Little Italy NYC

DaveFerro · Mem Joined: Jul 13, 2007 Posts: 131 Location: Auburn NY

Rita,
If you use that NYPL Digital Gallery site (New York Public Library), you can search for the address and see the building or block as it was recently, when the set was photographed within the last ten years (I think).

Love that Shorpy site - right up my alley.

Remembering my friend Meadow throwing the keys down from the third floor window until I got my own set...always afraid they would go into the drain.

I forgot the pictures of the storefront with the BVM statue and lights - near another storefront with no windows (Ravenite (sp?) Club). So that's who those guys in suits from the limo who said it wasn't a good idea to take pictures around there. No problem, though they did not recognize any family names and suggested I try up in Harlem. Turns out they were right.

Still can't believe someone had the $$ to rent a store just for the statue - must have an 'in'.

I found the map of the Mulberry area with the Italian areas marked - have to scan but not sure if I can post due to copyrights. I could ask the publisher.

Dave

DaveFerro · Mem Joined: Jul 13, 2007 Posts: 131 Location: Auburn NY

While at the Shorpy site, noticed the link on the left middle to the Library of Congress Query site, put in Little Italy, New York and got some more links then to this panel of old photos:

memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin...rtBy=DOCID
Go back to New Search at the top and try other combinations.

Thanks again to Lotus - another wonderful place to explore

lotus45tiye · Mem Joined: Mar 25, 2008 Posts: 114 Location: New Jersey

Your very welcome Dave. I love old pictures and I add them to my family book along with maps to give the reader a perspective of the environment these people lived and worked in. Brings me back to another place in time!

DaveFerro · Mem Joined: Jul 13, 2007 Posts: 131 Location: Auburn NY

Just searched for St. Joachim at the NYPL Digital Gallery site and there is one item of three photographs of San Rocco Festival

Link:
digitalgallery.nypl.or...id?731712F

Can't see the church but will keep looking through books and the web.
I have a book of NYC photos from 1850 to 1915; maybe I can find something in there.

Dave

nuccia · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 8:42 am Post subject: Re: Little Italy NYC

I love looking at all these old photographs. Makes a person think though just how bad the living conditions were for our ancestors. So sad...and yet, they managed to hold on to what was most important to them.

DaveFerro · Mem Joined: Jul 13, 2007 Posts: 131 Location: Auburn NY

The author (Roger Whitehouse) of the NYC photo book notes that the "most amazing fact of all was that so many of the poor remained uncompromised..." "Poverty bred slums, and slums bred crime..."

Just to the east of Mulberry Bend is Chatham Square at the Five Points - the most notorious section in the 1800s. This is where the movie Gangs of New York was set.

Some of the gang names: Plug Uglies, Dead Rabbits, Whyos, Short Tail Gang; there were even junior versions: Little Plug Uglies, Little Dead Rabbits. Farther north along Sixth Ave from 24th to 40th was called "Satan's Den"

Families were stuck in sweatshops - their own homes, doing piece work that barely paid the rent, "just enough to keep them from rebellion, but not enough to allow them to escape or educate themselves. The fact that the boss was often the landlord added the threat of eviction for the imprisoned occupants."

Luckily there were the reformers who awoke the apathetic "Other Half" but it took decades.

The book has quotes from immigrants, reformers, diarists and even Charles Dickens, who praises so much, but condemns the treatment of the poor: "What! Do you thrust your common offenders against the police discipline of the town, into such holes as these?..." (From American Notes, 1842)

Yep, still do.

DaveFerro · Mem Joined: Jul 13, 2007 Posts: 131 Location: Auburn NY

Because so many love the old photos, I checked the picture credits in my books and most seem to be from the Museum of the City of New York. Going to their site shows many areas of photographs especially the Byron collection and Bernice Abbot (1930s). They have Riis, Beals and Alice Austen, but these are not searchable.

Museum of the City of New York - Collections

Click on the Byron Collection on the right for lots of nice photos. The other link above for more NYC photographs. When searching, try the "Other Side" as well: enter "horseback dinner at Sherry's" Yes, they brought sod and horses right into the restaurant, and dined from the saddle.

Did not find as much as I hoped, so checked the Library of Congress. This link has many of the photos from the Whitehouse book. Check the third from left top row: this is the Riis picture that shows Mulberry Street bend with the Italian store. (A Vegetable Stand in the Mulberry St. bend)

Library of Congress Riis Photos NYC
memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin...rtBy=DOCID

I could not use the usual method of inserting URLs, so had to just paste. If you click on NEW SEARCH, you can look for other photographers - I searched for Riis and got these. Clicking on the image will bring up a magnified view, but not for all.

Dave