Teeming Tenements Transformed: A Lower East Side Walking Tour

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In Celebration of the First Annual Lower East Side History Month
Saturday, May 10, 2014, 12 noon – 2:00 pm
(Rain Date Saturday, May 17 – check website: friendsofthelowereastside.org)

Begins and ends on the Southeast corner of Delancey and Orchard Streets (F, J, M, Z trains to Delancey Street/Essex Street Station)

Cost: Free – Attendees MUST register by May 7 with all names to: friendsoftheles@gmail.com

“The Lower East Side is where millions of immigrants have taken their first steps in the New World on the road to the American Dream,” wrote Joyce Mendelsohn, our tour guide and author of the definitive guidebook to the area, The Lower East Side Remembered and Revisited. Although endangered, a number of blocks south of Delancey Street still retain the sense of place that would be familiar to our immigrant ancestors. The tour will focus on the history and architecture of the historic neighborhood with particular attention to the housing, institutions and businesses that were the center of immigrant life. The guided tour will highlight the impact of housing reforms reflected in the changes to the plans and features of tenements over time. “We will see pre-Old Law, Old Law and New Law tenements and look up at the elaborate terra cotta ornamentation that distinguishes many buildings,” said Mitchell Grubler, the tour’s co-leader.

The structures that housed some of the institutions and businesses which served the multitudes of immigrants will also be highlighted. The tour will pass a Neo-Renaissance style school designed by architect, C.B.J. Snyder in 1897; the former Independent Kletzker Brotherly Aid Society built in 1911; the 12-story former Jarmulowsky Bank of 1911-12; as well as a number of other significant buildings.

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