With the influx of Jewish Yiddish-speaking immigrants to New York, the audience for Yiddish publications grew. Forward publisher Louis Miller proposed the title Forverts – Forward in English – transliterated from Vorwärts, the German Socialist Democratic party newspaper, whose ideals inspired the Forward’s founders. These images help tell the story of the Forward newspaper itself, whose daily updates of local and international news helped shaped a way of life for Jewish immigrants for generations.

Anshe Chesed and Rodeph Sholom are respectively the oldest and second oldest surviving synagogue buildings in the city, and some of the oldest in the country. Both were constructed for German Jewish congregations in German architectural styles: Gothic Revival and Rundbogenstil (“round-arch style”), and feature red brick, central staircases and symmetrical façades with recessed central sections and square towers. Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue is the only Greek Synagogue in New York and the only synagogue of Romaniote Jews in the Western Hemisphere. The Eldridge Street Synagogue was America’s first major house of worship built by Eastern European Orthodox Jews. The yellow brick building features Moorish and Romanesque details and rich ornament. At its peak in the early 20th century, the synagogue hosted as many as 1,000 worshippers at services, but was forced to close in the mid-20th century when the area’s Jewish population began to dwindle. In 1986, the Eldridge Street Project funded a large-scale restoration of the building, which was repurposed as a museum. The Former Congregation Anshe Chesed, Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and the Former Eldridge Street Synagogue are all designated New York City Individual Landmarks.

Neighborhood Playhouse ARCHITECT: Ingalls & Hoffman DATE: 1913-15 STYLE: Neo-Georgian The Neighborhood Playhouse was constructed in 1913-15 by sisters Alice and Irene Lewisohn as part of the Henry Street Settlement. A theatrical group by the same name founded by Lewisohn sisters was located here from 1915 to 1927. One of the city’s early “little theaters,” it was an experimental theater that presented innovative drama, song, and dance. The redbrick neo-Georgian style facade was designed by the architectural firm of Ingalls & Hoffman.

Abraham “Ab” Cahan was the founding editor of the Forward and made the paper a success. He thought that it must align itself with the interests of the workers, outside of their preoccupation with the daily struggle for bread. Cahan was the first intellectual activist to speak in Yiddish while addressing the working masses in the Lower East Side’s meeting halls. This picture appeared on the front page of the paper’s 30th anniversary edition in 1927.

This building is one of the four surviving fieldstone religious structures built in the late Federal era in lower Manhattan. The fieldstone was quarried from Mount Pitt, a hill that once stood at the present corner of Pitt and Grand Streets. Bialystoker Synagogue, originally the Willett Street Methodist Episcopal Church, has a richly hued interior with statuary and paintings. A concealed corridor discovered during renovations in the 1990’s led to speculation that the building was a safe house on the Underground Railroad. The building is a New York City Individual Landmarks and is listed on the State and Nation Register of Historic Places.

Where do you usually work? We asked this question to our Urban Archive community and mapped their answers. Take a look!

Rivington Street, north side, west from Ludlow Street, showing a station of the Second Ave. Elevated Line on Allen Street.

Anshe Chesed and Rodeph Sholom are respectively the oldest and second oldest surviving synagogue buildings in the city, and some of the oldest in the country. Both were constructed for German Jewish congregations in German architectural styles: Gothic Revival and Rundbogenstil (“round-arch style”), and feature red brick, central staircases and symmetrical façades with recessed central sections and square towers. Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue is the only Greek Synagogue in New York and the only synagogue of Romaniote Jews in the Western Hemisphere. The Eldridge Street Synagogue was America’s first major house of worship built by Eastern European Orthodox Jews. The yellow brick building features Moorish and Romanesque details and rich ornament. At its peak in the early 20th century, the synagogue hosted as many as 1,000 worshippers at services, but was forced to close in the mid-20th century when the area’s Jewish population began to dwindle. In 1986, the Eldridge Street Project funded a large-scale restoration of the building, which was repurposed as a museum. The Former Congregation Anshe Chesed, Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and the Former Eldridge Street Synagogue are all designated New York City Individual Landmarks.

The intersection of Division, Canal, and Ludlow Streets. The intricate facade former Loew’s Canal Street Theater is visible at center-right, on the north side of Canal Street.

The history of organized outdoor play for children in New York goes back over 100 years, reflecting the social and cultural issues throughout.

Grand and Allen Streets, from the Allen Street meridian mall. From 1878 to 1942, the Second Avenue El ran over Allen Street. In the early 1930s, the demolition of buildings on the street’s East side made room for what is now the eastern roadway, with the elevated tracks occupying the western side and a pedestrian mall in between. The storefront at 315 Grand is Goldman & Ostrow, “distributors of national advertised brands of infants and children’s wear.”

Henry Street Settlement ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1827 STYLE: Federal This handsome Federal three-story townhouse with basement retains much of its original appearance, including its original doorway and iron railing in front. The building is a good example of Federal architecture. Its fine doorway is complete with leaded glass sidelights and transom. The door frame with its iconic colonnettes supports a wood transom-bar embellished with moldings.

Seward Park Branch, NYPL, ca. 1977.

Named for a grove of fruit trees on the DeLancey estate that comprised much of this area, Orchard Street is characterized by its tenements and history as a commercial thoroughfare, hosting many prosperous shops and street vendors. The five-story pre-law tenement at number 97 was purchased by the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in 1988 to interpret the history of immigration to the area. It is estimated that roughly 7,500 people from 25 countries resided in the building until it was sealed due to non-compliance with City housing codes in 1935. The six-story, red brick, Queen-Anne-style Old Law tenement at number 14-16 features a fanciful cornice and terra-cotta Stars of David, a feature shared by its sister building at number 47. 97 Orchard is listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places.

Camp Vacamas, started in 1924, is a sleepaway camp originally located Upstate in the Catskills, in Kingston, N.Y. Founded by several Jewish organizations including The Forward, the name is an acronym of the East Side Vacation Camp Association. The camp is now located in West Milford, N.J. and is still called Camp Vacamas.

Broome Street, northside, east from Willett Street. Public School No. 34 is the third building from the left, June 6, 1930.

This small church shows its architectural kinship to the nearby Sea and Land Church in that both, though basically Georgian, boast Gothic windows, a sophistication derived from English precedent, perhaps from the Battey Langley's books. Small stones were used here as at Saint Paul's Chapel, and, although ashlar quoins were omitted, the window openings have been reinforced with brick frames. The spire was apparently not completed above the stonework, as the wooden spire would seem to date from a much later period.

The Bialystoker Synagogue, 1930.

The longtime home of the Jewish Daily Forward sits on East Broadway between Rutgers and Jefferson Streets. The Yiddish-language newspaper was founded in 1897 and built its iconic headquarters in 1912 at ground zero for its Eastern European constituents. The legendary paper still publishes digitally but its landmark building is a testament to the changing landscape of the neighborhood - and country. Through Spring 2020, the Museum at Eldridge Street is teaming up with the Forward to present an exhibition of metal press plates in the Forward archives. These artifacts of the printing process show the ways in which images were used in the Forward to illustrate Jewish culture around the world. In the exhibition, the plates are displayed alongside contemporary prints made in the traditional process at the South Street Seaport Museum's Bowne & Co., Stationers. More information at eldridgestreet.org/pressed.

Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church, 213 Stanton Street, ca. 1973. The Church of Our Lady of Sorrows is located in an area once known as Kleindeutschland, Little Germany. Established in 1867, it ministered to the large number of German Catholics who migrated to New York in the late 19th century. The church, designed by Henry Engelbert, was built with a combination of Victorian, Byzantine, and Romanesque architectural styles and completed in 1868.  By the early 1910s, much of the German population on the Lower East Side had moved uptown. In their place were multitudes of newly-arrived Italian immigrants, and then later, Hispanic. Despite these shifts in neighborhood demographic, the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows had adapted to its surroundings to serve the changing congregations. By 2000, masses were offered in Spanish and English; the church today is also known as Nuestra Señora de los Dolores.

Shoppers on Essex Street, ca. 1975. In the mid-1970s, Essex Street remained an important hub for business serving the Lower East Side’s Jewish community.

The Lower East Side was not a wealthy neighborhood in the late 19th century, and it was common for Jewish congregations to pray in converted spaces rather than pay to build something to their specifications. Built as a church in 1860, this building became home to the Orthodox German-Jewish congregation Shaaray Hashomayim (“Gates of the Heavens”) in 1864. It was common for congregations like this to frequently move locations, finding nicer (or cheaper, depending on their needs) accommodations in other buildings. So Gates of the Heavens left this building in 1889 and it reverted to use as a church again. It became a synagogue once again in 1902 - this time as home to the unrelated congregation with a similar name, Shaaray Shomayim (also meaning Gates of Heaven). They remained in the building for over 100 years. Its design was described as “eclectic Byzantine” and it was the largest in the area, holding 1800 worshipers. Sound reverberated spectacularly in this space and it became known as the “Cantor’s Carnegie Hall”, hosting such famous Chazzans as Yossele Rosenblatt, Moshe Koussevitzky, Zavel Kwartin, Moishe Oysher, Jan Pearce and Richard Tucker. Red Buttons sang in the choir and Edward G. Robinson had his Bar Mitzvah there. Like most synagogues in the area, congregation numbers slowly dwindled through the 20th century until just a handful of congregants remained by the 2000s. The congregation persevered only through the efforts of Rabbi Yaakov Spiegel, who led the synagogue from 1981-2001; in June 2003, that swath of Rivington was named “Rabbi Yaakov Spiegel Way” in his honor. But by December 2005, the building had sustained too much damage to be safe and services were moved to a nearby home. In January 2006, the synagogue’s roof collapsed, and the building was demolished two months later.

Streit’s Matzos factory at the corner of Suffolk and Rivington Streets. The Streit family produced matzo at this location from 1925 to June 2015.

Brick tenement with pitched roof and single dormer at No. 372 Grand Street, ca. 1902. The corner building, which may have dated to the 1850s was then listed as No. 374 Grand. The ground floor storefront provided a variety of wares, including stoves, radiators, and cookware.

Much-beloved by his legions of Forverts-reading fans, actor Edward G. Robinson was born Emanuel Goldengers in Romania and grew up in a Yiddish-speaking household on the Lower East Side. Here, he visits the paper’s office for a shot with editor Cahan at the time his film The Hole in the Wall was released.

Rivington Street, between Allen and Orchard Streets, January 17, 1928. Orchard Street’s informal pushcart market spilled onto neighboring blocks. The cart in the foreground, “Isidore’s Hot Frankfurters,” advertises “a nickel meal,” of three frankfurters, “served tastefully.”

2020 sure has been a whirlwind! Here are some interesting facts, stories, and images from throughout the five boroughs that we dug up along the way.

Manhattan Boot Black Supply, 254 Broome Street. The street is named after John Broome, an early city alderman and lieutenant governor of New York from 1804-1810.

Adolf Mandel Bank, Rivington Street. February 16, 1912. Local pick-pockets started a rumor that the bank’s safe was insecure, in order to spark a run on the bank, and then to rob concerned customers who had made withdrawals. Nearly a thousand people waited on Rivington Street to access their deposits.

Loew's Delancey Theater, 140-146 Delancey Street. In 1911, tenement buildings with Jewish storefronts were demolished to make way for the Loew’s Theater, which opened in 1912 and remained in operation until 1977.

The Amalgamated Dwellings, one of the oldest housing cooperatives in the United States, was the second cooperative sponsored by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, after the successful Amalgamated Cooperative Apartments in the Bronx. The six-story Art Deco building with 236 apartments was designed by the architects Springsteen & Goldhammer and was completed in 1930 at the site of a former printing plant. The building covered one city block, with a protected garden in the center.

The southeast corner of Suffolk and Rivington Streets, 1910. Rivington Street is named after James Rivington. A "supposed" Loyalist who wrote a Loyalist newspaper, the New York Gazetteer, later The Royal Gazette, Rivington was covertly part of the Culper Spy Ring, which supplied George Washington with information.

This architectural drawing shows plans for a grand public bath house on Allen Street. The building, built in 1905, operated as a bath house until 1975, when once again the changing demographics of the neighborhood no longer necessitated a public bath house. But at the time, a new generation of Lower East Sider was arriving, and they repurposed this building for their own needs. Since 1975, the old bath houses are home to The Church of Grace to Fujianese, a Christian Chinese congregation. The church added a cross and the name of their congregation, in two languages, to the facade, but scalloped shells etched in the stone facade remain as reminders of the building’s original use.

165 Henry Street, formerly the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School, ca. 1980. Founded in 1903, the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School is a modern-day Orthodox Jewish school, also known as a yeshiva. The institution was named after Rabbi Jacob Joseph, the chief rabbi of New York City's Association of American Orthodox Hebrew Congregations. Hundreds of rabbis and community leaders have attended this school. It saw its most productive years between the 1940s and the 1960s. In 1976, the institution relocated to the Richmond area of Staten Island, where it continues to teach its rigorous Talmudic curriculum to students from nursery age through the twelfth grade.

“Street Scene - Lower East Side, 1898. From intersection of Hester and Suffolk Sts. Hester St. at Right; Cart at Left on Norfolk; Sussex in Background; Clearance for Seward Park.”

Just five months after the 1929 stock market crash that signaled the start of the Great Depression, thousands lined up to get matzoh for Passover, an alternative, according to the Forward, to a breadline. A headline on the front page the same day described a “Matzoh Riot” as up to 5,000 people stood in the cold outside a Lower East Side synagogue, then, frozen and furious, tried to break into the synagogue’s basement. Four local beat cops had to call for back-up to help quell the uprising.

Corn Exchange Bank and Trust Company branch, 1931. This branch was completed in February 1931, replacing a branch in an older building at the northwest corner of Grand and Norfolk Streets. The Corn Exchange Bank, founded in 1853, merged with the Chemical Bank in 1954 and, through a series of further mergers, has since been folded into the holdings of JPMorgan Chase.

The Ludlow Street Jail, New York City's 19th-century federal prison, opened in 1862 at the corner of Ludlow and Broome Streets. Intended as a prison for civil offenders, most inmates were debtors. The infamous Tammany Hall politician Boss Tweed was held at Ludlow Street, where he died of pneumonia in 1878, at the time unable to repay some $6 million of embezzled city funds. Victoria Woodhull, the first female presidential candidate, was also imprisoned for six months in 1872, accused of sending obscene material in the mail. The jail closed in December 1927 and was subsequently demolished. Today, the Department of Education’s Seward Park Campus, built in 1929, occupies the site.

Ratner’s was a famous Jewish kosher dairy restaurant, founded in 1905 by Jacob Harmatz and his brother-in-law Alex Ratner. The pair supposedly flipped a coin to decide whose name would be on the sign. Originally located on Pitt Street, Ratner’s moved to 138 Delancey Street in 1918. Until 1975, Ratner’s was a 24-hour establishment and therefore part of the late-night city scene popular with Jewish performers, actors, musicians, and gangsters. Ratner’s remained in the Harmatz family until its closure in 2002.

