Editing East Village, Manhattan (section)

===Immigrant neighborhood===
====19th century====
{{See also|Little Germany, Manhattan}}
[[File:Little Germany House.jpg|thumb|200px|Former German-American Shooting Society Clubhouse at 12 [[8th Street / St. Mark's Place (Manhattan)|St Mark's Place]] (1885), part of [[Little Germany, Manhattan|Little Germany]]]]

By the middle of the 19th century, many of the wealthy had continued to move further northward to the [[Upper West Side]] and the [[Upper East Side]].<ref name="Dolkart 2012">{{cite book | last=Dolkart | first=Andrew | title=Biography of a Tenement House: An Architectural History of 97 Orchard Street | publisher=Center for American Places at Columbia College | year=2012 | isbn=978-1-935195-29-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OcuBtwAACAAJ | access-date=September 30, 2019 }}</ref>{{rp|10}} Some wealthy families remained, and one observer noted in the 1880s that these families "look[ed] down with disdain upon the parvenus of Fifth avenue".{{sfn|Lockwood,|1972|p=199}} In general, though, the wealthy population of the neighborhood started to decline as many moved northward. Immigrants from modern-day Ireland, Germany, and Austria moved into the rowhouses and manors.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|pp=15–16}}

The population of Manhattan's 17th ward{{snd}}which includes the western part of the East Village and Lower East Side{{snd}}grew from 18,000 in 1840 to over 43,000 by 1850 and to 73,000 persons in 1860, becoming the city's most highly populated ward at that time.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|pp=15–16}}<ref name="Nadel 1990">{{Cite book |first=Stanley |last=Nadel |title=Little Germany: Ethnicity, Religion, and Class in New York City, 1845–80 |location=Urbana |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=1990 |isbn=0-252-01677-7 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/littlegermanyeth0000nade }}</ref>{{rp|29, 32}} As a result of the [[Panic of 1837]], the city had experienced less construction in the previous years, and so there was a dearth of units available for immigrants, resulting in the subdivision of many houses in lower Manhattan.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|pp=15–16}}{{sfn|Burrows|Wallace|1999|p=746}}

Another solution was brand-new "tenant houses", or [[tenement]]s, within the East Side.<ref name="Dolkart 2012"/>{{rp|14–15}} Clusters of these buildings were constructed by the [[Astor family]] and [[Stephen Whitney]].{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=17}} The developers rarely involved themselves with the daily operations of the tenements, instead subcontracting landlords (many of them immigrants or their children) to run each building.{{sfn|Burrows|Wallace|1999|pp=448–449, 788}} Numerous tenements were erected, typically with footprints of {{convert|25|by|25|ft}}, before regulatory legislation was passed in the 1860s.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=17}}

To address concerns about unsafe and unsanitary conditions, a second set of laws was passed in 1879, requiring each room to have windows, resulting in the creation of air shafts between each building. Subsequent tenements built to the law's specifications were referred to as [[Old Law Tenement]]s.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=21}}<ref name="Riis 1971"/> Reform movements, such as the one started by [[Jacob Riis]]'s 1890 book ''[[How the Other Half Lives]]'', continued to attempt to alleviate the problems of the area through [[settlement house]]s, such as the [[Henry Street Settlement]], and other welfare and service agencies.<ref name=encnyc />{{rp|769–770}}

