[h=1]How the Lower East Side worked its way up: New black and white photos reveal just how much has changed in 100 years as gentrification comes to town[/h]
Boutiques, art galleries and upscale eateries can now be found on Orchard Street in Manhattan's LES
But in the early 1900s the neighborhood was cramped with tenement buildings which new immigrants called home
Most apartments housed multiple families and had no indoor plumbing
Outhouses lined the communal backyards and disease easily spread in the close living quarters
But the Jewish population also infused the area with their culture, including open-air markets and now historical delis
.Take a walk down New York's historical Lower East Side and you might pass an avant-garde art gallery, a skateboard store or restaurant with a $67 set dinner on the menu.This is Orchard Street, where its boutiques, cafes and hip restaurants are a world away from the crumbling tenement houses that used to line the block in the early twentieth century. New black and white photographs taken by the New York City Tenement House Department offer a window into the immigration experience that has been wiped from the LES neighborhood today.
New black and white photographs taken by the New York City Tenement House Department offer a window into the immigration experience that has been wiped from the LES neighborhood today
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The tenement buildings had no running water, leaving these women to do their laundry in the communal backyard
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There was no indoor plumbing and outhouses lined the backyards where laundry lines connected buildings
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A row of outhouses in the Lower East Side building, which was the most crowded neighborhood in the early 1900s
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Colorful street art, including some influenced by American politics as pictured here, also now decorates the walls
The pictures were taken between the years of 1902 to 1914, beginning just a decade after Ellis Island opened and thousands of immigrants began their quest for the American dream every day. It was in the Lower East Side neighborhood, dubbed the 'Capital of Jewish America', that the Eastern European Jewish immigrants called home. In the first years of the twentieth century it was the most crowded neighborhood on the planet, populated with 700 people per acre, according to the Library of Congress. The harsh realities of those cramped quarters can be seen in the pictures, where beds consume the floor space and line after line of drying laundry fill the space between buildings.
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Seven hundred people per acre lived in the Lower East Side in the first decades of the twentieth century
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Disease easily spread in the cramped and dirty quarters that often housed more than one family
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A man is surrounded by dishes, clothes and irons in a shared bedroom in his tenement building
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The pictures were taken between the years of 1902 to 1914, beginning just a decade after Ellis Island opened and thousands of immigrants began their quest for the American dream every day
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It was the Lower East Side, dubbed the 'Capital of Jewish America', that the Eastern European Jewish immigrants called home
These tenement apartments often held multiple families, and had no running water or indoor plumbing, according to the New York Public Library. Broken and dirty outhouses feature prominently in these photographs, where they became a breeding ground for spreading disease. But beyond the dilapidated structures and filthy rooms are pictures that show the influences of a culture on a new land - and a people learning to thrive in it. There are the open-air markets, Ratner's onion rolls and the synagogues started on tenement parlor floors.
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Beyond the dilapidated structures and filthy rooms are pictures that show the influences of a culture and people on a new land
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A number of historical deli have shut their doors, only to be replaced in the gentrified neighborhood by 'foodie' inspired stores
The Lower East Side's Jewish population started its decline after the Great Depression, and in 2000 nearly half of it's 91,000 residents were of Asian descent. But relics of the neighborhood's history can still be seen today, including both the beloved Katz's Deli and Russ & Daughters on East Houston Street. And for those who want to witness a recreation of immigrant life, the Tenement Museum on Orchard Street offers guided tours in apartments that mirror what they would have looked life in the early 1900s. A blast from the past in a street that continues to reflect the future.
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But for those who want to witness a recreation of immigrant life, the Tenement Museum on Orchard Street offers guided tours in apartments that mirror what they would have looked life in the early 1900s