Dilapidated buildings at 223, 225, 227, and 229 Henry Street, ca. 1976. By the 1970s, many buildings in this part of the Lower East Side had been abandoned as the neighborhood developed a reputation for drugs and crime. Today, Henry Street is notable for stretches of tenement architecture which have survived recent development in the area.

In the first half of the 20th century, Jewish boxers were some of the most famous and feared athletes in the country.

The Centre Street Loop got its start in 1908 with the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company's first Manhattan subway track: the terminal at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge. The Loop was the first of two BMT Brooklyn Loops designed to connect various Brooklyn Subway lines without requiring new and inefficient terminals in lower Manhattan. Under its original design, the Loop would connect the tracks of Broadway Elevated coming over the Williamsburg (now the BMT Jamaica Line) with Brooklyn Bridge trains originating in Brooklyn. The loop was never completed as planned and was instead incorporated into the BMT Nassau Street Line. These photos document the construction of the tracks that today carry the J and Z trains, and capture glimpses of Manhattan's Civic Center before the completion of the Municipal Building and other prominent structures around Foley Square and City Hall Park.

Built was working class residences, the two Federal style homes at 298 and 300 Grand Street were completed in the late 1820s or 1830s. Each is two and a half stories, with a single dormer gracing the pitched roof. With the boom in Manhattan's population in the first half of the 19th century, the ground floors were likely converted early into commercial spaces. Today, the pair survives (though perhaps just barely).

This 6-story building was demolished to make way for the F train subway entrance on the south east corner of Rutgers Street and East Broadway.

Henry Street Settlement, ca. 1978. The Henry Street Settlement was established by nurse and progressive reformer Lillian Ward as the Nurses Settlement in 1893. It was an on the ground organization that aimed to bring social services and healthcare programming to the families, and particularly the children, of the surrounding immigrant neighborhood. Renamed the Henry Street Settlement, Wald moved into 265 Henry Street (at center) in 1895 after the building was gifted to the organization by Jewish philanthropist, Jacob Schiff. The Federal Style townhouse was constructed in 1827. After the turn of the century the Settlement began occupying additional buildings on Henry Street, including no. 267, its neighbor to the east. In the first decade of the 20th century they opened one of the earliest playgrounds in the city in the backyard of their Henry Street property, funded the salary of the first school nurse in a NYC public school (prompting the city to create nursing positions), and created summer camps. The organization's interest in arts programming began in earnest in the 1910s and it has remained as considerable focus into the 21st century. In 1938 the Settlement began leasing 263 Henry Street (also built ca.1827) and in 1949 they purchased it. The series of three early 19th century buildings that make up the main offices of the settlement house look from the exterior to be separate, but as they were acquired the interior walls were removed to create more usable space. They retain the look of an early 19th century streetscape in an neighborhood that later crowded with tenements. The buildings were designated NYC landmarks in 1966 and have undergone extensive restorations to preserve their architectural history, inside and out.

"On a rainy March morning in 1893, the life of a young nurse named Lillian Wald changed forever. Wald was giving a lesson in bed-making at a school on the Lower East Side when a young girl appeared and hurriedly requested that Wald attend to her sick mother. Following the girl over broken roadways, 'dirty mattresses,' and 'heaps of refuse'; passing 'reeking' tenement houses… Wald finally arrived at the crowded apartment where a woman had hemorrhaged during childbirth. Seeing the woman’s 'wretched' and 'pitiful' state and providing aid to a family with nowhere else to turn had a profound effect on Wald. 'Within a half an hour' of coming to this woman’s assistance, Wald later wrote, she had determined that she would move to the Lower East Side. Within six months Wald and her fellow nurse Mary Brewster had rented an apartment on Jefferson Street and begun a mission to provide health care to their new community. In 1895 Wald and her nurses’ settlement moved into a house on Henry Street purchased for her by philanthropist Jacob Schiff. The organization, taking its name from its new address, would become known as the Henry Street Settlement." For more on Henry Street and other 'settlements' in New York City, check out this article by Ralph da Costa Nunez and Ethan G. Sribnick in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

“Rendering of a new Public School on Hester Street between Orchard and Ludlow Streets.” Designed by Superintendent of School Buildings C.B.J. Snyder in the late 19th century, P.S. 42 today bears the name of Benjamin Altman, an entrepreneur and art collector born and raised on the Lower East Side. Altman worked in his father’s dry goods store on Attorney Street before founding B. Altman & Co. on Third Avenue and 10th Street, in 1865. Upon his death in 1913, Altman bequeathed his art collection, including works by Rembrandt, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Harry De Jur Playhouse, 466 Grand Street, ca. 1979. This three-story Georgian Revival red brick structure, constructed between 1912 and 1915, was built as a theatre space for the Henry Street Settlement. Designed by architects Harry C. Ingalls and F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr., it was named for Harry De Jur, who had attended the settlement's programs as a child and was on the board as an adult. Initially created to provide the dense immigrant community of the Lower East Side with a local playhouse, the experimental theatre (along with Providence Playhouse and Washington Square Players) became an important venue in the foundation of modern American dramatic theater.

The Forward Building, 175 East Broadway, ca. 1989. Once the headquarters of the city’s Yiddish-language newspaper, The Forward, 175 East Broadway is a Beaux Arts architectural masterpiece that sits directly across from Seward Park. Designed to the plans of architect George Boehm, the Forward Building was erected in 1912 to accommodate the paper’s growing staff and replace its former makeshift-office in a tenement building. When completed, this ten-story tower was the first “skyscraper” in the Lower East Side.

Norman Mailer in front of 90 Delancey Street, 1969. Writer and actor Norman Mailer ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic Party primary for Mayor of New York City in 1969. At the suggestion of Gloria Steinem and others, and with journalist Jimmy Breslin as an ally, running for City Council President, he campaigned largely on a platform of New York City secession. He advocated for the creation of a 51st state. His ideas for the city also included a monorail, a ban on private cars in Manhattan, and the self determination of individual neighborhoods to enact their own governance. Here he is on the Lower East Side speaking to the press. Mailer came in fourth in the primary with just 41,000 votes or just about 5 percent. Mayor John V. Lindsay was re-elected that November.

Youths sit on the stoop of the former Congregation Makower of Polen, 203 Henry Street; ca. 1978.

Essex Street between Grand and Hester Streets, ca. 1978. Essex Street storefronts include an auto driving school advertising classes in three languages, Castillo Travel Agency, and Hebrew Religious Articles.

135 Essex Street, ca. 1978. Schmulka Bernstein’s, also known as Bernstein-on-Essex, was a kosher deli and Chinese restaurant that flourished in this spot for over three decades. Armed with the slogan, “where kashrut is king and quality reigns,” the eatery originally opened as a kosher delicatessen in 1957. Founded by Solomon Bernstein, the restaurant was a family-run operation that began introducing Cantonese-style dishes to the menu in 1959. Cooking with veal, beef, and chicken livers instead of pork, the Bernsteins infused the cuisine of two cultures in a way that had never been done before. As boasted on the restaurant’s menu, Schmulka Bernstein was the “originator” of kosher Chinese foods in New York City. The menu featured dishes like Lo Mein Bernstein, cooked with chicken livers, alongside Eastern European delicacies. Waiters also wore traditional tasseled Chinese caps instead of yarmulkes. In the early 1990s, the owners sold the family business. While it remained in operation for a number of years, like many other beloved Jewish delicatessens on the Lower East Side, Schmulka Bernstein’s eventually closed down. The original building has since been demolished and replaced with a luxury condominium development.

