| LES STORIES | Making history visible. In celebration of LES History Month! |
| www.peoplesles.org | |
| #LESmonth #LEShistorymonth #PeoplesLES | |
| Basic Chalking | |
| May is Lower East Side History Month! | |
| General Facts | |
| The LES has always been a home to immigrants and refugees | |
| The LES is on Lenape land | |
| The first Africans in the LES were enslaved people brought by the Dutch | |
| The LES has a history of strong women leading | |
| The LES has been a haven for artists | |
| The LES has been a home for radicals | |
| The LES is the district with 2nd highest income inequality in NYC | |
| The LES was home to the labor movement | |
| Trivia to chalk anywhere | Note: these facts make most sense of you chalk them in the format “DATE: Fact” |
| 5000BC – 1600s | Astor Place was Kintecoying (Crossroads of Three Nations), a meeting place for 3 Lenape groups – Canarsie, Sapohannikan, and Manhattan |
| 5000BC on | This is Lenape land |
| 17th c. | The Mareckawick tribe lived here — marshland was good for canoes. |
| 17th c. | The LES is 76 acres of farmland – owned by Jacobus Van Corlaer |
| 1644 | “Land of the Blacks” – Dutch issue ‘half freedom’ and land grants to 30 Africans |
| 1644 | “Land of the Blacks” spanned 130 acres – same as 100 city blocks |
| 1644 | Dutch “Half Freedom” for Africans meant their children were still enslaved |
| 1651 | Peter Stuyvesant purchases farmland: E 6th to E 23rd, 4th Ave to Ave C |
| 1663 | Four bouweries (Dutch farms) cover the LES to the East River |
| 1683 | The LES has the oldest Jewish cemetery in America, includes Rev. War soldiers |
| 1723 | NYC population 7,248. |
| 1743 | Oliver DeLancey marries Phila Franks, who is Jewish. City scandalized. |
| 1744 | James Delancey owns 300 acres of the LES — and was a slaveholder |
| 1780 | LES Collect Pond – only body of water – is polluted by tanneries and potteries |
| 1787 | White NY Manumission Society – including Alexander Hamilton – found first African Free School. |
| 1787 | African Free School educates 40 Black students, mix of free and enslaved, in one room schoolhouse |
| 1795 | African American burial ground opens on Chrystie Street after downtown site closes |
| 1798 | Dyptheria outbreak blamed on polluted Collect Pond water |
| early 1800’s | Stuyvesant meadows become Avenue D |
| early 1800’s | Shipyards multiply along East River banks |
| early 1800s | Tenements begin to be built |
| early 1800s | Five Points is an integrated neighborhood. housing free Black New Yorkers, Irish and German immigrants |
| 1803 | Hills (current area of First and Second Aves) leveled, used to fill Collect Pond |
| 1810 | Canal Street actually had a canal. It helped drain the Collect Pond. |
| 1810 | Chatham Square is a large open air market for goods and horsetrading. |
| 1815 | Due to a building fire, the African Free School moves to a building on Mulberry Street, right in the heart of Five Points |
| 1816 | Corlears Hook is notorious for streetwalkers aka “hookers” |
| 1820 | Enrollment at the African Free School reaches 500 students |
| 1820’s | African Americans worship in ‘Slave Galleries’ at St. Augustine’s on Henry Street |
| 1820’s and later | Houses on the Bowery were stops on the Underground Railroad |
| 1820-50 | Investors purchase Delancey farm & square off lots to sell |
| 1829 | Abolition of slavery in New York State. |
| 1829 | Peter Stuyvesant offers the City land for Tompkins Square Park |
| 1830’s | Alexander Hamilton’s widow and son live on St. Mark’s after he was killed by Aaron Burr in a duel |
| 1830’s | Bull’s Head Tavern near today’s Chatham Square, headquarters for New York’s cattle market |
| 1830’s | Entire marshy area from Ave A to river filled in, ship building takes off |
| 1830’s | William Henry Lane, “King of all Dancers”, electrifies audiences with a fusion of African American dance and Irish jig, worked out in local ‘challenge dances’ |
