The Lower East Side, traditionally an immigrant, working-class neighborhood with a rich Jewish history, has in recent years experienced rapid gentrification. Despite A LOT of changes, many of the neighborhood's diverse local landmarks have survived into the 21st century.

Won't you join us for a walk in the steps of early immigrants exploring their new American lives in the city? Start way downtown in Manhattan, so you're facing the East River, with Ellis Island in view. We invite you to wonder about those who arrived here willingly and even desperately, and passed through immigration hall at the notorious arrival port of Ellis Island depicted in the Forward's archival image below. In traditional Jewish lore, to look eastward, with devotional intent, is to open the heart to Jerusalem and the source of all illumination.

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.