Kletzker Brotherly Aid Association building, ca. 1978. The Kletzker Landsmannschaft, an aid organization for immigrants, was founded in 1892 by Jewish immigrants from Kletzk, Poland (near present-day Minsk, Belarus). The L-shaped building, which has an additonal entrance at 41 Canal Street, has since been a funeral home serving the Jewish, Italian, and Chinese communities of the Lower East Side.

Group of Socialist leaders including Forward editor in chief Ab Cahan (in center, looking to his right), former Vienna, Austria vice-Mayor Dr. Max Winter, and Frank R. Crosswaith, founder of the Negro Labor Committee

"22 to 4 (left to right) Columbia Street, east side, south from Broome (left), to but not including Grand (right) Streets, June 6, 1930." Meyer Lansky lived with his parents in an apartment in No. 6 (second building from right) in the early 1920s. It was while they lived here that the teenaged Lansky became acquainted with his (also infamous) friends Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel (who lived at 36 Columbia Street) and Charlie “Lucky” Luciano ( who lived at 265 East 10th Street).

Pushcarts and garment stores on Hester Street, ca. 1938.

80 Delancey Street, 1937. The street vendor here is sitting on the Allen Street median, directly across the street from the west facade of 80 Delancey Street. The plain flat brick facade remains the same, while the architecturally detailed south facade (not visible here) survives as well. The vendor is selling "Indian Nuts," which was the culturally inappropriate name for pinon, or pine nuts. These street nuts were not sold, shelled and roasted for $30 a pound such as they are today in Whole Foods, but in the shell in a wax or paper bag for 1 cent. A movie theatre staple as well as a street nut, they were once somewhat nostalgically described as, "those tiny nuts we bit open to get at a kernel that wasn't worth the work."

Church of St. Mary, 440 Grand Street, ca. 1978. Established in 1826 to serve Irish immigrants living in the Lower East Side, the Church of St. Mary is the third oldest Catholic parish in New York City. The building, erected in 1832-33, was later expanded in 1871 by the renowned ecclesiastical architect Patrick Charles Keely. Before the sanctuary was completed, the parish held services in a former Presbyterian church on Sheriff Street. The original section of the building is the second oldest Roman Catholic structure to exist in the city, after St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, which was built in 1815.

My Archive Spring 2019 "My friend Ellen Retter is standing in front of Streit's grocery store on Rivington Street. I took this photo of her on December 19, 2013. Ellen was my dearest friend. I had been visiting her at her apartment on Grand Street, and we stopped to shop at Streit's before she walked me to the #21 bus stop on Houston Street. Ellen passed away suddenly on October 31, 2018. This is the only photo that I have of her, and I cherish it." —Phyllis Klein

Essex and Hester Streets, looking West, toward Ludlow Street. The Second Avenue El tracks are visible in the background, above Allen Street. Service ran along this segment, opened in 1880 and including stops at nearby Canal and Grand Streets, until its closure in 1942.

“Storefronts at the intersection of Division and Canal Streets. In the center is the former Loew's Canal Street Theatre.” Thomas Lamb designed the theater and its facade, completed in 1927. Loew’s Canal Street opened with a capacity of over 2,300 and remained in operation for at least 30 years. The former theater was sold in 1960 for retail use and designated a New York City Landmark in 2010.

Anshe Chesed and Rodeph Sholom are respectively the oldest and second oldest surviving synagogue buildings in the city, and some of the oldest in the country. Both were constructed for German Jewish congregations in German architectural styles: Gothic Revival and Rundbogenstil (“round-arch style”), and feature red brick, central staircases and symmetrical façades with recessed central sections and square towers. Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue is the only Greek Synagogue in New York and the only synagogue of Romaniote Jews in the Western Hemisphere. The Eldridge Street Synagogue was America’s first major house of worship built by Eastern European Orthodox Jews. The yellow brick building features Moorish and Romanesque details and rich ornament. At its peak in the early 20th century, the synagogue hosted as many as 1,000 worshippers at services, but was forced to close in the mid-20th century when the area’s Jewish population began to dwindle. In 1986, the Eldridge Street Project funded a large-scale restoration of the building, which was repurposed as a museum. The Former Congregation Anshe Chesed, Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and the Former Eldridge Street Synagogue are all designated New York City Individual Landmarks.

“Congregation Beth Hamedrash Hagadol.” The Gothic Revival Norfolk Street Baptist Church, built 1850, was purchased in 1885 by the Orthodox Jewish Congregation Beth Hamedrash Hagodol. After over 120 years of continuous use, the synagogue closed in 2007, due to a dwindling congregation and deterioration of the structure. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999, but today remains abandoned.

Located on a stretch of East Broadway once known as “Yiddish newspaper row”, this was the headquarters for Vorwärtz, or the Jewish Daily Forward, the most widely read Yiddish newspaper in the United States. First published in 1897, it was immensely influential on the Jewish community for its support of socialist causes and for its articles offering advice on everyday struggles, making the most of America’s opportunities and encouraging children’s education. The terra cotta-clad building features medallions with faces of socialist heroes Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Karl Liebknecht and Ferdinand Lassalle above the entry, Vorwärtz in Yiddish at the building’s crown, and a clock at the parapet. The paper moved uptown in 1974 and the building was converted to condominiums in the 1990s. The Forward Building is a New York City Individual Landmark.

100-110 Delancey Street, ca. 1978.

The Classic Coffee Shop, 56 Hester Street, ca. 1984. The coffee shop and diner at right has been serving the Lower East Side since the mid 1970s. The old-style lunch counter was owned in the mid century by a Benny Steinberg before being inherited by Miguel Morales who passed it along to his son, Carmine. They continue to serve no-frills fare (coffee, tuna melts, and grilled cheese) to the ever changing LES population.

135 Ridge Street, at the southwest corner of Stanton Street. J. Leskowitz, a clothier and tailor, had his shop on the ground floor, while surgeon and dentist Dr. S. Jaeger had his practice on the second floor.

A Gothic Revival synagogue at 172 Norfolk Street. Built in 1849 for Congregation Ansche Chesed, it was sold to Congregation Shaari Rachmim in 1873, to The First Hungarian Congregation Ohab Zedek in 1886, and to congregation Sheveth Achim Anshe Slonim in 1921, before its abandonment in 1974 and subsequent vandalization. In 1986, Jewish Spanish sculptor and painter Angel Orensanz purchased the property, restoring it and converting it to an art gallery and performance space. It was designated a New York City landmark in 1987.

After returning to New York from Paris in 1929, photographer Berenice Abbott set out to document the changing landscape she encountered in the city. Despite initially struggling to find funding for this endeavor, Abbott was hired by the Federal Art Project to complete a collection that became known as Changing New York. Although Abbott’s focus was the city’s changing nature, examining her photographs almost a century later brings to light a contrasting theme: the continuity within the change; aspects of New York life that have remained constant through the decades, serving as a reflection of some of the many things that make New York New York.