| 1832 | Cholera epidemic claims lives of 3,500 poor Irish. |
| 1833 | First tenements built in Corlear’s Hook near East River |
| 1834 | Tompkins Square Park is named for Daniel Tompkins, Gov. 1807-16, who abolished slavery in NY. |
| 1834 | Mobs attack African American homes, businesses & churches in Five Points. |
| 1835 | Fire destroys 700 buildings, moving vans needed to haul looted goods from Five Points. |
| 1836 | John Jacob Astor, who made his fortune trading furs with the Lenape, creates Astor Place. |
| 1840’s | German immigrants settle on LES, it becomes “Kleindeutschland” / ‘Little Germany’ |
| 1840’s | Avenue A lined with beer halls, oyster saloons for German residents |
| 1840’s | Avenue B was German ‘Broadway’ – the main commercial street |
| 1840’s | St. George’s Ukranian Catholic Church opens to minister to ‘Little Ukraine” |
| 1840’s | African American Jack Ballagher is famous fiddler of the LES. |
| 1840’s | Boss Tweed launches career by leading a crew of firemen. |
| 1845 | Women’s Prison Association founded on 2nd Ave – oldest advocacy group for women in the US |
| 1846 | Military uses Tompkins Square Park as a Parade Ground and camp |
| 1846 | Irish settle close to East River & area becomes known as ‘Dry Dock’ |
| 1846-48 | Irish immigrants flood LES fleeing the Great Hunger |
| 1848 | East Village area has many two story wood frame homes with small gardens |
| 1848 | St. Brigid’s Church on Ave B built by Irish shipbuilders – their faces are carved into the church pillars |
| 1850’s | Swaggering “Bowery B’hoys” wear black silk hats, boots, smoke cigars |
| 1850’s | In LES dance halls, Blacks and whites dance together. Uptown scandalized. |
| 1850’s | “The Dead Rabbits” are a fearsome LES gang |
| 1850’s | Saloons and grocery stores sell alcohol by the glass. |
| 1850’s | Infamous waterfront dives included Lava Beds, Cat Alley, and the Tub of Blood |
| 1853 | Lord & Taylor’s opens on Grand Street, a major shopping district. |
| 1857 | Homeless and unemployed gather in Tompkins Square Park to march on Wall Street |
| 1857 | Gang feud between Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits requires calling in militia to end it |
| 1858 | Atlantic Garden opens – major beer garden and concert hall |
| 1859 | Peter Cooper, maker of railroad tracks, founds Cooper Union school – free art and tech education |
| 1860-1930 | Over 70 years, 97 Orchard was home to more than 7000 immigrants. |
| 1860’s | The local celebs are firemen |
| 1860 | Abraham Lincoln speaks in Great Hall at Cooper Union |
| 1860 | $15,000 worth of oysters consumed daily in NYC. |
| 1863 | 700 African Americans sheltered by police on Mulberry Street during Draft Riots |
| 1863 | Draft Riot attacks on African Americans spurs Black exodus from LES |
| 1868 | Brooklyn ferries run every five minutes, carry 48 million each year |
| 1870’s | LES Cigar factories import skilled workers from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo |
| 1872 | Victoria Woodhull, US suffragist, jailed in Ludlow Street; ran for President when women couldn’t vote |
| 1873 | LES: Average 3 room apartment houses 10-15 people |
| 1874 | 10,000 workers protest economic hardships in Tompkins Square Park, are beaten by police |
| 1875 | Germans, concentrated on the LES, make up 1/3 of NYC population |
| 1875 | LES is over 64% German |
| 1878 | Boss Tweed, once most powerful man in NYC, dies in Ludlow Street Jail. |
| 1880’s | LES accounts for 1/4 population of entire city. |
| 1880’s | Jacob Riis photographs the LES for “How the Other Half Live” |
| 1883-1909 | Bridges built: 1883 Brooklyn Bridge, 1903 Williamsburg Bridge, 1909 Manhattan Bridge |
| 1882 | NY’s first Labor Day Parade, 25k in Union Square, march for 8-hour day, ban on child labor |
| 1884 | Second Avenue Ottendorfer Library opens; Half books in English, half German. |
| 1884 | All African-American segregated schools ended in NYC |
