lower East Side and East Village generally have a higher rate of college-educated residents than the rest of the city as of 2018[update]. A plurality of residents age 25 and older (48%) have a college education or higher, while 24% have less than a high school education and 28% are high school graduates or have some college education. By contrast, 64% of Manhattan residents and 43% of city residents have a college education or higher.[46]:6 The percentage of Lower East Side and East Village students excelling in math rose from 61% in 2000 to 80% in 2011, and reading achievement increased from 66% to 68% during the same time period.[85]
The Lower East Side and East Village's rate of elementary school student absenteeism is lower than the rest of New York City. In the Lower East Side and East Village, 16% of elementary school students missed twenty or more days per school year, less than the citywide average of 20%.[47]:24 (PDF p. 55)[46]:6 Additionally, 77% of high school students in the Lower East Side and East Village graduate on time, more than the citywide average of 75%.[46]:6
Schools
The New York City Department of Education operates public schools in the Lower East Side as part of Community School District 1.[86] District 1 does not contain any zoned schools, which means that students living in District 1 can apply to any school in the district, including those in the East Village.[87][88]
The following public elementary schools are located in the Lower East Side, serving grades PK-5 unless otherwise indicated:[86]
PS 188 The Island School[100] – Due to the large number of homeless students (which make up nearly half of the student population), the rosters often change and students are often absent.[101]
University Neighborhood Middle School (grades 5–8)[105]
The Lower East Side Preparatory High School (LESPH) and Emma Lazarus High School (ELHS) are second-chance schools that enable students, aged 17–21, to obtain their high school diplomas. LESPH is a bilingualChinese-English school with a high proportion of Asian students. ELHS' instructional model is English-immersion with an ethnically diverse student body.
The Seward Park Campus comprises five schools with an average graduation rate of about 80%. The original school in the building was opened 1929 and closed 2006.[106]
Libraries
The New York Public Library (NYPL) operates two branches in the Lower East Side. The Seward Park branch is located at 4192 East Broadway. It was founded by the Aguilar Free Library Society in 1886, and the current three-story Carnegie library building was opened in 1909 and renovated in 2004.[107] The Hamilton Fish Park branch is located at 415 East Houston Street. It was originally built as a Carnegie library in 1909, but was torn down when Houston Street was expanded; the current one-story structure was completed in 1960.[108]
The Lower East Side is home to private parks, such as La Plaza Cultural.[109] There are also several public parks in the area, including Sara D. Roosevelt Park between Chrystie and Forsyth Streets from Houston to Canal Streets,[110] as well as Seward Park on Essex Street between Hester Street and East Broadway.[111]
The East River shorefront contains the John V. Lindsay East River Park, a public park running between East 12th Street in the East Village and Montgomery Street in the Lower East Side.[112] Planned for the waterfront is Pier 42, the first section of which is scheduled to open in 2021.[113]
As of 2018[update], thirty-seven percent of roads in the Lower East Side have bike lanes.[46]:10 Bike lanes are present on Allen, Chrystie, Clinton, Delancey, Grand, Houston, Montgomery, Madison, Rivington, Stanton, and Suffolk Streets; Bowery, East Broadway, and FDR Drive; the Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges; and the East River Greenway.[117]
The Lower East Side is served by NYC Ferry's South Brooklyn route, which stops at Corlears Hook in the East River Park.[118] Service to the ferry landing started operating on August 29, 2018.[119][120]
Manhattan's Chinatown is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, bordering the Lower East Side to its east, Little Italy to its north, Civic Center to its south, and Tribeca to its west. With an estimated population of 90,000 to 100,000 people, Chinatown is home to the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere. Manhattan's Chinatown is also one of the oldest Chinese ethnic enclaves. The Manhattan Chinatown is one of nine Chinatown neighborhoods in New York City, as well as one of twelve in the New York metropolitan area, which contains the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, comprising an estimated 893,697 uniracial individuals as of 2017.
