Rischin paints a vivid picture of Jewish life in New York at the turn of the century. Here are the old neighborhoods and crowded tenements, the Rester Street markets, the sweatshops, the birth of Yiddish theatre in America, and the founding of important Jewish newspapers and labor movements. The book describes, too, the city's response to this great influx of immigrants--a response that marked the beginning of a new concept of social responsibility.

People often ask us if 97 Orchard Street was ever the scene of any crimes, and the answer is yes! We know of a few crimes committed here,

Inside the squalid tenements of 1890s New York City

You’ve probably seen photos of these interior windows in old tenement apartments. They divide the kitchen or parlor from a back bedroom, letting a little light and air into the dark tunnel t…

Boutiques, art galleries and upscale eateries can now be found on Orchard Street , but in the early 1900s the neighborhood was cramped with tenement b...

“Druv into Decency” I STOOD at Seven Dials and heard the policeman’s account of what it used to be. Seven Dials is no more like the slum of old than is the Five Points

photo by Alice Lum Architects Herbert Spencer Harde and Richard Thomas Short kept themselves busy around the turn of the century designing tenement houses throughout the city. Harde branched out into real estate at some point, establishing the Eronel Realty Company – “Eronel” being his wife Lenore’s name spelled backwards. With the Upper West Side rapidly developing, Eronel Realty acquired the plot of land at 350 West 85th Street and, in 1903, commissioned Harde & Short to design an apartment building on the lot – in short, Harde hired himself. Terra cotta was just making its mark as a remarkably versatile and relatively inexpensive material and the architects embraced it with gusto for this project. In an effort to lure well-to-do residents from private homes into apartments, Harde & Short lavished the façade with intricate terra cotta ornamentation. It would be a stark departure from the firm's usual tenement buildings. photo by Wurts Bros, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York Drawing on several styles and periods, they created an eye-catching and unique structure. Expanses of multi-paned windows hardened back to great English country estates while dripping Gothic screens coexisted with terra cotta salamanders – the symbol of Francis I. photo by Alice Lum Harde & Short played the red brick and white terra cotta against one another, creating visual interest that was accentuated by the light and shadow of the façade’s angles and bays. The distinctive six-story building was completed in 1904, drawing the unexcited comment from The Real Estate Record & Guide which said it was “a departure from the usual.” The salamander, symbol of Francis I, would appear again in the facade of Harde & Short's magnificent Alwyn Court -- photo by Alice Lum Harde named his building “Red House” and immediately moved in with Lenore. Joining them in the new building were socially-important Mr. and Mrs. William Smith Young and their two daughters, Caroline Grace and Lucy. The 32-year old attorney was a member of no fewer than five exclusive clubs, including the Columbia Yacht Club and the Cornell Club. photo by Alice Lum Mrs. Young, who went by the ponderous name Caroline Marshall Page Young was a Daughter of the American Revolution and was active in philanthropic and charitable causes. On May 14, 1907, for instance, she and Mrs. Franklin P. Duryea, who lived in the elaborate Ansonia Apartments, hosted “a bridge” to aid the School for Crippled Children. Reflective of the difference between West Side and East Side, many of the tenants here were movers and shakers; unafraid to break the chains of tradition or to question the status-quo. photo by Alice Lum At this same time. the banker Ashton Parker was living here. His astonishingly modern views on smoking in public sound more like 2011 than 1905. Parker complained to the editor of The New York Times, calling public smoking “a nuisance” and “disagreeable to ladies.” “Why is it that smoking is forbidden in the ladies’ cabin, yet is permitted in the Wall Street ferry house, where the ladies wait for the boats?” he asked. Other early tenants were Harvard graduate Semour M. Peyser and William Robinson. The modern-thinking Robinson owned an early motorcycle which, sadly in 1906, caused him to be charged with “overspeeding on a motor bicycle.” He was released on $100 bail. Smith College alumna Nancy Elizabeth Barnhart was living here in 1915 when the women’s rights advocate won honorable mention for her submission of a poster design for the Woman Suffrage Campaign Poster Competition exhibited at the gallery of the Society of Beaux Arts Architects. Not all of the endeavors of the residents were so lofty, unfortunately. Alexander S. Timson was a 20-year old insurance broker when he lived here in 1911. On his wedding day, June 10, Detectives arrived at Red House where they arrested Timson as a jewel thief. When he was searched at the station house, police found two diamond rings set with sapphires, two diamond hatpins also set with sapphires, one diamond ring set with pearls and another diamond ring. “This is terrible. I am to be married tonight,” Timson protested. “My people, who live in this city, are wealthy, and will help me out of this trouble.” Timson’s people never showed up. photo by Alice Lum Sadly the rooftop balustrade and aristocratic chimneys have been lost. Otherwise little has changed on the exterior of Red House. It appears very much as it did when Lenore and Herbert Harde moved in in 1904 – what the AIA Guide to New York City calls “a romantic six-story masterpiece.” LaptrinhX.com has no authorization to reuse the content of this blog

This city of sweat shops, shanty towns and slums is an unrecognizable New York captured as the 19th century wound to a close. Newly arrived immigrants slept 12 to a room, while street children roamed the alleys and tenement blocks of a third world downtown Manhattan.

