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122-509: The neighborhood has a long history, serving as a cultural center and ethnic enclave for Manhattan's German , Polish , Hispanic , and immigrants of Jewish descent. However, there is much dispute over the borders of the Lower East Side , Alphabet City, and East Village. Historically, Manhattan's Lower East Side was 14th Street at the northern end, bound on the east by East River and on the west by First Avenue ; today, that same area

244-694: A Quaker -led coalition that took control of the legislature, which later supported the American Revolution . Despite this, many of the German settlers were loyalists during the Revolution, possibly because they feared their royal land grants would be taken away by a new republican government, or because of loyalty to a British German monarchy who had provided the opportunity to live in a liberal society. The Germans, comprising Lutherans , Reformed , Mennonites , Amish , and other sects, developed

366-571: A Germanic language, and only in the last couple centuries the people of the Netherlands. Other Germanic language variants for "deutsch/deitsch/dutch" are: Dutch "Duits" and " Diets ", Yiddish "daytsh", Danish/Norwegian "tysk", or Swedish " tyska ." The Japanese "ドイツ" (/doitsu/) also derives from the aforementioned "Dutch" variations. The Studebaker brothers, forefathers of the wagon and automobile makers, arrived in Pennsylvania in 1736 from

488-560: A colony in Virginia called Germanna , located near modern-day Culpeper, Virginia . Virginia Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood , taking advantage of the headright system , had bought land in present-day Spotsylvania and encouraged German immigration by advertising in Germany for miners to move to Virginia and establish a mining industry in the colony. The name "Germanna", selected by Governor Alexander Spotswood , reflected both

610-454: A favored destination. By 1900, the populations of the cities of Cleveland , Milwaukee , and Cincinnati were all more than 40% German American. Dubuque and Davenport, Iowa had even larger proportions, as did Omaha , Nebraska, where the proportion of German Americans was 57% in 1910. In many other cities of the Midwest , such as Fort Wayne, Indiana , German Americans were at least 30% of

732-547: A few blocks of Avenue C ). What remained of 1811's lettered avenues came to be called, by some, Alphabet City. There is disagreement about the earliest uses of the name. It is often characterized as a marketing invention of realtors and other gentrifiers who arrived in the 1980s. However, sociologist Christopher Mele connects the term to the arts scene of the late 1970s which in turn attracted real estate investors. As such, argues Mele, Alphabet City and its many variants—Alphaville, Alphabetland, etc.—were "playful" but also "concealed

854-453: A knoll in the salt marsh, increasingly buried under wharfs. Here, in 1806-7, Charles Brownne built the first commercial steamboat, Robert Fulton 's Clermont , which helped establish the city's shipbuilding reputation. Brothers Adam and Noah Brown (no relation to Charles) and Henry Eckford took over the spot and, by 1819, extended the wharf along Lewis Street, east of the new grid plan, to 5th Street. The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 called for

976-514: A large portion of the neighborhood's demographics. Even so, crime remained prevalent and there were often drug deals being held openly in Tompkins Square Park. Tensions over gentrification contributed to the 1988 Tompkins Square Park riot , which occurred following opposition to a proposed curfew that had targeted the park's homeless. The aftermath of the riot slowed gentrification somewhat, as real estate prices declined. However, by

1098-558: A microcosm of the Germania nationwide. The Germans who settled Texas were diverse in many ways. They included peasant farmers and intellectuals; Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and atheists; Prussians, Saxons, and Hessians; abolitionists and slave owners; farmers and townsfolk; frugal, honest folk and ax murderers. They differed in dialect, customs, and physical features. A majority had been farmers in Germany, and most arrived seeking economic opportunities. A few dissident intellectuals fleeing

1220-471: A plan for the area, mapping out streets to build and lots to sell. In doing so, he was following the precedent of landowners to the south. However, by this time, the city was laying out roads of its own and wanted to connect the whole. The first proposal for a unified street system was the Mangin–Goerck Plan . Presented in 1799, it extended Stuyvesant's grid into the cove above Alphabet City, straightening

1342-612: A rich religious life with a strong musical culture. Collectively, they came to be known as the Pennsylvania Dutch (from Deutsch ). Etymologically, the word Dutch originates from the Old High German word "diutisc" (from "diot" "people"), referring to the Germanic "language of the people" as opposed to Latin, the language of the learned (see also theodiscus ). Eventually the word came to refer to people who speak