Little Italy is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City, known for its Italian population. It is bounded on the west by Tribeca and Soho, on the south by Chinatown, on the east by the Bowery and Lower East Side, and on the north by Nolita.
Flushing is a neighborhood in the north-central portion of the New York City borough of Queens. The neighborhood is the fourth-largest central business district in New York City. Downtown Flushing is a major commercial and retail area, and the intersection of Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue at its core is the third-busiest in New York City, behind Times Square and Herald Square.
The East Village is a neighborhood on the East Side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is roughly defined as the area east of the Bowery and Third Avenue, between 14th Street on the north and Houston Street on the south. The East Village contains three subsections: Alphabet City, in reference to the single-letter-named avenues that are located to the east of First Avenue; Little Ukraine, near Second Avenue and 6th and 7th Streets; and the Bowery, located around the street of the same name.
The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West Side is adjacent to the neighborhoods of Hell's Kitchen to the south, Columbus Circle to the southeast, and Morningside Heights to the north.
Delancey Street is one of the main thoroughfares of New York City's Lower East Side in Manhattan, running from the street's western terminus at the Bowery to its eastern end at FDR Drive, connecting to the Williamsburg Bridge and Brooklyn at Clinton Street. It is an eight-lane, median-divided street west of Clinton Street, and a service road for the Williamsburg Bridge east of Clinton Street. West of Bowery, Delancey Street becomes Kenmare Street, which continues as a four-lane, undivided street to Lafayette Street.
The Bowery is a street and neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City, United States. The street runs from Chatham Square at Park Row, Worth Street, and Mott Street in the south to Cooper Square at 4th Street in the north. The eponymous neighborhood runs roughly from the Bowery east to Allen Street and First Avenue, and from Canal Street north to Cooper Square/East Fourth Street. The neighborhood roughly overlaps with Little Australia. To the south is Chinatown, to the east are the Lower East Side and the East Village, and to the west are Little Italy and NoHo. It has historically been considered a part of the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Rivington Street is a street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which runs across the Lower East Side neighborhood, between the Bowery and Pitt Street, with a break between Chrystie and Forsyth for Sara D. Roosevelt Park. Vehicular traffic runs west on this one-way street.
Mott Street is a narrow but busy thoroughfare that runs in a north–south direction in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is regarded as Chinatown's unofficial "Main Street". Mott Street runs from Bleecker Street in the north to Chatham Square in the south. It is a one-way street with southbound-running vehicular traffic only.
Stanton Street is a west-to-east street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, in the neighborhood of the Lower East Side. The street begins at the Bowery in the west and runs east to a dead end past Pitt Street, adjacent to Hamilton Fish Park. A shorter section of Stanton Street also exists east of Columbia Street; it was isolated from the remainder of the street in 1959 with the construction of the Gompers Houses and the Masaryk Towers.
Orchard Street is a street in Manhattan which covers the eight city blocks between Division Street in Chinatown and East Houston Street on the Lower East Side. Vehicular traffic runs north on this one-way street. Orchard Street starts from Division Street in the south and ends at East Houston Street in the north..
Two Bridges is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, nestled at the southern end of the Lower East Side and Chinatown on the East River waterfront, near the footings of Brooklyn Bridge and of Manhattan Bridge. The neighborhood has been considered to be a part of the Lower East Side for much of its history. Two Bridges has traditionally been an immigrant neighborhood, previously populated by immigrants from Europe, and more recently from Latin America and China. The Two Bridges Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in September 2003.
Grand Street is a street in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It runs west/east parallel to and south of Delancey Street, from SoHo through Chinatown, Little Italy, the Bowery, and the Lower East Side. The street's western terminus is Varick Street, and on the east it ends at the service road for the FDR Drive.
Little Fuzhou is a neighborhood in the Two Bridges and Lower East Side areas of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. Little Fuzhou constitutes a portion of the greater Manhattan Chinatown, home to the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere. Manhattan's Chinatown is also one of the oldest Chinese ethnic enclaves.
Division Street is a one-way street in the Two Bridges neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It carries westbound traffic from the intersection of Canal Street and Ludlow Street westward to Bowery.
