Lower East Side

Today I actually had to go to work.

I had a meeting down on Wall Street with one of NAB's data vendors so we left the Teenagers to their rest and Tracey walked with me down to Wall Street. The meeting only went for an hour and we were soon making our way back to the apartment.

It was an overcast day but at least it wasn't raining.

We collected the Teenagers and went up to see what tours they were offering at the Tenement Museum which is just up the street from the apartment. We signed up for their Then and Now walking tour which takes you around the neighbourhood talking about how it has changed over time. We were the only ones on the tour so we set off with our Guide, Judith.

The Lower East Side has had a rather chequered history from nice neighbourhood to slum and back to up and coming neighbourhood again. There have been Germans, Jews, Italians, Chinese, and Hispanic populations who have left their mark as well as changes in policy of the City. Below is a short history of the Lower East Side according to James - no guarantees on the accuracy!!

The Lower East Side started as mostly single family wooden dwellings, this changed to brick builings, then to multi-storey tenaments, then came the massive apartment blocks, and more recently trendy apartments like the one we are in. Many places of worship have had different lives as well with some starting as churches, evolving to synagogues, and then back to churches - some of the photos below show the result.

A tenement is a block of flats. In the late 1800's on the Lower East Side these blocks were 3 or 4 floors high with 4 extended families living on each level - this could be up to 12 people. A flat typically consisted of a bedroom, a kitchen, and a parlour. The parlour faced the street and was the only room with windows. Back then of course there heaps of kids so they often ended up sleeping in the kitchen. There was a communal toilet and bathroom for each level in the building and the neighbourhood was so dodgy you didn't go out of the flat at night to go to the toilet you used a chamber pot and pitched it out the window. On top of this the Government lobbed in the American version of the White Australia Policy just to increase the stress on the new immigrants.

The children were lucky to get any education and often had to start working very young to help support the family. Many families had street carts selling fruit, cheese, meat, fish, and other essentials. The government decided these were not good and so created a central place where these people could sell their wares, the local version of this was the Essex Street Market which is close by and still offers a range of gourmet foods.

In 1950s and 60s these areas became real sums and definite no-go areas but then the artists and trendies started moving in and this started to change the neighbourhood to being a hip place to be.

The government were also changing the city, building bridges that meant tenements had to be demolished to allow access, train lines came and went, open space policies meant tenements were demolished, and more recently big money arrived. All this means the current Lower East Side is a real mix of buildings and people.

I think it is a fascinating place. There is the little Jewish shopkeeper who comes out and talks to us every time we walk past - we got his life story on the first day, Chinatown is a few blocks away, there are some great pizza places close by, and some really hip shops offering things like customised leather jackets and really trendy clothes. There are still a number of community support places around helping Chinese and Hispanic migrants who have come to the area.

The pictures below show some of the different builings, shops, and people that inhabit the area. It is great just walking around.

After our walking tour we went up to Rasarios' pizza place and collected a couple of really nice pizzas, one cheese and one pepperoni, before walking back to the apartment in the light drizzle.

Tomorrow it is all about a certain green lady!Read more