This is the Forward’s coverage of the Lower East Side, a neighborhood in Manhattan that was a center of Jewish immigrant culture in the 20th century.
Lower East Side
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Fast Forward 165-Year-Old Ex-Shul on Lower East Side Closed After Column Cracks Found
A former synagogue on the Lower East Side of Manhattan was evacuated after cracks were discovered in the building’s columns. The building, which was evacuated during a performance gala of the Angel Orensanz Foundation Center for the Arts, was closed indefinitely. Built in 1849, the Gothic Revival synagogue once served as the home for Congregation…
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Culture A Shooting After a Shvitz in a Lower East Side Bathhouse
1913 •100 years ago Shooting in the Shvitz Isaac Schwimmer, a civil engineer who lives on East 7th Street, was taking a shvitz in the Turkish baths on Third Street near Avenue A. Apparently overcome by the heat, Schwimmer fell asleep in the steam room. He awoke to find his diamond ring missing. Furious, he…
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Food The Making of ‘Streit’s: Matzo and the American Dream’
Just in time for Passover, a mouth-watering, new documentary about America’s last family-owned matzo factory might be released — if it gets a little more help from its friends. Director Michael Levine and producer Michael Green recently completed the production of “Streit’s: Matzo and the American Dream” after they raised almost $65,000 through a Kickstarter…
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Culture ‘Kosher’ Chicken Sold on ‘Holy’ Lower East Side Was Really Treyf
1913 •100 years ago Treyf Chicken Sold as Kosher “About strikes you’re willing to write, but about my slaughtered chicken with the treyf neck, you won’t write? What kind of paper are you? Where is your sense of justice?” It was with these words that Brooklyn resident Rokhl Beinisohn berated the editors of the Forverts….
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Culture Jews Beaten and Attacked in Fascist Pogrom in Mexico
1913 •100 years ago Late-Night Theater on Essex Street Mr. and Mrs. Greenberg of 111 Essex Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side split up four years ago. She stayed put, and her ex-husband left to make his way in Philadelphia. They allegedly remained on friendly terms, and Greenberg would occasionally visit his ex. Unfortunately, he…
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Culture Jewish Gangster Lured to Revenge Shooting at Restaurant on E. 14th Street
Forward Looking Back brings you the stories that were making news in the Forward’s Yiddish paper 100, 75, and 50 years ago. Check back each week for a new set of illuminating, edifying and sometimes wacky clippings from the Jewish past. 1913 •100 years ago Gangster Billy Lustig Shot New York City Police suspect that…
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Food A Taste of the Tenements
If you’re an American Jew, there’s a pretty good chance that somewhere, somehow, someone in your family made dinner on the Lower East Side. Though the area has been home to a countless nationalities and ethnic groups, it holds a special place in the hearts of American Jews, many of whom can trace their first…
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News Bialystoker Home, 90-Year-Old Jewish Institution, Is Declared N.Y. Landmark
A shuttered 90-year-old Jewish nursing home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side has been declared a New York City landmark, a designation that will protect it from being razed. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission decided on May 22 to grant landmark status to the Bialystoker nursing home, which catered to generations of Polish Jews…
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