Madison Street is a two-way thoroughfare in the Lower East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan that begins under the Brooklyn Bridge entrance ramp and ends at Grand Street. It is roughly sixteen large city blocks long. Due to security measures implemented after the September 11 attacks, public access to the part of the street before St. James Place is restricted.
East Broadway is a two-way east–west street in the Chinatown, Two Bridges, and Lower East Side neighborhoods of the New York City borough of Manhattan in the U.S. state of New York.
Elizabeth Street is a street in Manhattan, New York City, which runs north-south parallel to and west of the Bowery. The street is a popular shopping strip in Lower Manhattan's Nolita neighborhood.
Essex Crossing is an under-construction mixed-use development in New York City's Lower East Side, at the intersection of Delancey Street and Essex Street just north of Seward Park. Essex Crossing will comprise nearly 2,000,000 sq ft (200,000 m2) of space on 6 acres and will cost an estimated US$1.1 billion. Part of the existing Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA), the development will sit on a total of nine city blocks, most of them occupied by parking lots that replaced tenements razed in 1967.
Eldridge Street is a street in the Lower East Side and Chinatown neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, running from Houston Street in the north to East Broadway in the south. Originally called Third Street according to the numbering system for the Delancey Farm Grid, it was named in 1817 for Lt. Joseph C. Eldridge, whose unit was ambushed by Indian allies of the British in Upper Canada during the War of 1812.
↑ The division between the "West Farm" and the "East farm" ran approximately along today's Clinton Street, according to Eric Homberger, The Historical Atlas of New York City: a visual celebration of nearly 400 years 2005:60–61.
↑ Van Winkle, Edward; Vinckeboons, Joan; van Rensselaer, Kiliaen. Manhattan, 1624–1639 1916:13; Jacob, whose name was anglicised as "van Curler", leased it to William Hendriesen and Gysbert Cornelisson in September 1640; date given as "prior to 1640": "Corlears Park". Nycgovparks.org. November 17, 2001. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
↑ Nechtanc, in K. Scott and K. Stryker-Rodda, eds. New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, vol. 1 (Baltimore) 1974 and R.S. Grumet, Native American Place-Names in New York City (New York) 1981, both noted in Eric W. Sanderson, Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City 2009:262.
↑ Edwin Francis Hatfield, Samuel Hanson Cox, Patient Continuance in Well-doing: a memoir of Elihu W. Baldwin, 1843:183.
↑ Edwin Francis Hatfield, Samuel Hanson Cox, Patient Continuance in Well-doing: a memoir of Elihu W. Baldwin, 1843:183f.
↑ Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms (1859): "hooker": 'A resident of the Hook, i.e. a strumpet, a sailor's trull. So called from the number of houses of ill-fame frequented by sailors at the Hook (i.e. Corlears Hook) in the city of New York" (quoted in the Online Etymology Dictionary); thus the usage precedes the Civil War and any supposed connection to Major-General Joseph Hooker.
↑ Samuel Akerley, MD (Dudley Atkins, ed.) Reports of Hospital Physicians: and other documents in relation to the epidemic cholera (New York: Board of Health) 1832:112–49.
↑ See also Diner, Hasia; Shandler, Jeffrey; Wenger, Beth, eds. (2000), Remembering the Lower East Side. American Jewish reflections, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ISBN0-253-33788-7 or Pohl, Jana (2006), "'Only darkness in the Goldeneh Medina?' Die Lower East Side in der US-amerikanischen Kinder- und Jugendliteratur", Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte, 58 (3): 227–242, doi:10.1163/157007306777834546
1 2 Sarah Waxman. "The History of New York's Chinatown". Mediabridge Infosystems, Inc. Retrieved July 20, 2014. Manhattan's Chinatown, the largest Chinatown in the United States and the site of the largest concentration of Chinese in the Western Hemisphere, is located on the Lower East Side.