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1464-534: 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. By the 1890s, tenements were being designed in the ornate Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival styles, though tenements built in the later part of the decade were built in the Renaissance Revival style. At the time, the area was increasingly being identified as part of

1586-625: A slave). The most famous of the early German Palatine immigrants was editor John Peter Zenger , who led the fight in colonial New York City for freedom of the press in America. A later immigrant, John Jacob Astor , who came from Walldorf , Electoral Palatinate , since 1803 Baden , after the Revolutionary War, became the richest man in America from his fur trading empire and real estate investments in New York. John Law organized

1708-666: A surviving vestige of the Dry Dock District, which once filled the East River waterfront with bustling industry. Alphabet City has a large number of surviving early 19th century houses connected to the maritime history of the neighborhood, which also are the first houses ever to be built on what had been farmland. Despite efforts by the GVSHP to preserve these houses, the LPC has not done so. An 1835 rowhouse at 316 East 3rd Street

1830-634: A wholesale food market between 7th and 10th Street, but local landowners put a stop to this, clearing the way for more of the same. In 1825, a well-capitalized group of shipowners and builders formed the New York Dry Dock Company to upgrade the city's repair facilities. They bought a chunk of waterfront recently sold off by Stuyvesants, running from 6th to 13th Street, and built an elaborate campus around 10th Street including Dry Dock Bank, Dry Dock Street (present-day Szold Place), and novel marine railways to elevate ships for repair. Hence,

1952-745: Is Alphabet City. The area's German presence in the early 20th century, in decline, virtually ended after the General Slocum disaster in 1904. Alphabet City is part of Manhattan Community District 3 and its primary ZIP Code is 10009. It is patrolled by the 9th Precinct of the New York City Police Department . The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 , which laid out the grid scheme of Manhattan above Houston Street, designated 16 north-south "avenues." Twelve numbered avenues were to run continuously to Harlem , while four lettered ones—A, B, C and D—appeared intermittently wherever

2074-484: Is gradually becoming recognized as an extension of Greenwich Village ... thereby extending New York’s Bohemia from river to river". The area became a center of the counterculture in New York, and was the birthplace and historical home of many artistic movements, including punk rock and the Nuyorican literary movement. By the 1970s and 1980s, the city in general was in decline and nearing bankruptcy, especially after

2196-1146: Is home to one of the group's original settlements, the Germantown section of present-day Philadelphia , founded in 1683. Germantown is also the birthplace of the American antislavery movement , which emerged there in 1688. Germantown also was the location of the Battle of Germantown , an American Revolutionary War battle fought between the British Army , led by William Howe , and the Continental Army , led by George Washington , on October 4, 1777. German Americans were drawn to colonial-era British America by its abundant land and religious freedom, and were pushed out of Germany by shortages of land and religious or political oppression . Many arrived seeking religious or political freedom , others for economic opportunities greater than those in Europe, and others for

2318-713: The Daily News reported on the eastward flow of gentrification: Ave A. is still the DMZ. While the one side has been the East Village since the days of hippie heaven, the other side has become known, by Spanish-speaking locals, as Loisaida, and, by hand-rubbing realtors, as Alphabet City. The Official Preppy Handbook , published in October 1980, caricatured a subgroup of preppies as "connoisseurs of punk ... who spend their weekends in alphabet city (Avenues A, B, C, and D) on

2440-469: The 1975 New York City fiscal crisis . Residential buildings in Alphabet City and the East Village suffered from high levels of neglect, as property owners did not properly maintain their buildings. The city purchased many of these buildings, but was also unable to maintain them due to a lack of funds. In spite of the deterioration of the area's structures, its music and arts scenes were doing well. By

2562-801: The Alsatian region who had recently fallen under French rule, and the Swiss to immigrate. Alsace was sold to France within the greater context of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). The Jesuit Charlevoix traveled New France (Canada and Louisiana) in the early 1700s. His letter said "these 9,000 Germans, who were raised in the Palatinate (Alsace part of France) were in Arkansas. The Germans left Arkansas en masse. They went to New Orleans and demanded passage to Europe. The Mississippi Company gave