| 1886 | Steve Brodie, saloonkeeper, claims he jumped off Brooklyn Bridge and lived. International fame ensues. |
| 1886 | Newsboys’ Lodging House opens on Ave B & 8th St, shelters newsboys and bootblacks for 5 cents / night. |
| 1890-1910 | More than two dozen settlement houses open on LES |
| 1890’s | The Bowery is a prime amusement district, “place of the People” |
| 1890’s | No indoor plumbing in tenements. Outhouses in the rear alley. |
| 1890’s | LES has world’s highest tuberculosis rate. |
| 1890’s | Unlike uptown, Chinatown restaurants welcomed African American diners |
| 1890 | Photographer / activist Jacob Riis publishes “How the Other Half Lives” |
| 1893 | To reduce infant mortality, pasteurized milk stations open across LES, 7 cents/quart or free to poor |
| 1893 | Emma Goldman jailed after telling poor to steal bread if they can’t buy it |
| 1895 | Teddy Roosevelt is NYC Police Commissioner, works to clean up LES |
| 1897 | Abraham Cahan, labor advocate, founds Jewish Daily Forward |
| 1897 | LES has one bar for every 208 residents |
| 1899 | Local No. 1 – Hebrew Actors Union, nation’s first theatrical union opens in LES |
| late 19thc | Tenements: no running water, no indoor plumbing, no air, no light, susceptible to fires |
| late 19th Cent | If LES was a city, it would have been the largest Jewish city in the world |
| 1900’s | Tavern owners complain union organizers talk too much, drink too little |
| 1900’s | Yonah Schimmel, rabbi from Romania, sells mashed potatoes in dough from pushcart |
| 1900’s | The Labor Lyceum, on East 4th, is center for worker’s classes and rallies |
| 1900’s | Emma Goldman speaks in Straus Square calls for workers rights and free love. |
| 1900’s | Straus Square – named for Nathan Straus, crusader for safe milk for children, cut infant death rate in half. |
| 1900’s | Straus Square the center of Jewish life |
| 1900’s | Settlement workers teach ‘American’ ways of cooking & shopping |
| 1900’s | The Grand Duke’s Opera House: a theater run by street boys – newsies and bootblacks |
| 1900’s | LES is “the cradle of the American labor movement” – Samuel Gompers |
| 1900’s | Settlement houses: workers ‘settle’ into the LES, living here to care for poor |
| 1900s | “Slumming” tours of the LES very popular with tourists. |
| 1900 | “Khazzer Market” on Hester street is crowded with immigrants hoping for day labor jobs |
| 1900 | More than 1,200 people lived on Orchard between Stanton & Rivington |
| 1900 | LES most populated 2 sq. miles on Earth. |
| 1900 | LES – 250,000 ppl per square mile. NYC 2015 – avg. 70,000 ppl per square mile. |
| 1900 | US: Life expectancy for white Americans – 48 years; for African Americans – 33 years. |
| 1900 | US: Mother of 4 has 50/50 chance that 1 child dies by age 5. |
| 1900 | US: Half all young people lose a parent by age 21. |
| 1900 | Half of all U.S. children live in poverty |
| 1900 | Street food: oysters, hot yams, corn on the cob, baked pears |
| 1900 | The LES east of Bowery is turf of ‘The Eastmans’ – gang led by Monk Eastman |
| 1900 | International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union founded on East 4th Street |
| 1901 | New! 2 toilets required for every 4 tenement families |
| 1902 | Jewish housewives boycott butcher shops to protest price of beef |
| 1903 | Five Points Gang and Eastmans wage a gun battle – over 100 men fight through streets for eight hours. |
| 1904 | The General Slocum, a picnic boat, catches fire. 1,021 women and children die. Gemans can no longer bear to live here. ‘Kleindeutschland’ vanishes. |
| 1905 | LES eats soup. Proverb: “Poor people cook with a lot of water.” |
| 1905 | Rose Pastor Stokes, activist, marries millionaire, dubbed “Cinderella of the Sweatshops” |
| 1905 | Pushcart census surprise: food is fresher than in stores |
| 1907 | Pauline Newman, age 16, leads 10,000 LES families in rent strike |
| 1907 | LES tenement children hang a landlord in effigy |
| 1909 | First public meeting space of the NAACP at Cooper Union |