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PODCAST The Lower East Side is one of the most important neighborhoods in America with a rich history as dense as its former living quarters. Thousands of immigrants experienced American life on these many crowded streets. In this podcast, we look at this extraordinary cultural phenomenon through the lens of one of those — Orchard… Read More

On the Lower East Side, “during these late December evenings, the holiday atmosphere is beginning to make itself felt.” “It is a region of narrow streets with tall five-story, even seven-story, teneme

No matter your age, you can probably remember your kindgergarten teacher’s name. The institution of kindergarten in American public schools has a long

Danish-born Jacob Riis (1849-1914) was a social reformer and photojournalist. He is best known for his 1890 book How the Other Half Lives, which brought public attention to New York's squalid housing, sweatshops, bars, and alleys. The City Museum holds the complete collection of images that Riis used in his writing and lecturing career, including photographs he made, commissioned, or acquired. These depict men, women, and children of many nationalities at home, work, and leisure. This collection contains vintage prints, glass-plate negatives, and lantern slides, as well as a set of recently produced prints from all of Riis's original negatives. The Mulberry Bend. Portrait of three girls who served as inspectors in the first Board of Election at the Beach Street Industrial School. An old woman with the plank she sleeps on at the Eldridge Street Station women's lodging room. "I Scrubs," Little Katie from the W. 52nd Street Industrial School (since moved to W. 53rd Street). Lodgers in a crowded Bayard Street tenement. Italian mother and her baby in Jersey Street. Men in a crowded in an "Black and Tan" dive bar. In sleeping quarters - Rivington Street Dump. A man atop a make-shift bed that consists of a plank across two barrels. Ludlow Street Hebrew making ready for Sabbath Eve in his coal cellar -- bread on his table. James M'Bride, one of the City's Pensioners, Father of the notorious Blanche Douglass. Three children curled up on a metal grate in a below-grade areaway. Prayer time in the nursery, Five Points House of Industry. In a Sweat Shop. Talmud School in a Hester Street Tenement. A woman holding a child, and men sitting in a rear yard of a Jersey Street tenement. Minding the Baby. Daytime foot traffic on Hester Street. Three Iroquois women working at a table at 511 Broome Street. Police Station Lodging Rooms, Church Street Station. Playground established in Poverty Gap in the "Alley Gang" preserves. A rear-lot house on Bleecker Street as seen from an adjacent excavation site. A woman with an infant seated at a table with a boy using writing tools. Laborers loading coffins into an open trench at the city burial ground on Hart's Island. An ash barrel on the sidewalk. Little Susie at her work. Children and a woman sit on an inclined cellar door. Newsboys cleaning their faces in a lodging house washroom. Young students salute the American flag at Mott Street Industrial School. Night school in the Seventh Avenue Lodging House - run by The Children's Aid Society. Under the dump at West 47th Street. Women sleeping on plank beds and the floor. A hallway at the condemned Essex Market School filled with students playing. Police Station Lodging Room 5. Midnight in the Leonard Street Station. Old Barney in Cat Alley. Cat Alley, when it was being torn down. Baby in slum tenement, dark stairs--it's playground. (via Museum of the City of New York)

This post explores the legislation behind the design of tenement houses, and how changes in regulations can be seen at 97 Orchard Street. Th...

Tenement Interiors and Exteriors - print by Underwood & Underwood, circa 1908-1913

One night Riis was bedding down in the Church Street Station Lodging-room when his gold locket keepsake was stolen and his dog clubbed to death.

Title: "Small garment shop in N.Y. tenement, ca. 1908." Men and women sewing near the windows in an early garment shop Date: 1908 Estimated Photographer: Lewis Hine Photo ID: 5783PB1F3F Collection: New York Call Photographs, ca. 1908-1923 Repository: The Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives in the ILR School at Cornell University is the Catherwood Library unit that collects, preserves, and makes accessible special collections documenting the history of the workplace and labor relations. www.ilr.cornell.edu/library/kheel Notes: Caption from Jonathan L. Doherty, "Women at Work: 153 Photographs by Lewis W. Hine." New York: Dover Publications, 1981. Copyright: There are no known U.S. copyright restrictions on this image. The digital file is owned by the Kheel Center which is making it freely available with the request that, when possible, the center be credited as its source. Tags: Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives,Cornell University Library,Clothing Industry, Shop Scenes