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2684-633: The Blue Ridge Mountains , where Palatine German predominated. Meanwhile, in Southwest Virginia , Virginia German acquired a Swabian German accent. In North Carolina , an expedition of German Moravians living around Bethlehem, Pennsylvania , and a party from Europe led by August Gottlieb Spangenberg , headed down the Great Wagon Road and purchased 98,985 acres (400.58 km ) from Lord Granville (one of

2806-664: The Frankfurter Wachensturm beginning in the 1830s—predominantly in Texas and Missouri, but also in other U.S. states—in which German intellectuals ( freethinkers , German: Freidenker , and Latinists ) met together to devote themselves to the German literature , philosophy , science, classical music, and the Latin language . A prominent representative of this generation of immigrants was Gustav Koerner who lived most of

2928-634: The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) are working to gain individual and district landmark designations for Alphabet City to preserve and protect the architectural and cultural identity of the neighborhood. In early 2011, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) proposed a small district along the block of 10th Street that lies north of Tompkins Square Park . The East 10th Street Historic District

3050-722: The War of 1812 . In 1709, Protestant Germans from the Pfalz or Palatine region of Germany escaped conditions of poverty, traveling first to Rotterdam and then to London. Queen Anne helped them get to the American colonies. The trip was long and difficult to survive because of the poor quality of food and water aboard ships and the infectious disease typhus . Many immigrants, particularly children, died before reaching America in June 1710. The Palatine immigration of about 2100 people who survived

3172-655: The 1848 revolutions sought political freedom, but few, save perhaps the Wends, went for religious freedom. The German settlements in Texas reflected their diversity. Even in the confined area of the Hill Country, each valley offered a different kind of German. The Llano valley had stern, teetotaling German Methodists, who renounced dancing and fraternal organizations; the Pedernales valley had fun-loving, hardworking Lutherans and Catholics who enjoyed drinking and dancing; and

3294-537: The 1960s. German American German Americans (German: Deutschamerikaner , pronounced [ˈdɔʏtʃʔameʁɪˌkaːnɐ] ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. According to the United States Census Bureau 's figures from 2022, German Americans make up roughly 41 million people in the US, which is approximately 12% of the population. This represents a decrease from

3416-724: The 1970s, gay dance halls and punk rock clubs had started to open in the neighborhood. These included the Pyramid Club , which opened in 1979 at 101 Avenue A; it hosted musical acts such as Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers , as well as drag performers such as RuPaul and Ann Magnuson . Alphabet City was one of many neighborhoods in New York to experience gentrification in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Multiple factors resulted in lower crime rates and higher rents in Manhattan in general, and Alphabet City in particular. Avenues A through D became distinctly less bohemian in

3538-694: The 19th century, German immigrants settled in Midwest, where land was available. Cities along the Great Lakes, the Ohio River, and the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers attracted a large German element. The Midwestern cities of Milwaukee , Cincinnati , St. Louis , Chicago were favored destinations of German immigrants. The Northern Kentucky and Louisville area along the Ohio River was also

3660-628: The 19th century, pressure increased from the Russian government to culturally assimilate. Many Germans from Russia found it necessary to emigrate to avoid conscription and preserve their culture. About 100,000 immigrated by 1900, settling primarily in the Great Plains . Negatively influenced by the violation of their rights and cultural persecution by the Tsar , the Germans from Russia who settled in

3782-432: The 2012 census where 50.7 million Americans identified as German. The census is conducted in a way that allows this total number to be broken down in two categories. In the 2020 census, roughly two thirds of those who identify as German also identified as having another ancestry, while one third identified as German alone. German Americans account for about one third of the total population of people of German ancestry in

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3904-484: The 21st century than they had been in earlier decades. In the 1970s, rents were extremely low and the neighborhood was considered one of the least desirable places in Manhattan to live in. However, as early as 1983, the Times reported that because of the influx of artists, many longtime establishments and immigrants were being forced to leave the area due to rising rents. By the following year, young professionals constituted

4026-634: The 21st century. Few German immigrants settled in the Deep South , apart from New Orleans , the German Coast , and Texas. Texas attracted many Germans who entered through Galveston and Indianola , both those who came to farm, and later immigrants who more rapidly took industrial jobs in cities such as Houston. As in Milwaukee , Germans in Houston built the brewing industry. By the 1920s,