| 1909 | U.S. Senator “Big Tim” Sullivan donates 5,000 pairs of shoes to destitute men on Bowery |
| 1909 | At Cooper Union, young female shirtwaist workers vote to go on strike – the first major women’s strike in US |
| 1909 | Clara Lemlich, strike leader of factory girls, beaten, arm broken by thugs hired by bosses |
| 1909 | Uprising of the 20,000 – first mass strike by women in US |
| early 20thc | Social reform movement activists were now primarily women. |
| 1910’s | Eleanor Roosevelt teaches dance at University Settlement |
| 1910 | Izzy Guss starts a stand in the “pickle district” |
| 1911 | 146 garment workers, most young women, die in Triangle Shirtwaist Factore fire |
| 1913 | Children’s Farm Garden opens on Corlears Hook, 3/4 acre w signs in English & Yiddish |
| 1914 | LES elects first Socialist – Meyer London – to Congress, celebrate with a 4am parade |
| 1914 | Joel Russ opens store after selling salted herring from pushcart. |
| 1914 | “Black Tuesday” riots break out due to closing of Jarmulowsky Bank. |
| 1914 | An “army” of the unemployed occupy local churches demanding food and a place to sleep. |
| 1920’s | Louis Auster claims to have invented the ‘egg cream’, sells thousands a day |
| 1920 | Majority of LES is Jewish – Russian, Polish and other |
| 1920 | Italian immigrants dominate area from Houston to 14th between 1st & 2nd Ave |
| 1923 | Libraries host weekly meetings of debating clubs, Yiddish mothers’ book club, boy scouts, and English classes. |
| 1924 | Electric lights added to tenements. |
| 1925 | Aron Streit, baker from Austria, opens matzo factory |
| 1930s-50’s | Public housing: 1936 First Houses, 1940 Vladeck Houses, 1949 Jacob Riis, 1949 Lilian Wald, 1957 La Guardia, 1959 Baruch |
| 1933 | Police battle 500 in riot when writers evicted from Paradise Alley, Ave A at 11 St |
| 1933 | Knickerbocker Village development displaces 400 low income families |
| 1934 | Sara D. Roosevelt park opens, named for FDR’s mom |
| 1934 | East River Docks were at Avenue D; infill from demolished tenements extended the banks |
| 1934 | Boats were docked at Avenue D and 9th Street |
| 1935 | First Houses built on East 3rd, first public housing project in US |
| 1936 | First Houses – America’s first public housing; opened by Eleanor Roosevelt |
| 1935 | LES starts to de-populate, except for low income housing |
| 1936 | Dorothy Day, activist, founds The Catholic Worker newspaper on E. 1st Street. |
| 1939 | Robert Moses leads opening of East River Park, 3rd largest park in Manhattan |
| 1950 | Jazz musician Charlie “Bird” Parker lives at 151 Avenue B |
| 1954 | Veselka opens – means “rainbow” in Ukrainian |
| 1955 | Demolition of the Third Avenue “El” |
| 1956 | Joseph Papp begins producing Shakespeare in East River Park |
| 1959 | Residents form Cooper Square Committee to oppose Robert Moses’ “slum clearance” plan |
| 1960’s | Tompkins Square Park – 38 arrested for playing conga drums; released by Judge citing “equal protection for the unwashed, unshod, unkempt, and uninhibited” |
| 1960’s | Real Estate brokers popularize “East Village” name |
| 1960’s | Drug dealing is rampant in LES |
| 1960’s | C.O.R.E. activists do “sandwich testing” of landlords — documenting different rent quotes to white and black tenants |
| 1960s | Poet Amiri Baraka launches the Black Arts Movement, hosting artists in his home |
| 1962 | Mobilization for Youth opens storefront, hires 300 community organizers |
| 1963 | Petra Santiano, community activist, dubbed “first woman mayor” of LES by El Diario |
| 1964 | LES tenants join citywide rent strike – begun in Harlem |
| 1965 | Jonas Mekas arrested for screening ‘Flaming Creatures’ |
| 1965 | Chico Garcia, Robert Nazario, Armando Perez and others found “The Real Great Society” to support youth, fight poverty |
| 1966 | Andy Warhol stages Velvet Underground on St. Mark’s |
| 1967 | Abbie Hoffman launches Yippie Movement from his place on St. Mark’s |
