Welcome to 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
The Latest
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Food Sunday Is Pickle Day!
This Sunday, October 4th, New York City’s Lower East Side will be a pickle-lover’s paradise. will take place on Orchard Street, paying homage to the days when pickle shops thrived in the neighborhood. It’s going to be a celebration of all things pickled, with sixteen different pickle vendors in attendance, including Brooklyn Brine, Guss’ and…
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Culture The 100-Year Vision of Moscot Eyewear
There’s an old Yiddish expression my Lower East Side grandmother Ida was fond of: “When luck happens, offer it a seat.” Luck happened. My family has been loyal customers of Moscot Eyewear for nearly 100 of its 100 years; my bespectacled elderly father will buy from no one else, and my grandparents bought there when…
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Culture Vilna Becomes ‘Vilnius’ and Lithuanian is Making Itself Heard
100 Years Ago An entire family of Italians is in Beth Israel Hospital for circumcisions after converting to Judaism. Joseph Petrigliano and his three sons, who live on Orchard Street in Corona, part of Long Island, N.Y., decided to convert to Judaism after Petrigliano’s Jewish wife, an immigrant from Galicia, told him of her recurring…
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Food Streit’s Factory Fetches $30 Million
The oldest family-owned matzo company in the United States, Streit’s Matzo, is in contract to sell its Lower East Side factory buildings for a reported $30.5 million. According to New York real estate blog , a deed was filed with the city May 11 confirming the sale of the 90-year-old buildings to Cogswell Realty, a…
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The Schmooze Rising From the Wreckage of the East Village
For days after the disaster, Alan Kaufman says, he felt compelled to look at the ruins. Gazing at the aftermath of the March 26 explosion on Second Avenue and Seventh Street that killed two people and destroyed three buildings on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, he remembered how terrifying it was when he was…
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Breaking News Manhattan Synagogue Members Sue To Block $13M Building Sale
Members of a Manhattan synagogue are asking a judge to halt the sale of their building in a deal made without their knowledge. Worshippers at Sages of Israel, which is also a nursing home, claim that the board selling their Lower East Side Orthodox synagogue building for $13 million to a developer is not legitimate…
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Culture Here’s Who Should Watch ‘The Cobbler’
“The Cobbler,” the recently released movie directed by Tom McCarthy starring Adam Sandler as (obviously, Jewish) cobbler Max Simkin, who discovers a stitching machine with magical powers in his basement, has received dismal reviews — 7% on Rotten Tomatoes and a whopping 5.7 out of 10 rating on Internet Movie Database. Oh well, you might…
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Food Streit’s Matzo Factory Turning Out Last Batch
The 90-year-old Streit’s Matzo Factory on the Lower East Side will close after Passover. (JTA) — Seated in his Lower East Side office, in front of a large portrait of company patriarch Aron Streit, Alan Adler avoids becoming too nostalgic. “It’s like I tell my family members: None of you own a car from 1935,…
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