4148-480: The Alphabet City area was part of Bowery Number 2. The southwest quarter was part of Bowery Number 3. Both belonged initially to the company but were soon sold to individuals. By 1663, a year before surrendering the colony to England, Director General Peter Stuyvesant had acquired the relevant part of Number 2 and much of Number 3 from other settlers. The company divided the southeast quarter of Alphabet City into small lots associated with larger parcels further away from

4270-697: The British Lords Proprietor) in the Piedmont of North Carolina in 1753. The tract was dubbed Wachau-die-Aue , Latinized Wachovia , because the streams and meadows reminded Moravian settlers of the Wachau valley in Austria . They established German settlements on that tract, especially in the area around what is now Winston-Salem . They also founded the transitional settlement of Bethabara, North Carolina , translated as House of Passage,

4392-799: The Burnetsfield Patent. By 1750, the Germans occupied a strip some 12 miles (19 km) long along both sides of the Mohawk River . The soil was excellent; some 500 houses were built, mostly of stone, and the region prospered in spite of Indian raids. Herkimer was the best-known of the German settlements in a region long known as the "German Flats". They kept to themselves, married their own, spoke German, attended Lutheran churches, and retained their own customs and foods. They emphasized farm ownership. Some mastered English to become conversant with local legal and business opportunities. They tolerated slavery (although few were rich enough to own

4514-469: The Ficketts, another shipbuilding clan, built numerous three-story brick houses along Avenue D as well as cross streets west to Avenues C. They occupied some themselves and rented lesser variants to skilled laborers. By the early 1840s, shipyard owners dotted the neighborhood, and the majority of the city's ship carpenters lived in a narrow strip of blocks along Avenue D and Lewis Street, a stone's throw from

4636-687: The German immigrants who sailed across the Atlantic to Virginia and the British queen, Anne , who was in power at the time of the first settlement at Germanna. In 1721, twelve German families departed Germanna to found Germantown . They were swiftly replaced by 70 new German arrivals from the Palatinate , the start of a westward and southward trend of German migration and settlement across the Virginia Piedmont and Shenandoah Valley around

4758-519: The German states , a wave of political refugees fled to America, who became known as Forty-Eighters . They included professionals, journalists, and politicians. Prominent Forty-Eighters included Carl Schurz and Henry Villard . "Latin farmer" or Latin Settlement is the designation of several settlements founded by some of the Dreissiger and other refugees from Europe after rebellions like

4880-513: The Germans rich lands on the right bank of the Mississippi River about 25 miles (40 km) above New Orleans. The area is now known as 'the German Coast '." A thriving population of Germans lived upriver from New Orleans , Louisiana, known as the German Coast . They were attracted to the area through pamphlets such as J. Hanno Deiler's "Louisiana: A Home for German Settlers". Two waves of German colonists in 1714 and 1717 founded

5002-723: The Guadalupe valley had freethinking Germans descended from intellectual political refugees. The scattered German ethnic islands were also diverse. These small enclaves included Lindsay in Cooke County, largely Westphalian Catholic; Waka in Ochiltree County, Midwestern Mennonite; Hurnville in Clay County, Russian German Baptist; and Lockett in Wilbarger County, Wendish Lutheran. Germans from Russia were

Alphabet City, Manhattan - Misplaced Pages Continue

5124-566: The LPC has not granted these rowhouses landmark status. The LPC also declined to add 264 East 7th Street (the former home of illustrator Felicia Bond ) and four neighboring rowhouses to the East Village/Lower East Side Historic District. In 2008, nearly the entire Alphabet City area was "downzoned" as part of an effort led by local community groups including GVSHP, the local community board, and local elected officials. In most parts of Alphabet City,

5246-601: The Lower East Side. The New York State Tenement House Act of 1901 drastically changed the regulations to which buildings in the East Side had to conform. Simultaneously, the Yiddish Theatre District or "Yiddish Rialto" developed within the East Side, centered around Second Avenue . It contained many theaters and other forms of entertainment for the Jewish immigrants of the city. By World War I ,