Because most of the new immigrants were German speakers, the East Village and the Lower East Side collectively became known as "[[Little Germany, Manhattan|Little Germany]]" ({{langx|de|links=no|Kleindeutschland}}).<ref name="Nadel 1990"/>{{rp|29}}{{sfn|Burrows|Wallace|1999|p=745}}<ref name="Haberstroh"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/a-short-walking-tour-of-new-yorks-lower-east-side-1572853/?no-ist|title=A Short Walking Tour of New York's Lower East Side|author=Susan Spano|work=Smithsonian|access-date=March 29, 2016}}</ref> The neighborhood had the third largest urban population of Germans outside of [[Vienna]] and [[Berlin]]. It was America's first foreign language neighborhood; hundreds of political, social, sports and recreational clubs were set up during this period.{{sfn|Burrows|Wallace|1999|p=745}} Numerous churches were built in the neighborhood, of which many are still extant.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=21}} In addition, Little Germany also had its own library on Second Avenue,<ref name="Haberstroh"/> now the [[New York Public Library]]'s Ottendorfer branch.<ref name="NYPL Ottendorfer"/> However, the community started to decline after the sinking of the ''[[SS General Slocum|General Slocum]]'' on June 15, 1904, in which more than a thousand German-Americans died.<ref name="Haberstroh">{{cite web | last=Haberstroh | first=Richard | title=Kleindeutschland: Little Germany in the Lower East Side | website=LESPI-NY | url=http://www.lespi-nyc.org/history/kleindeutschland-little-germany-in-the-lower-east-side.html | access-date=September 30, 2019 | archive-date=September 30, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190930214505/http://www.lespi-nyc.org/history/kleindeutschland-little-germany-in-the-lower-east-side.html | url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=R. T. |last=O'Donnell |year=2003 |title=Ship ablaze: The tragedy of the steamboat General Slocum |publisher=Broadway Books |location=New York |isbn=0-7679-0905-4 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/shipablazetraged00odon }}</ref>

The Germans who moved out of the area were replaced by immigrants of many different nationalities.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=22}} This included groups of Italians and Eastern European Jews, as well as Greeks, Hungarians, Poles, Romanians, Russians, Slovaks and Ukrainians, each of whom settled in relatively homogeneous enclaves.<ref name=encnyc/>{{rp|769–770}} In ''How the Other Half Lives'' Riis wrote: "A map of the city, colored to designate nationalities, would show more stripes than on the skin of a zebra, and more colors than any rainbow."<ref name="Riis 1971">{{cite book | last=Riis | first=Jacob | title=How the other half lives : studies among the tenements of New York | publisher=Dover | location=New York | year=1971 | isbn=978-0-486-22012-3 | oclc=139827 }}</ref>{{rp|20}}

One of the first groups to populate the former Little Germany were [[Yiddish]]-speaking [[Ashkenazi Jews]], who first settled south of Houston Street before moving northward.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=23}} The [[Roman Catholic]] [[Polish people|Poles]] as well as the [[Protestant]] [[Hungarians]] would also have a significant impact in the East Side, erecting houses of worship next to each other along 7th Street at the turn of the 20th century. American-born New Yorkers would build other churches and community institutions, including the Olivet Memorial Church at 59 East 2nd Street (built 1891), the Middle Collegiate Church at 112 Second Avenue (built 1891–1892), and the Society of the Music School Settlement, now [[Third Street Music School Settlement]], at 53–55 East 3rd Street (converted 1903–1904).{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|pp=24–25}}

By the 1890s tenements were being designed in the ornate [[Queen Anne architecture in the United States|Queen Anne]] and [[Romanesque Revival architecture|Romanesque Revival]] styles. Tenements built in the later part of the decade were built in the [[Renaissance Revival architecture|Renaissance Revival]] style.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|pp=26–27}} At the time, the area was increasingly being identified as part of the Lower East Side.<ref>{{cite book | last1=Sanders | first1=R. | last2=Gillon | first2=E.V. | title=The Lower East Side: A Guide to Its Jewish Past with 99 New Photographs | publisher=Dover Publications | series=Dover books on New York City | year=1979 | isbn=978-0-486-23871-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Epqr_te4DBsC | access-date=September 1, 2019 | page=13}}</ref>

====20th century====
{{See also|Yiddish Theatre District}}
[[File:Village East former Yiddish Arts Theatre.jpg|thumb|300px|The [[Village East Cinema]]/Louis N. Jaffe Theater was originally a Jewish theater.]]