↑ "Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem to Celebrate 114th Anniversary", Jewish Link, February 18, 2021. Accessed January 19, 2024. "Three generations of the Feinstein family have stood at the helm of one of America’s earliest Torah institutions, founded in 1907. Located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and later expanding to Staten Island, Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem (MTJ) stands out as the model of Torah and middot for many of the institutions of Torah learning in America to follow."
↑ Wolfe, Gerald (1975), New York, a Guide to the Metropolis, New York: New York University Press, pp.89–106, ISBN0-8147-9160-3
↑ Diner, Hasia (2000), The Lower East Side Memories: The Jewish Place in America, Princeton: Princeton University Press, ISBN0-691-00747-0
↑ About, Henry Street Settlement. Accessed November 30, 2017. "Founded in 1893 by social work and public health pioneer Lillian Wald and based on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Henry Street Settlement delivers a wide range of social service, arts and health care programs to more than 60,000 New Yorkers each year."
↑ Fabricant, Florence"Kossar's Returns With Bagels and Bialys on the Lower East Side", The New York Times, February 2, 2016. Accessed November 30, 2017. "Kossar's Bagels & Bialys In the bagel capital of the world, the bialy, the round, flattened roll with onions in the center, also gets its due. Evan Giniger and David Zablocki, who in 2013 bought the 80-year-old Kossar's Bialys on the Lower East Side, closed it in September for renovations."
↑ Berger, Joseph. "No More Babka? There Goes the Neighborhood", The New York Times, July 2, 2007. Accessed November 30, 2017. "Gertel's, the legendary bakery on Hester Street on the Lower East Side known for its Jewish treats like rugelach, babka and marble cake, has closed its doors.... Opened in 1914, Gertel's, at 53 Hester Street near Essex Street, closed on June 22."
↑ "A Taste of the Old Lower East Side: Yonah Schimmel's Knish Bakery in New York", Slate Atlas Obscura. Accessed November 30, 2017. "As much of New York's old Lower East Side disappears with the changing times, there are still traces of the original neighborhood to be explored, and in the case of Yonah Schimmel's Knish Bakery, eaten and enjoyed."
↑ Kliment, Stephen A. "When Places of the Spirit Face Concrete Realities", The New York Times, December 27, 1998. Accessed November 28, 2022. "Bialystoker Synagogue is architecturally the grandest of the synagogues earmarked for the Lower East Side trail. Built in 1826 as the Willett Street Methodist Church, it is a pedimented Greek-Revival gem of gray stone and red brick and spectacular stained glass."
↑ Smith, Sarah Harrison. "History Meets Opportunity",The New York Times, October 21, 2012. Accessed November 28, 2022. "The Bialystoker Synagogue was built in 1826 as a Methodist church and is said to have sheltered fugitive slaves in its early days. In 1905, an Orthodox Jewish congregation from Bialystok, Poland, bought the building."
↑ Steinetz, Rebecca. "Reviving the All-of-a-Kind Family books", The Boston Globe, December 13, 2014. Accessed November 30, 2017. "Ella, Henny, Sarah, Charlotte, and Gertie may not have the name recognition of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, or Laura and Mary, but that could change, now that Lizzie Skurnick Books has reprinted four of the five All-of-a-Kind Family books, originally published between 1951 and 1978. For publisher Skurnick, whose imprint is devoted to reissuing out-of-print classic young-adult literature, reviving Sydney Taylor's saga of five Jewish immigrant sisters growing up on New York's Lower East Side at the beginning of the 20th century was a no-brainer."
↑ Hester Street (1975) – AFI Catalog Spotlight", American Film Institute, May 2, 2022. Accessed November 8, 2022. "It went on to receive a Best Actress Oscar® nomination for Carol Kane, and a WGA Award nomination for Silver's adaptation of the 1896 novella Yekl, a Tale of the New York Ghetto by Abraham Cahan, who founded the premier Yiddish language newspaper in America."
↑ Salome of the Tenements, University of Illinois Press. Accessed March 31, 2024. "Passionate and engagingly sardonic, it criticizes the concept of the American "Melting Pot" in the language of the Lower East Side and exposes the hypocrisy of the "good works" of the privileged class and their so-called dedication to the poor."
