Class #7: Immigrant New York

Class #7: Immigrant New York (Lower Eastside, The Bowery, Little Italy, and Chinatown)

           We started off today by going to the Essex Street Market, which had a variety of different ethnic food. It was here for the first time I ever had Coconut Water, it wasn’t really what I was expecting but it was okay. “This market houses a multitude of stalls whose proprietors speak Chinese, Yiddish, and Spanish and sell foods to match” (BG 186). Major Fiorello LaGuardia started the market in 1940 to find a new place for vendors to sell their goods, to diminish the overcrowding in the streets.

After the street market we walked a few blocks to the Tenement Museum. The tenement apartment building housed almost 7,000 working class immigrants from many different nations.  The museum's existence is primarily to let the public recognize how immigrant families struggled just to make ends meet. They did this all while trying to give the best possible opportunities for their children’s futures. This was one of the worst parts of the class for me. It was hot, the rooms were tight and there was no air getting to the rooms so I passed out. I wasn’t feeling good and I hit the floor. Thank god I was surrounded by nurses that quickly helped me get back to normal.

            Through our walking tour of the museum, we were able to get a better idea of the living conditions for the Irish people during the times they immigrated to New York. We were brought to one of the oldest tenements and got a first hand view of the daily life of a family at the time. The Moore family is one that the tour was focused around. Bridget and Joseph Moore moved to New York City from Ireland and looking for a better life and came to this area of New York. Their family had three children, one of which was an infant who passed away at the age of 6 months. 

          

             At the time, the tenements that they lived in where overcrowded, dirty, and unsafe. The apartments did not have electricity, heat or running water. The also did not have toilets. Moore family faced were job opportunities. Jobs were scarce then and especially for Irish folk. Most jobs that were hiring stated, “No Irish Need Apply.” 

            We soon went to Congee Village where we all enjoyed our last lunch on the instructors.  We all enjoyed authentic Chinese food. It felt even better especially after I passed out at the Tenement Museum. I enjoyed the different types of Chinese food that were placed on the table in front of me.

            After that we got a guided tour of Immigrant New York that took us through the Lower Eastside, the Bowery, and parts of Little Italy and Chinatown. We walked through the Bowery, “a name that is associated with loneliness, poverty, alcoholism, and is considered one of Manhattan's oldest streets” (BG 182).  The Bowery was known for cheap food and alcohol. Since then the area has been turned into a little bit of a better area with the business from Chinatown the colonized streets of Little Italy and the East Village, and the area's lighting and abundance of restaurant supply houses" (BG p.183).

Chinatown is a very unique part of the Far East, it has narrow streets that are constantly over-crowded. It was decorated with signs that had unreadable messages in Chinese letters, and its' busy streets were congested with small unique food stands selling all sorts of different foods. “Chinatown can be described as a ghetto, which is defined by impoverished buildings that are deteriorating and very overcrowded.” (BG 160).