By the 1890s and 1900s any remaining manors on Second Avenue had been demolished and replaced with tenements or apartment buildings.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|pp=29–30}} The [[New York State Tenement House Act]] of 1901 drastically changed the regulations to which tenement buildings had to conform.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|pp=29–30}}<ref>{{cite book | title=The tenement house laws of the City of New York |date=1901 |via=HathiTrust Digital Library | url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009784289 | access-date=December 10, 2019}}</ref> The early 20th century marked the creation of apartment houses,<ref name="NYTs 1929 Jun 2">{{cite news |title=Creating New Apartment Area on Lower Second Avenue – Second Avenue Awakening |work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331 |date=June 2, 1929 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1929/06/02/archives/creating-new-apartment-area-on-lower-second-avenue-second-avenue.html |volume=78 |issue=26062 |page=1 (column 3; section 11) |access-date=September 1, 2019}} ({{cite book |title=''permalink'' |work=The New York Times |url=https://nyti.ms/394yuis |url-access=subscription |via=[[TimesMachine]]}}).</ref> office buildings,<ref>{{cite news |title=Second Avenue Skyscraper – Martin Engel and Louis Minsky Are to Put up the First There |work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331 |date=October 5, 1907 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1907/10/05/archives/second-avenue-skyscraper-martin-engel-and-louis-minsky-are-to-put.html |volume=57 |issue=18151 |page=8 (column 7) |access-date=September 1, 2019}} ({{cite book |title=''pdf'' |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1907/10/05/104996309.pdf |via=[[TimesMachine]]}}) ({{cite book |title=''permalink'' |work=The New York Times |url=https://nyti.ms/3GPrrq8 |url-access=subscription |via=[[TimesMachine]]}}).</ref> and other commercial or institutional structures on Second Avenue.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=30}} After the widening of Second Avenue's roadbed in the early 1910s, many of the front stoops on that road were eliminated.<ref>{{cite web | title=City to Descend on Old St. Mark's – Second Avenue Widening to Take Fifteen Feet off Church's Lawn | work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331 | date=June 19, 1912 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1912/06/19/archives/city-to-descend-on-old-st-marks-second-avenue-widening-to-take.html | access-date=September 1, 2019}}</ref> The symbolic demise of the old fashionable district came in 1912 when the last resident moved out of the Thomas E. Davis mansion at Second Avenue and St. Mark's Place, which ''The New York Times'' had called the "last fashionable residence" on Second Avenue.<ref>{{cite web | title=Landmarks Passing On Second Avenue; Keteltas Mansion, the Last Fashionable Residence, to Become a Moving Picture House | work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331 | date=November 10, 1912 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1912/11/10/archives/landmarks-passing-on-second-avenue-keteltas-mansion-the-last.html | access-date=September 1, 2019}}</ref> In 1916, the [[Slovene Americans|Slovenian]] community and [[Franciscans]] established the [[Slovenian Church of St. Cyril in New York|Slovenian Church of St. Cyril]], which still operates.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Surk |first=Barbara |date=September 28, 1997 |title="NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: EAST VILLAGE; Slovenian Church Endures" |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/28/nyregion/neighborhood-report-east-village-slovenian-church-endures.html |website=The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331}}</ref>

Simultaneously with the decline of the last manors, the [[Yiddish Theatre District]] or "Yiddish Rialto" developed within the East Side. It contained many theaters and other forms of entertainment for the Jewish immigrants of the city.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3ClbSVEha8gC&pg=PT199 |title=The Rough Guide to New York City |first1=Andrew |last1=Rosenberg |first2=Martin |last2=Dunford |publisher=Penguin |year=2012 |isbn=9781405390224 |access-date=March 10, 2013 }}
* {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6-sGw8H-yRkC&pg=PA171 |title=Let's Go New York City 16th Edition |author=Let's Go, Inc |publisher=Macmillan |year=2006 |isbn=9780312360870 |access-date=March 10, 2013 }}
* {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3c0RAQAAIAAJ |title=Oscar Israelowitz's guide to Jewish New York City |author=Oscar Israelowitz |publisher=Israelowitz Publishing |year=2004 |isbn=9781878741622 |access-date=March 10, 2013 }}
* {{cite news |last=Cofone |first=Annie |url=http://eastvillage.thelocal.nytimes.com/tag/theater-district/ |title=Theater District; Strolling Back Into the Golden Age of Yiddish Theater |newspaper=The New York Times |date=September 13, 2010 |access-date=March 10, 2013 |archive-date=April 23, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160423081700/http://eastvillage.thelocal.nytimes.com/tag/theater-district/ |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="jweekly1">{{cite news|url=http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/7106/yiddish-music-maven-sees-mamaloshen-in-mainstream/ |author= Ronnie Caplane|title=Yiddish music maven sees mamaloshen in mainstream |newspaper= J|publisher=Jweekly |date=November 28, 1997 |access-date=March 10, 2013}}</ref> While most of the early Yiddish theaters were located south of Houston Street, several theater producers were considering moving north along Second Avenue by the first decades of the 20th century.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=31}}