Bialystoker Center and Home for the Aged, 228 East Broadway, ca. 1970. Designed by architect Harry Hurwit and built between 1929 and 1931 in the Art Deco style, the Bialystoker Center and Home for the Aged is the best known landsmanshaft— or immigrant hometown association, in the city. Bialystok, a Polish industrial city, was the hometown of a large population of Jewish immigrants to the Lower East Side. The community established a number of mutual benefit societies and a synagogue beginning in the 1860s. In the aftermath of the devastation of World War I, the a new Bialystoker group was organized to assist in foreign aid to Europe. In the 1920s the Center developed into an umbrella agency and meeting place for all of the Bialystoker groups, while also shifting focus to supporting Jewish communities within the city. Plans for a home for the aged necessitated a new building and the cornerstone for the stylized Art Deco struture was laid in 1929. The Bialystoker Home for Aged closed its doors in 2011 and has been empty since. (Though there was a massive effort in early 2017 to rescue and rehome the memorial plaques, religious books, and other sacred objects from the building.) The building and the plots on either side were sold together in 2016 and are being developed in to condos.

Shops on Orchard Street. During the 20th Century, Orchard Street became one of the Lower East Side’s primary shopping streets, particularly for discount clothing promoted by “callers,” merchants advertising their shops’ wares from the sidewalks.

Man on the steps in front of 205 East Broadway. The tenement buildings at 201-203 East Broadway (at right) were home to the Adath Israel Synagogue and United Hebrew Community Jewish burial society, both established in 1901.

New York City’s oldest extant building originally built as a synagogue is this Gothic Revival structure designed by architect Alexander Saeltzer. The synagogue was built in 1849 by Reformed Jewish Congregation Ansche Chesed (People of Kindness) which was made up primarily of German Jews, as well as Dutch Jews and Polish Jews. (This group generally emigrated to New York City a few decades earlier than the wave of Eastern European Jews who later populated the Lower East Side so densely.) It was the largest synagogue in the United States at the time and could hold up to 1,500 worshipers. Services were conducted primarily in German. Services were accompanied by musical instruments, including an organ that was added in 1869 at the same time as family pews were introduced, with men and women sitting together - evidence that the congregation was modernizing and Americanizing. In 1873, the congregation merged with another and the building was sold to Orthodox Congregation Shaari Rachmim. Shari Rachmim removed the organ and remained in the building until 1886. Then, First Hungarian Congregation Ohab Zedek occupied the building until 1921 and Congregation Anshe Slonim worshipped there from 1921 to 1974. Like so many others, the 1970s brought abandonment and decay to the historic building until it was rescued by artist Angel Orensanz in 1986. It was designated a historic landmark in 1987 and is now used as a well-known and beloved event space.

Garden Cafeteria, ca. 1977. Opened in June 1941 as the Garden Cafeteria by Charles Metzger, an Austrian immigrant, the restaurant and hall-for-hire was a popular meeting spot for writers of the Jewish Daily Forward (whose building was four doors down) and Jewish intellectuals. Supposedly a restaurant in this space dated to earlier in the century and was also popular among the Jewish Socialist crowd, including Leon Trotsky (who wrote for the Forward for a time in the 1910s). The Cafeteria was opened 24 hours a day and was very successful for Metzger. It was a dairy restaurant that adhered to Jewish dietary laws. Customers got a ticket upon arriving, and it got punched with every item you ordered over whatever period of time you were there. Patrons could sit for hours (and did) and paid for everything together before they left. The Cafeteria closed in 1983 and is currently a Chinese food restaurant.

197 East Broadway, ca. 1977. In 1889 the Educational Alliance was established as settlement house serving the Jewish immigrant population of the Lower East Side (though open to all races and creeds). It was the joint effort of the Aguilar Free Library Society, Hebrew Free Loan Association, and the Young Men's Hebrew Association. Their services included English language classes, educational citizenship classes, a theatre, an art school and recreational rooftop garden. Their headquarters were constructed in 1891 at 197 East Broadway. The Romanesque Revival building designed by Brunner and Tron was the central of all activity. An early supporter of the organization is Isidor Straus, philanthropist and co-owner of Macy's Department Store. He is named the president of the board in 1893 when a new board is convened following the YMHA departure from the partnership. When Straus dies in the sinking of the Titanic, the Educational Alliance is bequeathed $100,000 from his will. In the 20th century the Alliance Art School would see a number of its students go on to renown in the art world, including sculptors Chaim Gross and Concetta Scaravaglione, and painter Peter Bloom. By the 1950s, like many of the settlements houses that had survived, the Alliance shifted away from being volunteer run and introduced social services operated by trained professionals. Their later 20th century social services included running a Head Start group and Operation Street Corner, a program aimed at curbing teenage delinquency. Today the Educational Alliance continues to run its services and programs from its 1891 building.

On January 1, 1936, New York’s Lower East Side got its first subway stop, changing it from a land of crowded tenement dwellings and slums to a gentrified city district practically overnight. This is the story of the East Side Subway, איסט-סײַד אונטערבאַן. In Yiddish, the subway is called the unterban, though colloquially it was called the subvey which is how The Forward spelled it out for readers.

Bundled to keep warm, this woman stands with a pile of Forward and other newspapers to sell on the Lower East Side. Selling newspapers was not just a job for the “newsies,” street-smart, impoverished child laborers who hawked them on the streets. It was a rough-and- tumble game, with vendors zealously guarding their territory. East Broadway was hub for Yiddish papers, though they were widely sold throughout the City.

Entrance to 294 East Broadway, March 30, 1937.

Discussions of vaccinations in New York City have an interesting history. The city’s 1947 smallpox outbreak is notable both for being the last smallpox outbreak in America and for spurring the largest mass vaccination effort ever conducted for smallpox in the country.

Congregation Chasam Sopher is an Orthodox synagogue located at 10 Clinton Street on the Lower East Side. Formed in 1892 by the joining of two congregations of immigrants from Poland, it occupies a Romanesque Revival building constructed in 1853. It is among the oldest surving synagogue buildings in the United States, the second-oldest synagogue building in New York City, and the oldest still in use in the state.

Push carts at the corner of Essex and Hester Streets, ca. 1900. The store at the near corner, with “\[wines] & liquors” awning visible, is No. 28 Essex Street. Shortly after the turn of the century, this corner was cleared for the construction of P.S. 62, an intermediate school. Two decades later, that building was torn down to facilitate subway excavation. The campus was relocated to the former site of the Ludlow Street Jail.

East side of Norfolk Street, viewed from Essex Street, late 1960s. Beth Hamedrash Hagodol, at center left, was still holding services, though its attendance had begun to diminish. The synagogue was the only building on this block of Norfolk Street not razed for Seward Park Urban Renewal.

Stores on Rivington Street, 1978. Next door to the Porky Meat Mart, Catholic religious icons are visible inside 129 Rivington, while the storefront window captures a reflection of Schapiro’s Kosher Wines, across the street. The businesses along Rivington Street reflect the diversity of communities who made the Lower East Side their home: By the 1970s, the neighborhood was home to a growing population of Latin American immigrants, in addition to second and third generation Jewish Americans.

“Street scene of peddlers and street vendors on Hester Street on the Lower East Side in 1898.” At the turn of the century, Hester Street was known for its open-air push cart market, one of many hubs for Lower East Side vendors. The tenement buildings in this photo — likely on the North side of Hester Street, near Norfolk and Suffolk Streets — were soon demolished to make way for the campus of the P.S. 62 intermediate school, which opened in 1905.