| 1967 | Negro Ensemble Company opens at St. Mark’s Playhouse on Second Ave, a leading theater of black artists |
| 1968 | Police raid Christodora House, reputedly national HQ of Black Panthers |
| 1969 | Ellen Stewart moves La MaMa ETC to East 4th Street; pioneer of experimental theater |
| 1969 | Young activists announce formation of NY chapter of Young Lords in Tompkins Square Park |
| 1970 | STAR House founded by Marsha P. Johnson and Sylva Rivera to provide refuge for homeless transgender youth. First of its kind in the nation |
| 1970 | STAR is the first group in the US to organize explicitly around trans rights and self-determination. |
| 1970-80 | Disinvestment: Half of private apartments east of Ave B disappear. |
| 1970’s | Residents create community gardens from rubble-strewn lots |
| 1970’s | LES participates in ‘sweat equity’ initiatives to homestead abandoned properties are 70% Latino |
| 1970’s | Landlords abandon L.E.S., sometimes torching buildings for insurance. |
| 1970’s | Loisaida Inc: grassroot movement of Puerto Rican activists and Hispanic residents to combat violence, drugs, gangs, and poverty |
| 1970’s | Adopt-A-Building helps residents turn abandoned tenements into low income co-ops |
| 1970 | McSorley’s loses court battle to stay “men’s only” saloon. |
| 1973 | Hilly Kristal opens CBGB’s – becomes home of punk, new wave music |
| 1973 | Liz Christy and the Green Guerillas “seed bomb” vacant lots. |
| 1974 | Ramones make their CBGB’s debut. |
| 1974 | Liz Christy Garden at East Houston is first Community Garden |
| 1974 | Poet Bimbo Rivas coins term “Loisaida” |
| 1975 | Miguel Algarin, Miguel Pinero, Bimbo Rivas, and others open Nuyorican Poets Cafe. |
| 1975 | NYC goes officially bankrupt |
| 1976 | Community activists and local residents create La Plaza Cultural garden |
| 1978 | City goverment becomes largest landlord in NYC, mostly of decaying buildings |
| 1978 | Marlis Momber, filmmaker, produces “Viva Loisaida” |
| 1979 | Anthology Film Archives opens in former courthouse |
| 1979 | CHARAS/El Bohio Community Center started in abandoned P.S. 64 school building |
| 1979 | Bennie Matia’s films ‘Heart of Loisaida” documenting homesteading movement |
| late 1970’s | Ann Magnuson’s Club 57 was a home for “hipsters, girls in petticoats and stilettos” |
| 1980’s | Chico Garcia begins creating murals in LOISAIDA, many are memorials |
| 1980’s | Residents do weekly night marches around Sara D Roosevelt Park, banging pots & pans, to chase out drug dealers. |
| 1980’s | Real estate tide turns in LES – gentrification kicks in |
| 1980’s | LES slogan: “This is our land! Speculators get out!” |
| 1980’s | Over 200 art galleries operating on the LES |
| 1980’s | Community members launch the garden movement |
| 1980’s | Ru Paul and Lypsinka perform regularly at the Pyramid Club |
| 1984 | Orchidia Restaurant, beloved for pizza and pierogi, closed due to rent hike. |
| 1985 | First Wigstock in Tompkins Square Park |
| 1986 | Purple footprints painted all over NYC by George Bliss, lead to community garden organized by Adam Purple. |
| 1986 | LES People’s Federal Credit Union, a cooperative, opens after last bank departs – leaving 100 blocks with no banking. |
| 1988 | Tompkins Square Riots: police evict homeless; 44 injured by cops who tape over their badge numbers |
| 1989 | Casa Adela opens, known for its pernil & neighborhood artwork |
| 1990’s | Chinatown garment factories close |
| 1990 | LES People’s Mutual Housing Association opens 1st of 24 vacant buildings for affordable housing |
| 1996 | LES Girls Club organized by local women and activists. |
| 1998 | Giuliani admin. auctions off P.S. 64, home of Charas/El Bohio community center for 20 years. |
| 1998 | LES activists disrupt sale of CHARAS/EL BOHIO by releasing thousands of crickets in hall of public auction |
| 1999 | Hundreds mourn Armando Perez, outspoken advocate, leader of Charas/El Bohio Community Center |