5368-625: The Lower East Side." Similarly, a November 1984 article in The New York Times reported "Younger artists ... are moving downtown to an area variously referred to as Alphabetland, Alphabetville, or Alphabet City (Avenues A, B, C and so forth on the Lower East Side of Manhattan)." The term appeared in March 1983 in the New York Daily News regarding anti-drug raids in the area. It also appeared in The New York Times in an April 1984 editorial by Mayor Ed Koch justifying recent police operations: The neighborhood, known as Alphabet City because of its lettered avenues that run easterly from First Avenue to

5490-439: The Other Half Lives , Riis wrote that "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." 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. The Roman Catholic Poles as well as the Protestant Hungarians would also have

5612-436: The Owners unless upon the most Economical Scale of Expense and under all the Encouragements which can be offered by the Corporation Consistently with the public Interests. To this end, the proposed market place, like most of the public spaces in the plan, was returned to private hands. It was reduced to a sliver in 1815, then scrapped altogether in 1824. The city argued that the land was too remote to serve its intended purpose at

5734-408: The U.S. ramped up sharply during the 19th century. There is a German belt consisting of areas with predominantly German American populations that extends across the United States from eastern Pennsylvania, where many of the first German Americans settled, to the Oregon coast. Pennsylvania, with 3.5 million people of German ancestry, has the largest population of German-Americans in the U.S. and

5856-485: The United States in 2020. The Germans included many quite distinct subgroups with differing religious and cultural values. Lutherans and Catholics typically opposed Yankee moralizing programs such as the prohibition of beer, and favored paternalistic families with the husband deciding the family position on public affairs. They generally opposed women's suffrage but this was used as argument in favor of suffrage when German Americans became pariahs during World War I. On

5978-417: The United States. The Polish enclave in the East Village persisted, though numerous other immigrant groups had moved out, and their former churches were sold and became Orthodox cathedrals . 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 Loisaida. The East Side's population started to decline at

6100-594: The area east of Avenue A between Houston and 14th Streets "the neighborhood," "The East Village," "The Lower East Side" or its Spanglish version, "Loisaida." That's because calling it "Alphabet City" brings too many memories of the days when outsiders began coming to Avenues A, B, C and D for the galleries, the clubs and the drugs. Several local nickname sets associated with the ABCD denotation have included Adventurous, Brave, Crazy and Dead and, more recently by writer George Pendle, "Affluent, Bourgeois, Comfortable, Decent". Prior to development, most of present-day Alphabet City

6222-424: The area's largest employers. Novelty had about 1200 workers at its peak in the 1850s, and was regarded as a marvel of engineering and operations. As shipyards filled the riverfront, housing popped up nearby. In many cases, shipbuilders themselves played the role of developer. Noah Brown, for example, built a boardinghouse for apprentices south of Houston and invested in large plots to the north. Beginning around 1830,

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6344-431: The area's rampant physical and social decline and downplayed the area’s Latino identity." Pete Hamill , a longtime New York City journalist, cites darker origins. NYPD officers, he claims, referred to the most degraded areas east of Avenue B as Alphabet City in the 1950s. Whatever its origins, the name began to appear in print around 1980 with all three associations—crime, art, and gentrification. A December 1980 article in

6466-668: The chance to start fresh in the New World. The arrivals before 1850 were mostly farmers who sought out the most productive land, where their intensive farming techniques would pay off. After 1840, many came to cities, where German-speaking districts emerged. German Americans established the first kindergartens in the United States, introduced the Christmas tree tradition, and introduced popular foods such as hot dogs and hamburgers to America. The great majority of people with some German ancestry have become Americanized ; fewer than five percent speak German. German-American societies abound, as do celebrations that are held throughout

6588-417: The city resolved on a simpler sewer system. In this design, the land would slope down to Avenue C from both east and west like a trough, and flow through a sewer to the river at 14th Street (Avenue C was widened to 80 feet for the purpose). With this decided, roads and buildings went forward, though sewer construction itself would wait for decades. Archaeological excavations along Avenue C at 8th Street show that

6710-428: The city's growth forced the shipyards to migrate periodically to peripheral sites: above Dover Street around 1750, below Corlears Hook (some five blocks south of Houston Street) around 1800, then, beginning in the 1820s, the marshes of Alphabet City. During the 1840s and 50s, the East River, from Corlears Hook to 13th Street, and inland as far as Avenue C, represented the greatest concentration of shipbuilding activity in