Essex Street Marke, December 8, 1941. The Essex Street Market began in 1940 as part of an effort by Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia to find a new place for street merchants to do business. At that time, pushcarts and vendors crowded city streets, particularly in the Lower East Side, making it hard for police and fire vehicles to easily pass. Flustered by congestion and unregulated activity, Mayor LaGuardia saw it fit to better organize the streets. He outlawed the practice, calling pushcart peddlers "a blemish on the face of the city," and financed the opening of the Essex Street Market. In a wider-effort to minimize overcrowding and improve public health and hygiene, he also developed various other indoor retail stores throughout Manhattan. The Essex Street Market closed in its original location on May 5, 2019. It will move into a new and larger home at the Essex Crossing development later in 2019.

Upon reaching New York, many Jewish immigrants settled on the Lower East Side, establishing new congregations and social aid societies specific to local communities of the old country. Small synagogues were so common that a stretch of East Broadway was known as “shtiebel row,” after the Yiddish term for a small space for prayer (in contrast to larger synagogues). Over time, Manhattan’s Jewish population shifted to other parts of the city, causing Lower East Side congregations to dwindle. Many synagogues were sold, shuttered, or abandoned, and some have since been demolished. Still, the neighborhood bears many traces of its once-vibrant Jewish life.

The building shown is the Loew's Delancey Theater, a motion-picture house. September 25, 1936 showings include “My American Wife,” a comedy starring Francis Lederer and Ann Sothern, and “Yours for the Asking,” with George Raft and Dolores Costello.

Run on Adolf Mandel's Bank, February 16, 1912.

Junction of Essex Street, Canal Street, East Broadway and Division Street, May 9, 1930. Seward Park, named after New York Senator and later Secretary of State William Henry Seward, is visible at center-left. Opened in October 1903, Seward Park features the first municipally-built playground in the United States.

At the intersection of East Broadway (left) and Canal Street (right), showing a view westward from Rutgers Street. On the extreme right, appears a portion of Seward Park. In the background on Canal Street, is seen the Canal Street station of the Second Ave. Elevated Line, and on East Broadway, a portion of the Manhattan Bridge. June 6, 1930.

Jewish heritage mural, Lower East Side, ca. 1978. The mural, which reads "Our Strength Is Our Heritage, Our Heritage Is Our Life," was painted in 1973 by local artists in association with the CITYArts group. It became a source of controversy in November, 2016, when a developer painted over the mural without consulting community groups, citing danger posed by loose paint and masonry falling from the wall.

Hebrew Religious Articles store, 45 Essex Street.

Founded by Sam Schapiro in 1899, Schapiro’s Kosher Wines operated on Rivington Street until 2000. From 1899 to 1967 the grapes were pressed on-location in the block-long network of cellars below the street.

Norfolk Street Baptist Church ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1850 STYLE: Gothic Revival Striking in profile, this smooth-faced stone Synagogue is an interesting example of modified Gothic Revival architecture. Raised on a platform of steps above the street, the recessed center section of the symmetrical facade is flanked by square towers pierced by coupled pointed arched windows that light the side vestibules. The dominant feature of this structure is the main, double entrance door with over-door panel joining it to the tall tripartite arched window, surmounted by a pedimented roof, affixed with the Star of David.

Over a 130 years ago, New York’s Lower East Side was home to the world’s largest Jewish community. Between 1881-1924 over 2 million Eastern European Jews called this neighborhood home. And just as generations of immigrants have and continue to do, this community transformed the LES, creating a network of businesses, synagogues, public gathering spaces and more. Today, the LES has gone through many changes, but look closely. Tucked along these bustling blocks, signs of immigrant Jewish life – and hopes – still remain.

Park Row Building ARCHITECT: R. H. Robertson DATE: 1896-99 STYLE: Skyscraper The 30-story, 391-foot Park Row Building was the tallest building in New York City and one of the tallest structures in the world between 1899, the year of its completion, and 1908. It is one of several surviving late nineteenth-century buildings that formed Newspaper Row, the center of newspaper publishing in New York City from the 1840s to the 1920s. Among its many tenants, the building housed the offices of the Associated Press news agency, as well as the headquarters of August Belmont’s Interborough Rapid Transit Company. The great height and irregular plan of this building led to the use of innovative construction techniques including a pile and steel-grillage foundation, a Roehling concrete floor system for fireproofing, and Sprague Electric elevators to transport the thousands of people using the building each day.

In the 1930s, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, one of New York's most powerful mayors, launched a war against an enemy that was ubiquitous on New York's streets: Pushcarts.

155 Rivington Street ca. 1915

Northeast corner of Norfolk and Grand Streets, October 12, 1931. The corner building, No. 372 Grand Street, and the adjoining three-story structures at Nos. 50 and 50½ Norfolk Street are flanked by the two grand entrances to the Manufacturers Trust Co. bank (formerly State Street bank).

75 Essex Street, 1928. Designed by the architects Rose & Stone, this Italianate-style building is the only one of its kind on the Lower East Side. When construction completed in 1890, the Eastern Dispensary relocated to the building from its previous headquarters on Grand Street. The dispensary was established in 1832 to provide the city's most vulnerable with medical care, during a massive cholera epidemic. Financed through private donations but with operations funded by the city, the facility offered more than just healthcare. It functioned as one of the city's "milk laboratories," providing sanitary milk for infants. Later renamed Good Samaritan Dispensary, the operation served the Lower East Side for over 60 years. When the dispensary closed in 1955, due to unpaid taxes, the Bell Yarn Shop moved in for a brief period in the 1960s. By 1985, the Eisner Brothers from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, purchased the building, opening a sportswear store on the ground floor. The future of this historic building has been the subject of debate since 2014, when the Landmarks Preservation Commission rejected a request for Landmark designation. The property, celebrated as a "testimony to social reformers in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries," has been pulled on and off the market since the LPC ruling. If the building is sold, it is the Eisners' stated priority to make sure that it is "left as is on the outside."

Readers of the Forward looked to the paper for important news. Here, a large group gathers at the corner of Essex and Delancey Streets to read the Forward’s reporting that the Second World War had ended.

At the intersection of Grand (right) and Henry (left) at Columbia Streets. The frame structure shown directly at the apex, is A.N. Gilbert's Drug Store. The Spire shown on the left, is that of All Saints Free Church (Episcopal), April 1929.

Kosher chicken market, Hester Street, ca. 1937.

“A crowd of people on Orchard Street, lined with street vendors. Orchard Street at Hester Street, Looking South, 1898.” Division Street is visible at the end of Orchard Street. Orchard and Hester Streets were home to two of the Lower East Side’s largest open-air pushcart markets. These markets were a feature of daily life for the neighborhood’s poor tenement residents; they provided cheap food and goods for customers and income for vendors.

As the center of New York’s Jewish immigrant communities, the Lower East Side was home to numerous Jewish-owned businesses, none more prominent than its many Kosher eateries, delicatessens, and grocers. Check out the handful of famous establishments that still serve food the old-fashioned way.

Apartment building at 193-197 Stanton Street. Storefronts include a “pocket billiards” parlor, plumbing supply shop, and “J Leskowitz, Mfr. of Mohair, Alpaca & Tropical Suits.”

Orchard Street pushcarts, ca. 1940. As Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia worked to eliminate the unregulated outdoor vendors who had long been a fixture of Lower East Side life, commerce on Orchard Street shifted from push carts to garment retail.

Abraham Cahan, leader, publisher, and writer, was the founding editor of the Forward, America's oldest independent Jewish news organization. Born in 1860, to an Orthodox family in Podberzhie a small shtetl near Vilna (Vilnius) Lithuania, in what is today Belarus, the unorthodox, socialist Cahan had been a revolutionary in his youth. He identified with the narodny (folks) movement that opposed the Czar and briefly believed in a kind of agricultural socialism. Escaping the Czar’s secret police along with his fellow communards of the Am Olam, movement, Cahan arrived in the U.S. in 1882 with the idea of creating agricultural communes here.