| 2002 | Landmark settlement preserves scores of LES community gardens |
| 2002 | City turns over 11 buildings to squatters after 20-year conflict |
| 2003 | NY’s Chinatown becomes largest in Western Hemisphere. |
| 2004 | Tompkins Square Park – surprise habitat for red-tailed hawk |
| 2012 | Hurricane Sandy knocks out heat, electricity for 3 weeks on LES |
| 2012 | Sandy floods the LES, water up to Ave B at 12th St. |
| 2012 | LES: 26% of people / 34% of seniors living below poverty line |
| 2012 | LES approx 31% white, 33% Asian, 25% Hispanic, 7% Black or African American |
| 2013 | After Sandy, 25 orgs join “LES Ready!” to coordinate relief |
| 2013 | East Village gas explosion kills 2; landlords arrested |
| 2014 | LES: 30% earn under $20k; 20% earn more than $100k |
| 2014 | DiRoberti’s renowned pasticceria closes after 110 years |
| 2015 | Approx. 45% of LES is rent stabilized. |
| 2015 | LES: approx 166,000 people |
| 2015 | LES is a leader in NYPD noise complaints / nightlife noise |
| 2015 | Median rent for 1 bedroom is $2,725 |
| 2015 | LES still has 39 community gardens |
| Facts w/o Date | The following facts don’t need a date chalked with them… |
| This land, like all Manhattan, was once occupied by the Lenape | |
| Stuyvesant Place near Second Ave was once Shempoes Village – a Lenape settlement | |
| LES has been listed by National Trust for Historic Preservation in “America’s Most Endangered Places” | |
| The LES has always been associated with radical politics: socialism, communism, anarchy | |
| Bouwerji (boweries) is the Dutch name for large farms | |
| African Americans were some of earliest settlers & farmers on Bowery | |
| Most of LES was once part of the Delancey farm | |
| The Delancey family property, most of the LES, was confiscated after the American Revolution. They were Tories. | |
| Most of East Village was once high salt marshes and tidal meadows | |
| After WW1, the LES became NYC’s first racially integrated neighborhood | |
| Seward Park is the first permanent city-built playground in the U.S. | |
| Since its founding, Seward Park Library has always been one of the busiest libraries in the city. | |
| St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery is the oldest site of continuous worship in Manhattan. | |
| The Angel Orensanz Center is the 4th oldest synagogue building in the US | |
| Kehila Kedosha Janina is the only Greek synagogue in Western Hemisphere | |
| First Houses built on East 3rd were the first public housing project in US. Opened by Eleanor Roosevelt. | |
| Lower Second Avenue was the center of Yiddish theater in NY | |
| Division Street divided the Delancey and Rutger family estates | |
| Mott Street was once known as the Irish Broadway | |
| Orchard Street was named for fruit trees that once lined the block | |
| Corlears Hook was an important landmark for navigators for 300 years | |
| The Lenape encampment near Corlears Hook was called Naghtogack | |
| Meyer London, NY Rep., fought to ban child labor, create minimum wage and unemployment insurance – attacked as wild socialist schemes. | |
| In Jonathan Larson’s musical “Rent”, most characters live on Avenue B | |
| “Captain America” aka Steve Rogers is from the LES. | |
| Abron’s Art Centers artists have included John Cage, Aaron Copland, Dizzie Gillespie, Martha Graham | |
| LES sons: Marx Brothers, Al Jolson, Gershwin brothers, Irving Berlin | |
| LES heroine: Lillian Wald: New York’s first public nurse | |
| LES locals bowled in alley behind saloons – hence “bowling alley” | |
| LES was once home to more than 200 pickle shops. | |
| Where did they move to? LES Jews to Williamsburg, Brownsville, Harlem, the Bronx | |
| Where did they move to? LES Germans to Yorkville | |
| Where did they move to? African Americans to Greenwich Village 1850’s, Chelsea/Hell’s Kitchen 1880’s, Harlem 1910’s | |
| Where did they move to? Early Irish went to Hell’s Kitchen & midtown East |