Second Avenue gained more prominence as a Yiddish theater destination in the 1910s with the opening of two theatres: the [[Second Avenue Theatre]], which opened in 1911 at 35–37 Second Avenue,<ref>{{cite web | title=$800,000 Theatre Opens on East Side; Big as the Hippodrome, but Many Are Turned Away From First Night's Performance | work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331 | date=September 15, 1911 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1911/09/15/archives/800000-theatre-opens-on-east-side-big-as-the-hippodrome-but-many.html | access-date=September 1, 2019}}</ref> and the [[National Theater (Manhattan)|National Theater]], which opened in 1912 at 111–117 East Houston Street.<ref>{{cite web | title='Cures' Great Hall at City College; Harvard Scientist Remedies Faulty Acoustics After a Summer's Experimenting | work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331 | date=September 25, 1912 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1912/09/25/archives/cures-great-hall-at-city-college-harvard-scientist-remedies-faulty.html | access-date=September 1, 2019}}</ref> This was followed by the opening of several other theaters, such as the [[Village East Cinema|Louis N. Jaffe Theater]] and the Public Theatre in 1926 and 1927 respectively. Numerous movie houses also opened in the East Side, including six on Second Avenue.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=32}} By World War{{nbs}}I the district's theaters hosted as many as twenty to thirty shows a night.<ref name="jweekly1"/> After World War{{nbs}}II Yiddish theater became less popular,<ref name="U-Rochester 2005 Sep 29">{{cite news|author= J. Katz|title=O'Brien Traces History of Yiddish Theater |url=https://www.campustimes.org/2005/09/29/obrien-traces-history-of-yiddish-theater/ |work=Campus Times |publisher=[[University of Rochester]] |date= September 29, 2005 |access-date=March 10, 2013}}</ref> and by the mid-1950s few theaters were still extant in the District.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://forward.com/articles/13862/bruce-adler--star-of-yiddish-stage-and-broadw-/ |author=Lana Gersten |title=Bruce Adler, 63, Star of Broadway and Second Avenue |publisher=Forward |date= July 29, 2008|access-date=March 10, 2013}}</ref>

The city built [[First Houses]] on the south side of [[3rd Street (Manhattan)|East 3rd Street]] between [[First Avenue (Manhattan)|First Avenue]] and [[Avenue A (Manhattan)|Avenue A]], and on the west side of Avenue A between [[2nd Street (Manhattan)|East 2nd]] and East 3rd Streets in 1935–1936, the first such [[public housing project]] in the United States.<ref name="encnyc">{{cite enc-nyc2}}<div style="margin-left:2em">{{cite book|title=''Online access → Section → "Lower East Side"'' |url=https://archive.org/details/theencyclopediaofnewyorkcitysecondedition/page/n789/mode/2up |series={{free access}} |date=May 2010 |pages=769–770 |access-date=June 3, 2022 |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</div></ref>{{rp|769–770}}<ref name="NYCL-0876"/>{{rp|1}} The neighborhood originally ended at the [[East River]], to the east of where [[Avenue D (Manhattan)|Avenue D]] was later located. In the mid-20th-century, landfill{{snd}}including World War{{nbs}}II debris and rubble shipped from London{{snd}}was used to extend the shoreline to provide foundation for the [[Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive]].<ref name="Strausbaugh 2007"/>