6832-606: The colonists. German immigrants also settled in other areas of the American South , including around the Dutch (Deutsch) Fork area of South Carolina , and Texas, especially in the Austin and San Antonio areas. Between 1742 and 1753, roughly 1,000 Germans settled in Broad Bay, Massachusetts (now Waldoboro, Maine ). Many of the colonists fled to Boston , Maine, Nova Scotia, and North Carolina after their houses were burned and their neighbors killed or carried into captivity by Native Americans. The Germans who remained found it difficult to survive on farming, and eventually turned to

6954-480: The country to celebrate German heritage of which the German-American Steuben Parade in New York City is one of the most well-known and is held every third Saturday in September. Oktoberfest celebrations and the German-American Day are popular festivities. There are major annual events in cities with German heritage including Chicago, Cincinnati , Milwaukee , Pittsburgh , San Antonio , and St. Louis . Around 180,000 permanent residents from Germany were living in

7076-445: The country. After the Civil War , land and labor costs, along with the switch from wood to more massive iron hulls , would push the industry off the island entirely. Shipyards first appeared along the southern end of the area's shoreline, roughly between Stanton and 3rd Street. This location was not only close to existing yards but also a relative high point. Indeed, it was called, rather confusingly, Manhattan Island, in reference to

7198-433: The district's theaters hosted as many as 20 to 30 shows a night. After World War II , Yiddish theater became less popular, and by the mid-1950s few theaters were still extant in the District. The city built First Houses on the south side of East 3rd Street between First Avenue and Avenue A , and on the west side of Avenue A between East 2nd and East 3rd Streets in 1935–1936, the first such public housing project in

7320-423: The end of the 20th century, real estate prices had resumed their rapid rise. About half of Alphabet City's stores had opened within the decade since the riot, while vacancy rates in that period had dropped from 20% to 3%, indicating that many of the longtime merchants had been pushed out. The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space opened on Avenue C in the building known as C-Squat in 2012. An archive of urban activism,

7442-456: The entire block of 10th Street from Avenue A to Avenue B . The block was located adjacent to Tompkins Square Park , located between 7th and 10th Streets from Avenue A to Avenue B, designated the same year. Though the park was not in the original Commissioners' Plan of 1811, part of the land from 7th to 10th Streets east of First Avenue had been set aside for a marketplace that was ultimately never built. Rowhouses of 2.5 to 3 stories were built on

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7564-458: The expense of so much landfill. In 1823, a newly created committee, with latitude to amend the 1811 plan, proposed to save money with a network of closed sewers, but these suffered a bad reputation from repeated clogging in older parts of the city. Another proposal, from a new committee, echoed the former market place design, calling for open, ornamented canals on 6th, 9th and 14th Streets. In 1832, as no amount of fill seemed to stem periodic flooding,

7686-430: The famous blade town of Solingen . With their skills, they made wagons that carried the frontiersmen westward; their cannons provided the Union Army with artillery in the American Civil War , and their automobile company became one of the largest in America, although never eclipsing the "Big Three", and was a factor in the war effort and in the industrial foundations of the Army. Great Britain, whose King George III

7808-401: The first colonization of Louisiana with German immigrants. Of the over 5,000 Germans initially immigrating primarily from the Alsace Region as few as 500 made up the first wave of immigrants to leave France en route to the Americas. Less than 150 of those first indentured German farmers made it to Louisiana and settled along what became known as the German Coast. With tenacity, determination and

7930-401: The first generation of college-educated German Americans were moving into the chemical and oil industries. Texas had about 20,000 German Americans in the 1850s. They did not form a uniform bloc, but were highly diverse and drew from geographic areas and all sectors of European society, except that very few aristocrats or upper middle class businessmen arrived. In this regard, Texas Germania was

8052-622: The first planned Moravian community in North Carolina, in 1759. Soon after, the German Moravians founded the town of Salem in 1766 (now a historical section in the center of Winston-Salem) and Salem College (an early female college) in 1772. In the Georgia Colony , Germans mainly from the Swabia region settled in Savannah, St. Simon's Island and Fort Frederica in the 1730s and 1740s. They were actively recruited by James Oglethorpe and quickly distinguished themselves through improved farming, advanced tabby (cement) -construction, and leading joint Lutheran- Anglican -Reformed religious services for