At the peak of its popularity, the Jewish Daily Forward erected a ten-story office building at 175 East Broadway designed by architect George Boehm and completed in 1912. The building includes marble columns, stained glass windows, and bas reliefs of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Ferdinand Lassalle (founder of the first mass German labor party) and a fourth portrait of an unknown man (thought to be some other German socialist). The Forward moved out of the building in 1974 and it was used as a Chinese church for some time. In the early 2000s the building was converted into condos.

“Delancey St. - Williamsburg Bridge. \[Delancey Street Looking East from Near Ludlow St.]” Dated 1905, this photo shows the Delancey Street approach to the Williamsburg Bridge under construction. The carriageway, streetcar tracks, and the Brooklyn Rapid Transit subway tracks (also under construction) are visible at the foot of the bridge, though the span itself is barely visible through the East River haze.

There are many distinguished people featured in the Hall of Fame of Great Americans at Bronx Community College. One who stands apart as a true community leader is Lillian Wald, the nurse, activist, and author renowned for establishing the Henry Street Settlement (HSS) and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY).

Looking east on Canal Street from the intersection of Division Street. The tall building at left is the Jewish Daily Forward Building, designed by architect George Boehm and completed in 1912. The Jewish Daily Foward was founded in 1897 and was published in Yiddish. The paper is still published, with the English-language printed weekly and the Yiddish printed by-weekly.

Congregation Morgan Abraham, ca. 1985. Built circa 1845 and originally constructed for the First Methodist Protestant Church, the Greek Revival building was occupied by a second church before it became a synagogue by the start of the 20th century. The first Jewish community to use the house of worship was the First Congregation Galiz Duckler Mogen Abaraham in 1905. They were a congregation of immigrants from Galicia, a historic region near modern day Poland and Ukraine. The synagogue later was called simply Congregation Morgan Abraham. Still standing and functioning as a house of worship in the early 1970s, it was the only synagogue in the city without indoor plumbing. The front wall of the building collapsed in 1989 and the building was soon after demolished.

Central and Prospect Park parks dominate New York City park history. While that’s somewhat understandable, it’s about time smaller parks got some attention of their own.

A rendering of C.B.J. Snyder’s Public School 160 at the corner of Suffolk and Rivington Streets.

Among its important qualities, Saint Augustine’s Chapel is a fine example of the small, masonry parish church. It displays an unusual and interesting feature in the introduction of Gothic windows into a building which, in general, adheres to the Georgian tradition of architecture. This church served for many years as the very attractive Chapel for a small section of the urban community.

Bialystoker Synagogue, ca, 1977. The fieldstone Methodist Episcopal Church was built in 1826, using Manhattan schist from a quarry on nearby Pitt Street. Founded by a group of Jews who came from town of Białystok in present-day Poland, the congregation purchased the building at 7 Willett Street in 1907.

Delancey Approach to the Williamsburg Bridge ca. 1919 Linking Manhattan and Brooklyn, the Williamsburg Bridge opened in 1903. The first person to cross it was Wally Owen in his fifty-six horsepower Speedster. Owen's round trip was clocked at six minutes and fifty seconds; several policemen wandering about on the bridge barely escaped injury. The bridge was dubbed the Jews' Highway by the press because it opened rural Williamsburg to Jewish immigrants seeking to escape the crowded Lower East Side.

130 Orchard Street, D.A. Men's & Boys Clothing, ca. 1978.

Welcome to 155 Rivington Street. Before you climb the stairs, step back and take a look at its elegant facade. Think of all the people that have passed through this space over its 117-year history. From horse and buggies, through prohibition, and the great depression, this building has seen a lot.

In 1912, the Forward built a grand, 10-story building at 175 East Broadway; its offices remained there until 1974. Two huge 30,000-watt neon rooftop signs proclaimed the paper’s name in glowing Yiddish (facing north) and English (facing south). The signs could be seen from East River bridges and all over the Lower East Side.

“Mikveh of the Lower East Side, 311-313 East Broadway. Originally Young Men's Benevolent Association.” 311-313 East Broadway has variously been home to: Wall Street broker James E. Betts (1842); an illegal “gambling house,” raided by police (1842); the Young Men’s Benevolent Association, a Jewish community organization who commissioned its current, eclectic designed building (1899-1914); the Arnold Toynbee House, later renamed the Grand Street Settlement (1918-1936); and the Mikvah of Lower East Side, a Jewish ritual bath house (1941-present). Today, a plaque reading “ritualarium” marks the entrance to the mikvah.

The Seward Park branch of The New York Public Library on Manhattan’s Lower East Side can trace its roots back to 1886, when the Aguilar Free Library Society founded it. The branch, which opened its doors at its current location on November 11, 1909, is located at the eastern edge of the park for which it is named. The four-story, red brick Renaissance Revival building was one of 65 NYPL branches built with funds from Andrew Carnegie, and it boasts high ceilings and arched windows designed by the firm Babb, Cook & Welch.

Seward Park High School, 350 Grand Street, ca. 1972. Constructed in 1929, the building was built to house a high school whose origins dated back to 1905 and the opening of Public School 62. P.S. 62 was an intermediate school located at the intersection of Essex, Hester, and Norfolk Streets. Originally only seventh and eighth graders, in 1916 a ninth grade class was added it became the Seward Park Junior High School. In 1923 it was made an experimental school that was both an intermediate and high school. By the late 1920s the intermediate students had been transferred and the first school building was razed in the construction of the Sixth Avenue Subway. The new lot for the school, bound by Essex, Grand, Brooms and Ludlow Streets, had formerly housed a school, the Alimony Jail, a court house, and some tenements.

141 Attorney Street (at the far right) is the only building in this photo that current still stands. The school in the center (P.S. 174) was demolished and Attorney Street was severed by a cul-de-sac.

Foward Building ARCHITECT: George A. Boehm DATE: 1912 STYLE: Beaux-Arts, Skyscraper The Forward Building, a ten-story Beaux-Arts style skyscraper completed in 1912, is a major early work of architect George A. Boehn whose nearly fifty-year practice was distinguished by designs for public buildings in New York City and Westchester. The ten-story Forward Building remains to this day a towering presence within the context of its immediate Lower East Side neighborhood.

511 Grand Street ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1827-28 STYLE: Federal 511 Grand Street House was constructed by real estate investors Henry Barclay and James Lent Along with its neighbor 513 Grand Street it is a rare surviving example of the Federal style in Manhattan. It retains its original 2½-story height, peaked roof with dormers and side entrance. It is three-bays wide due to the irregular shape of the lot. The house since the 1840s has continuously housed both residential tenants and businesses reflecting its location on Grand Street a major east-west thoroughfare.

The intersection of downtown's Canal and Essex has long been a favorite for seasonal Jewish holiday shopping. Specifically, for the date palm fronds, ritual citron fruits, myrtle and willow branches required for prayers on the Sukkoth, or sukes in Yiddish, harvest holiday. These are still only sold in the brief window of time that is the week after the Day of Atonement and the start of Sukkoth, usually by local community street vendors that build temporary pop-up kiosks just for that purpose.

Essex Street, west side, from Rivington to Houston Streets, March 13, 1932. In the center of the frame (mid block between Rivington and Stanton Streets) is no. 147. It is a simple five-story tenement building. In 1917 comic book creator Jack Kirby was born in an apartment in this building.