In the mid-20th century [[Ukrainian people|Ukrainians]] created a [[Ukrainian Americans in New York City|Ukrainian enclave]] in the neighborhood, centered around Second Avenue and 6th and 7th Streets.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=36}}<ref name="McKinley 1997"/> The Polish enclave in the East Village persisted as well. Numerous other immigrant groups had moved out, and their former churches were sold and became [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Orthodox cathedrals]].{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=36}} Latin American immigrants started to move to the East Side, settling in the eastern part of the neighborhood and creating an enclave that later came to be known as [[Alphabet City, Manhattan#Loisaida|Loisaida]].{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=37}}<ref name="Foderaro 1987"/><ref name="von Hassell 1996"/>
[[File:St Nicholas Manhattan NYC 1914.png|thumb|200px|[[St. Nicholas Kirche (New York City)|St. Nicholas Kirche]] at East 2nd Street, just west of Avenue A. The church and almost all buildings on the street were demolished in 1960 and replaced with parking lots for the [[Village View Houses]].<ref name="NYT-Kirche-1960"/>]]

The East Side's population started to decline at the start of the [[Great Depression]] in the 1930s and the implementation of the [[Immigration Act of 1924]], and the expansion of the [[New York City Subway]] into the outer boroughs.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=33}} Many old tenements, deemed to be "blighted" and unnecessary, were destroyed in the middle of the 20th century.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=34}} A substantial portion of the neighborhood, including the Ukrainian enclave, was slated for demolition under the Cooper Square Urban Renewal Plan of 1956, which was to redevelop the area from Ninth to [[Delancey Street]]s from the Bowery/Third Avenue to [[Chrystie Street]]/Second Avenue with new privately owned [[cooperative housing]].{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=34}}<ref>{{cite web | title=Cooper Sq. Project Is Adding 8 Acres |work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331 | date=November 30, 1956 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1956/11/30/archives/cooper-sq-project-is-adding-8-acres.html | access-date=September 1, 2019}}</ref>

The [[United Housing Foundation]] was selected as the sponsor for the project,<ref name="NYTs 1959 Jun 3">{{cite news |ref={{SfnRef|''New York Times'', June 3,|1959|p=44}} |date=June 3, 1959 |title=Plan for Cooper Sq. Raises Objections |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1959/06/03/archives/plan-for-cooper-sq-raises-objections.html |work=The New York Times |volume=108 |issue=37020 |page=44 (column 6, top) |issn=0362-4331 |access-date=September 1, 2019}} ({{cite book |title=''permalink'' |work=The New York Times |url=https://nyti.ms/3maNgav |url-access=subscription |via=[[TimesMachine]]}})</ref> and there was significant opposition to the plan, as it would have displaced thousands of people.<ref name="Zipp 2010">{{cite book |last1=Zipp |first1=Samuel |date=2010 |title=Manhattan Projects: The Rise and Fall of Urban Renewal in Cold War New York |url={{GBurl|YDV3el2fp2YC|pg=PR3}} |type=limited preview |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=October 2, 2019 |page=354 |via=[[Google Books]]}} {{ISBN|978-0-19-977953-6}}; {{OCLC|646816983|show=all}}.</ref> Neither the original large-scale development nor a 1961 revised proposal were implemented and the city's government lost interest in performing such large-scale slum-clearance projects.{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=35}} Another redevelopment project that was completed was the [[Village View Houses]] on First Avenue between East 2nd and 6th Streets, which opened in 1964{{sfn|Brazee et al.|2012|p=35}} partially on the site of the old [[St. Nicholas Kirche (New York City)|St. Nicholas Kirche]].<ref name="NYT-Kirche-1960">{{cite news |ref={{SfnRef|''New York Times'', January 27,|1960|p=52}} |date=January 27, 1960 |title=Church Building Faces Demolition – 100-Year-Old St. Nicholas on the Lower East Side Is Sold to Company |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1960/01/27/archives/church-building-faces-demolition-100yearold-st-nicholas-on-the.html |work=The New York Times |volume=109 |issue=37258 |page=52 (column 1) |access-date=October 4, 2019}} ({{cite book |title=''permalink'' |work=The New York Times |url=https://nyti.ms/3xgcDhd |url-access=subscription |via=[[TimesMachine]]}})</ref>