Last of the Lower East Side

        Our last classL, so sad! The final class takes us to the heart of immigrant New York, where we will explore how various groups of new immigrants incorporated into the life of the City during the last two hundred years. We started at the Essex Street Market. Occupying the block of Essex St. from Delancy to Rivington St. is the Essex Street Market. Built in 1940 to house pushcart peddlers whom Mayor Fiorello La Guardia legislated off the streets, the market offers food for all tastes – Latino, Jewish, and upscale urbanite (BG, 123). We were able to roam around and try the different foods if we wanted to. I got some plantain chips and a soda and some of my classmates got some gourmet chocolate chip cookies which was really good. After being let free to find food we then headed down to Delancy Street which was named after the De Lancy family, who were early settlers of the French Huguenot origin (BG, 119). From here we walked a few blocks to the Tenement Museum where our tour and main focus was on the Moore family.

            When we first arrived I had no idea what this museum was all about, I thought it would be so boring. To my surprise it was one of the better more interesting museums. I was very afraid that the floors in these tenements won’t hold everyone’s weight and give way to the ground floor below. This museum, a former tenement, was founded in 1988 to preserve the heritage of the nation’s immigrants, honoring the millions who lived on the Lower East Side and in other immigrant ghettos (BG, 122). Tenements, built to exploit all available space and maximize the return for the landlord, were one of the horrors of immigrant life (BG, 122). The main focus of our tour was based on the Moore family. This was an Irish family, John, Bridget, Mary, Jane, and Agnes who came to New York in 1869 and had to cope with the death of their youngest, Agnes. Agnes was only a baby when she had gotten sick from “swill milk” that was given to her. It’s called swill milk because the milk was not refrigerated and took days to be delivered, so to cover up the bad odor and discoloration of the milk, the sellers added ammonia and chalk.

            We continued with our walk through the Lower East Side heading towards Tom and Jerry’s. I couldn’t believe I was enrolled in a class that was taking us to a bar. This is frigging awesome! I don’t drink but this was terrific. We got a little history about the bar from Ruby. We learned about the dive bar and flap houses and that the bar opened in 1993 and over the years there have been a shift in the demographics mix of people that come into the bar. Oh it was so cold and windy out on our last day that by this time I was freezing and hungry. We headed over to a super authentic place, Congee Village. Now this was really some genuine Chinese food. Our table was sooooo hungry we felt as though the food couldn’t get to our table fast enough. By the time a new dish reached our table the first one was already gone with not a scrap left hahaha. We were still hungry after we were finished.

            We tried to get as much needed feet rest as possible and warmth because we were headed back out into the cold for our last tour. We met up with our tour guide Drew who took us through Lower Eastside, the Bowery, parts of Little Italy and Chinatown. Like the rest of downtown Manhattan, the Lower East Side, long an immigrant neighborhood, is in the midst of rapid change. Chinatown is encroaching from the west and 19^th century tenement buildings are being converted into luxury apartments. Yet the neighborhood retains something of its past – ethnic eateries, synagogues in various state of despair or restorations, and a street of bargain shopping (BG, 118). Bowery, is one of Manhattan’s oldest streets, runs about one mile, from Chatham Square to Cooper Street, and for long was associated with loneliness, poverty, and alcoholism (BG, 152-153). While many of Manhattan’s other ethnic enclaves are shrinking or gentrifying, Chinatown is expanding eastward beyond its original boundaries into the Lower East Side and northward into Little Italy. Visitors come for the ambiance, for bargains, and for food, as well as for knockoff designer handbags and perfume (BG, 107). Mulberry St. from about Canal St. to Kenmare St. is the spine of Little Italy, an ethnic enclave dating from the 1880s that in recent decades have become increasingly Asian. The Italian population has aged or moved away, and today Little Italy has become a tourist draw, attracting visitors to its café, “red sauce” restaurants, and ethnic food stores (BG, 114).

            After our immigrant tour ended, we took one last group picture and parted ways (tears). A few headed back to Penn Station and went home, others went to Canal Street to look for and buy some knockoff bags, and the majority of us went out on our last adventure to enjoy a few drinks and a light dinner. It was an awesome last day and we had a great time.