The big, bold signage of the historic Lower East Side is part of its iconic legacy. From gold leaf Yiddish lettering on Kosher shop windows to gleaming neon marquees, the many big & busy storefront signs certainly contributed to the frenetic, frenzied atmosphere of the streets. And there are still some great signs in the neighborhood! But a lot has been lost, too. Here are some of our favorite signs we wish were still hanging around the Lower East Side today. There's a corresponding blog post to go along with this story (plus an extra sign that's not in this list!) at www.eldridgestreet.org/blog/lessigns!

77-79 Delancey Street, ca. 1970. The newly chartered Bank of the United States was founded in 1914 by Joseph S. Marcus. The private bank prospered for a number of years in part because people believed its "high-titled" name indicated that it was run by the government. Many complained, particularly immigrants, that it deceived depositors into thinking it was even the central bank founded by Alexander Hamilton. Following the crash of 1929, the bank was among the first to fail. With 400,000 depositors at the time of its collapse, the New York Times declared the bank’s defeat to be the largest in history up until that point. Shortly thereafter, the building housed the Hebrew Publishing Company, one of the most famous publishers of Yiddish literature in the world. In 1976, the company relocated to a smaller office just a few blocks south on Grand Street. The building has since been converted into an office and apartment complex.

Orchard Street garment shops, ca. 1975.

174 Delancey Street, viewed from the Williamsburg Bridge. Detail of upper stories.

"Beth Abraham Chasidim D'Slonim Synagogue, June 6, 1930. The congregation, named for the city of Slonim in present-day Belarus, was organized in 1897. The synagogue appears on early 20th century maps, though a building existed on its lot much earlier. In subsequent years, congregations associated with other Eastern European immigrant communities worshipped there. By the mid 1980s (when its lot is vacant in tax photos), the synagogue had been was demolished. The Rabbi Jacob Joseph School (left), organized in 1901, was built in 1912-3."

After the 1929 stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression, selling apples became a popular way to help now-unemployed New Yorkers eke out a living.

East Broadway, ca. 1980. Signs mark a diverse set of storefront shops and offices. From left: Mobile Crisis Unit of Gouverneur Hospital (No. 185); West Lake Noodle Co. Inc, Sun Trading Co. (No. 183); E.Bway Kosher Bakery (No. 181).

The longtime home of the Jewish Daily Forward sits on East Broadway between Rutgers and Jefferson Streets. Since its construction in 1912, the Forward Newspaper building has been a staple of the Lower East Side. Today, it is a testament to the neighborhood’s changing landscape. The Forward Newspaper Under the leadership of its founding editor Abraham Cahan, the Forward not only served as the Jewish immigrant community’s most significant news source, but also granted the community a voice. Starting in 1902, Cahan invited readers to send their stories and responses to topical questions such as ‘May a women wear rouge?’ and ‘Can a socialist go to synagogue for Rosh Hashanah?’ The newspaper’s most popular section was an advice column titled ‘The Bintel Brief.’ Readers posed questions to the editors on lighthearted and serious themes. One struggling reader, who was losing his job, wrote the paper wondering whether he should keep a portion of his income or give it to his blind father in Russia. The editors advised him to give the money to his ailing father as the reader, a young man, remained employable. The Forward building exemplified the newspaper’s importance. It continues to be one of the tallest buildings in the neighborhood and arguably one of the most beautiful. Elegant terra-cotta designs and classical figures adorn its facade. Neighborhood lore claims that Abraham Cahan wanted the entire neighborhood to see the building. After Word War II, the newspaper declined as the worldwide population of Yiddish speaking people shrank and assimilation took hold in the United States. In 1983, to save the paper, an English language supplement was created. Today, The Forward exists with a rich on-line presence of over one million monthly visitors. The newspaper is no longer Socialist leaning, but continues to report on politics, art and culture. A Chinese Church and Bible Factory Just as the newspaper was forced to adapt, so has the building. In 1974, with falling readership, the newspaper sold it to the Lau family, who transformed the bottom floors into a Chinese church and the top floors into a bible factory. Luxury Apartments In 2004, developers Ronald Castellano and Christopher Hayes took over the building and converted it into luxury apartments. A one bedroom apartment recently sold for 1.545 million dollars, and Oscar winning actress Tatum O’Neal once owned an apartment in the building. Amenities include 24 hour doorman, roof deck and a refrigerator in the lobby to store perishable deliveries. Fortunately, the facade is a landmark. Relics of its previous life remain, including the decorative busts of Socialist leaders Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, who gaze down on today’s capitalist tenants. The Forward building epitomizes the changing landscape of the Lower East Side. The neighborhood first took shape with the arrival of immigrants at the turn of the 20th century and became a bustling and crowded hub. But as gentrification spread across New York City, the area underwent transformation. Instead of the classic Jewish delicatessen and other Jewish stores, there are art galleries, vegan restaurants and organic supermarkets. The neighborhood once housed the city’s most impoverished communities; now, it inhabits the city’s most affluent. The Museum At Eldridge Street, preserves the Lower East Side’s history, while as a cultural institution it is also arguably part of the gentrification equation.

Back in 1930, a year into this country’s greatest economic depression, everyone’s favorite Yiddish newspaper was getting spooky with their ads. This Yiddish Forverts Breyer’s ice cream ad for Halovin featured witches soaring and a 2 quart special order nut filled pumpkin flavored ice cream Jack- o’- lantern. Other unique flavor combos for the holiday were on offer, such as ‘choconut’ and orange as well as Halloween decorative novelties including cats, dried colored corn and skulls. Given the pagan, death centric holiday that is Halloween, it wasn't a natural with the Forward's immigrant readership. Forward former Executive Editor and Whiskey Correspondent Dan Friedman recalled it best "For the Jewish community — coming from Europe — the devilish practices of Halloween were not only bewildering but also threatening. Yes, we could come to terms with people walking the streets dressed in costumes, but it was harder to understand an alien custom where people banged on our front doors demanding goods — promising retribution if they weren’t satisfied. “Trick or treat” seemed, if not quite a pogrom, a lose-lose proposition. As indeed perhaps it still does." And yet, the Yiddish paper had done a lot of public service journalism on behalf of Halloween for its readership. Mystical Yiddish writer and poet Dovid Einhorn spent columns of text explaining the early Druid roots to Halloween. The Forward's Jay Grayson, normally on the sports beat, clearly had time to spare and contributed his thoughts on how Jewish parents ought to permit their children to go out trick or treating. Don't fear the doorbell ringing on Halloween, he advised. Do as the Americans do and generously offer free candy to the strangers in costumes! And as far as Breyer's-the Forward had what to say on the topic of ice cream as well, with Friedman initiating a series on Jews and ice cream (with staff doing the tastings!), and former Forward Middle East Correspondent Naomi Zeveloff uncovering their own family relationship to the Haagen-Daazs mishpokhe. What's left to say except, L'chaim Halovin!

Public School 160, ca. 1920. Designed by C.B.J. Snyder in 1898, 107 Suffolk Street was home to P.S. 160 until its closure in 1976. The Dutch Neo-Gothic building was completed in 1898. Today the building houses the Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center whose mission is to nurture and develop Puerto Rican and Latino arts in the Lower East Side.

Storefronts at 62-66 Hester Street advertise silks, woolens, dress goods, laundry, and “family electric shoe repairing."

You submitted, and we rounded up our faves! Here are some spectacular shots of dads across NYC's five boroughs throughout the years. Happy Father’s Day!