↑ Schoemer, Karen. "Lowlife: It's a Life", The New York Times, February 21, 1993. Accessed November 30, 2017. "Luc Sante reveals the Lower East Side. As he roams the area, one of New York's oldest neighborhoods, buildings, doorways and details that would usually go unnoticed suddenly come into clear focus; a strange and vibrant life shows itself beneath the grime and residue of time. Mr. Sante's two books, Low Life and Evidence, bring this world to the page."
↑ Kirn, Walter. "Neighborhood Watch", The New York Times, March 16, 2008. Accessed November 30, 2017. "In Lush Life, Richard Price's eighth novel, the resurfacing project that caps the same old potholes (and threatens to collapse in certain areas, potentially creating immense new craters capable of swallowing small crowds) targets the tangled, once tenement-lined streets of New York City's Lower East Side. In Realtor-speak, the district is 'in transition,' which means in Police Department terms that its college-educated young renting class and bonus-gorged co-op-owning elite can still score narcotics from the old-guard locals, whose complexions are generally darker than the new folks', making them easy to spot on party nights but tricky to ID in photo lineups come the red-eyed mornings after."
↑ Gates, Anita. "Theater Review; On a Roof, Vignettes That Get Around", The New York Times, September 21, 1998. Accessed November 30, 2017. "The three vignettes – showing a Yiddish-Sicilian theater, a dangerous turn-of-the-century tavern and a contemporary Lower East Side scene – were nicely done, with lovely period costumes by Mary Myers."
↑ Welcome to Arroyo's by Kristoffer Diaz, Samuel French, Inc. Accessed November 30, 2017. "A sweet, loose-limbed shout out to Manhattan's Lower East Side…With a Greek chorus of DJs who 'mix' the play right in front of us, WELCOME shows that hip-hop can still goose mainstream theater instead of merely filling the diversity slot."
↑ Cutler, Aaron. "The Lower East Side Is a Foreign Country: Joan Micklin Silver on Hester Street", Brooklyn Magazine, September 28, 2016. Accessed November 30, 2017. "Hester Street, Joan Micklin Silver's independently financed 1975 debut feature, will screen at Film Forum Tuesday, October 4 on an archival 35mm print, with Silver in person alongside star Carol Kane. The film is set in 1896 within a Jewish community on New York's Lower East Side."
1 2 Our History, Bloomingdale's. Accessed September 29, 2016. "A Store Is Born: To think it all started with a 19th-century fad – the hoop skirt. That was the first item that Joseph and Lyman Bloomingdale carried in their Ladies' Notions Shop in New York's Lower East Side."
↑ Groom, Winston. "A Gangster Goes to War", The Wall Street Journal, October 2, 2010. Accessed September 29, 2016. "In New York right after the turn of the 20th century, the baddest man in the whole downtown was a thug named Monk Eastman, who controlled a gang of 2,000 Jewish hoodlums on Manhattan's Lower East Side."
↑ Robbins, Tom. "Miriam Friedlander's Good Fight", The Village Voice, October 15, 2009. Accessed March 16, 2022. "Miriam Friedlander, the spirited former councilwoman from the Lower East Side, died last week at 95, and we would count ourselves enormously lucky should her type come this way again."
↑ Day, Crosby. "Garfield: An Actor Who Stood His Ground", Orlando Sentinel, February 7, 2003. Accessed January 19, 2024. "John Garfield's reputation since his death seems to have hardened into a list of tired clichés: tough kid from New York's Lower East Side makes good; the first angry young man; the original rebel without a cause; the first method actor; the forerunner of Brando, Clift, Dean and De Niro."
↑ "Actor Ben Gazzara dead at 81", The Florida Times-Union, February 3, 2012. Accessed January 19, 2024. "Born Biagio Anthony Gazzara in New York on Aug. 28, 1930, he grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in a cold-water flat with a bathtub in the kitchen."