8174-467: The former low-water mark of the marsh. Shipbuilders included Smith & Dimon (4th to 5th Street), William H. Webb (5th to 7th Street), Jacob A. Westervelt (7th to 8th Street) and William H. Brown (11th to 12th Street). Alongside them were sparmakers, who built masts for the booming clipper trade, as well as iron works, which manufactured steam engines. Morgan Iron Works (9th to 10th Street) and Novelty Iron Works (12th to 14th Street) soon became

8296-403: The island widened east of First Avenue . The plan called for stretches of Avenue A and Avenue B north of midtown, all of which have been renamed. In 1943, Avenue A went as far north as 25th Street, Avenue B ended at 21st Street and Avenue C reached 18th Street. Stuyvesant Town , a post–World War II private residential development, blotted out the rest of A and B above 14th Street (sparing only

8418-425: The leadership of D'arensburg these Germans felled trees, cleared land, and cultivated the soil with simple hand tools as draft animals were not available. The German coast settlers supplied the budding City of New Orleans with corn, rice, eggs. and meat for many years following. The Mississippi Company settled thousands of German pioneers in French Louisiana during 1721. It encouraged Germans, particularly Germans of

8540-415: The loss of their language, the ethnic group remains distinct, and has left a lasting impression on the American West. Musician Lawrence Welk (1903–1992) became an iconic figure in the German-Russian community of the northern Great Plains—his success story personified the American dream. Salt marsh Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include

8662-429: The manifesto of their settlement the ability to practice their respective Christian denominations, retain their culture and language, and retain immunity from conscription for them and their descendants. As time passed, the Russian monarchy gradually eroded the ethnic German population's relative autonomy. Conscription eventually was reinstated; this was especially harmful to the Mennonites, who practice pacifism. Throughout

8784-419: The marshy environs, Alphabet City landowners, mostly Stuyvesants, argued for an extra measure of deference and the city concurred: It is stated in the memorial [of the landowners] and the fact is unquestionable that the extensive tract of sunken meadow land lying between North Street [now Houston Street] and Brandy mulah Point [Burnt Mill Point, near 12th Street] cannot be improved with any prospect of Benefit to

8906-709: The most traditional of German-speaking arrivals. They were Germans who had lived for generations throughout the Russian Empire , but especially along the Volga River and the Black Sea . Their ancestors had come from all over the German-speaking world, invited by Catherine the Great in 1762 and 1763 to settle and introduce more advanced German agriculture methods to rural Russia. They had been promised by

9028-538: The mouth of the East River. Stuyvesant and his heirs, with the help of slave labor, continued to occupy their farm as a country estate, cultivating it lightly and making few changes to the land. After the Revolutionary War , with a surge in population and trade, the city was poised to grow northward. Around 1789, Peter Stuyvesant , great-grandson of the Director General by that name, came up with

9150-688: The museum explores the history of grassroots movements in the East Village and offers guided walking tours of community gardens, squats, and sites of social change. Politically, Alphabet City is in New York's 7th and 12th congressional districts. It is also in the New York State Senate 's 27th and 28th districts, the New York State Assembly 's 65th and 74th districts, and the New York City Council 's 1st and 2nd districts. Local community groups such as

9272-402: The neighborhood as a whole was often called Dry Dock. In 1828, an observer wrote, "No place on this island has the destroying hand of man done more to alter the face of nature... Hills of great magnitude have been entirely levelled, or cut down, and used to fill up docks and wharves." By the early 1840s, the shipyards formed a solid line along the riverfront, jutting out several hundred feet from

9394-463: The neighborhood. The population of Manhattan's 17th ward, which included the western part of the modern Alphabet City, doubled from 18,000 people in 1840 to over 43,000 in 1850, and nearly doubled yet again to 73,000 persons in 1860, becoming the city's most highly populated ward at that time. As a result of the Panic of 1837 , the city had experienced less construction in the previous years, and so there

9516-462: The new one. On the other hand, Alphabet City retained its long, arcing bank along the East River, just north of the ever-growing ports and shipyards that animated the city. The commissioners placed the avenues on the east side of the island closer together in anticipation of denser development there. For Alphabet City proper, they envisioned a wholesale food market supplying the entire city. It would extend from 7th to 10th Street and from First Avenue to