↑ Seaver, Carl. "The Life of 'The Oddfather,' Vincent Gigante", History Defined, January 27, 2023. Accessed January 19, 2024. "Vincent Gigante was born in 1928 in the Lower East Side of New York. His father, Salvatore Gigante, and mother, Yolanda Gigante, were Italian immigrants."
↑ "Answers About the New York Mafia", The New York Times, October 8, 2008. Accessed January 19, 2024. "No one was ever charged in the murder, but as I disclosed 44 years later in my Oct. 18, 2001, column, the primary shooter of Albert Anastasia was the mobster Steven (Stevie Coogan) Grammauta. The second gunman was Arnold Wittenberg. Both men, along with the hit-team leader, Stephen Armone, were heroin dealers from the Lower East Side. Mr. Grammauta, now 91, is the only surviving member."
↑ Berger, Phil. "Rocky Graziano, Ex-Ring Champion, Dead at 71", The New York Times, May 23, 1990. Accessed January 19, 2024. "Born Thomas Rocco Barbella, Mr. Graziano grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the son of a former boxer nicknamed Fighting Nick Bob."
↑ "Poem of the week: Secrecy by Samuel Greenberg", The Guardian, October 26, 2020. Accessed January 19, 2024. "Samuel Greenberg was born in Vienna in 1893. His family emigrated to the US when he was seven and he grew up on New York City’s Lower East Side."
↑ McFadden, Robert D."David Greenglass, the Brother Who Doomed Ethel Rosenberg, Dies at 92", The New York Times, October 14, 2014. Accessed January 19, 2024. "Mr. Greenglass, who grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in a household that believed Marxism would save humanity, was an ardent, preachy Communist when drafted by the Army in World War II, but no one in the barracks took him very seriously, much less believed him capable of spying."
↑ Weber, Bruce. "Sally Gross, Choreographer of Minimalist Dances, Dies at 81", The New York Times, July 24, 2015. Accessed March 25, 2021. "Sarah Freiberg was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan on Aug. 3, 1933. Her parents were Jewish immigrants from Poland — her father was a fruit peddler — and as a girl she spoke Yiddish at home."
↑ Deliso, Meredith. "Luis Guzman on growing up in NYC, best Puerto Rican food", AM New York Metro, June 9, 2016. Accessed January 19, 2024. "[Q] What was it like growing up in New York? [A] I lived on the Lower East Side. I grew up on Delancey and Columbia Street.... But back then, when we moved to the Lower East Side, in the late 1960s, early 1970s, the neighborhood looked like a bomb hit it, when the Bowery was full of what we called hobos."
↑ Wilson, John S. "E.Y. Harburg, Lyricist, Killed In Car Crash", The New York Times, March 7, 1981. Accessed March 25, 2021. "Edgar Harburg was born on New York's Lower East Side on April 8, 1896, the son of immigrants. From childhood, he was known as Yip, short for Yipsel, which he gave as his middle name although he said he acquired it as a boy on the East Side."
↑ Hoppe, Randolph. "Jack Kirby: Superhero Creator of the Lower East Side", Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Accessed March 25, 2021. "Did you know that Captain America is from the Lower East Side? It's true. So are Thor, the Hulk, Ant-Man, the Avengers, and the X-Men. All of these characters were co-created by Lower East Side native, Jack Kirby, one of the most important and prolific storytellers of the 20th century."
↑ Acevedo, Carlos. "LIGHTNING EXPRESS: The Quick Rise & Even Quicker Fall of Al Singer", The Cruelest Sport, December 11, 2012. Accessed July 13, 2017. "Born in New York City on September 6, 1909, Al Singer spent his early years on the Lower East Side before his father, a successful businessman, moved the family to Pelham Parkway in the Bronx."
↑ Gringo, American Film Institute. Accessed November 4, 2017. "In the early 1980s, John Spacely is an unemployed heroin addict living on the streets of New York City's Lower East Side, where he is known by the nickname, 'Gringo.'"
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