9638-514: The new roads were rotated relative to the existing ones just below Alphabet City. Moreover, the commissioners could do little to straighten the shoreline. They were limited by charter to reclaiming 400 feet beyond the low-water mark, much less than the Mangin-Goerck plan entailed. First Avenue reflected this limit. It was drawn parallel to Fifth Avenue (called Middle Road in earlier designs) as far east as possible while not straying too far into

9760-543: The northern Midwest saw themselves as a downtrodden ethnic group separate from Russian Americans and having an entirely different experience from the German Americans who had emigrated from German lands. They settled in tight-knit communities who retained their German language and culture. They raised large families, built German-style churches, buried their dead in distinctive cemeteries using cast iron grave markers, and sang German hymns. Many farmers specialized in

9882-460: The old St. Nicholas Kirche . Until the mid-20th century, the area was simply the northern part of the Lower East Side, with a similar culture of immigrant, working-class life. In the 1950s and 1960s, the migration of Beatniks into the East Village attracted hippies, musicians, writers, and artists who had been priced out of the rapidly gentrifying Greenwich Village . Among the first displaced Greenwich Villagers to stray as far east as Alphabet City

10004-452: The old country dominated the city's Socialists . Skilled workers dominated many crafts, while entrepreneurs created the brewing industry; the most famous brands included Pabst , Schlitz , Miller , and Blatz . Whereas half of German immigrants settled in cities, the other half established farms in the Midwest . From Ohio to the Plains states, a heavy presence persists in rural areas into

10126-579: The opportunity to own land, and religious freedom. Often immigrants paid for their passage by selling their labor for a period of years as indentured servants . Large sections of Pennsylvania, Upstate New York , and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia attracted Germans. Most were Lutheran or German Reformed ; many belonged to small religious sects such as the Moravians and Mennonites . German Catholics did not arrive in number until after

10248-762: The other hand, there were Protestant groups who emerged from European pietism such as the German Methodist and United Brethren; they more closely resembled the Yankee Methodists in their moralism. The first English settlers arrived at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, and were accompanied by the first German that was to settle in North America, physician and botanist Johannes (John) Fleischer (in South America Ambrosius Ehinger had already founded Maracaibo in 1529). He

10370-581: The patriot side . The Muhlenberg family, led by Rev. Henry Muhlenberg was especially influential on the Patriot side. His son Peter Muhlenberg , a Lutheran clergyman in Virginia became a major general and later a Congressman. However, in upstate New York, many Germans were neutral or supported the Loyalist cause. From names in the 1790 U.S. census, historians estimate Germans constituted nearly 9% of

10492-712: The population. By 1850 there were 5,000 Germans, mostly Schwabians living in, and around, Ann Arbor, Michigan . Many concentrations acquired distinctive names suggesting their heritage, such as the " Over-the-Rhine " district in Cincinnati, " Dutchtown " in South St Louis, and " German Village " in Columbus, Ohio. A particularly attractive destination was Milwaukee , which came to be known as "the German Athens ". Radical Germans trained in politics in

10614-511: The problems of the area through settlement houses , such as the Henry Street Settlement , and other welfare and service agencies. Because most of the new immigrants were German speakers, modern Alphabet City, East Village and the Lower East Side collectively became known as " Little Germany " (German: Kleindeutschland ). The neighborhood had the third largest urban population of Germans outside of Vienna and Berlin . It

10736-659: The production of sugar beets and wheat, which are still major crops in the upper Great Plains. During World War   I, their identity was challenged by anti-German sentiment . By the end of World War   II, the German language, which had always been used with English for public and official matters, was in serious decline. Today, German is preserved mainly through singing groups, recipes, and educational settings. While most descendants of Germans from Russia primarily speak English, many are choosing to learn German in an attempt to reconnect with their heritage. Germans from Russia often use loanwords , such as Kuchen for cake. Despite

10858-474: The rare industry where tradition persisted and kept wages, skill and respect generally high. He and others also credit shipyard workers with pioneering the reduction of work hours in the United States. A "Mechanics' Bell" hung for decades along the Alphabet City riverfront to enforce the ten-hour day that journeymen secured around 1834. Labor reformer George McNeill likened it to a "'Liberty Bell' ... for

10980-583: The rezoning requires that new development occur in harmony with the low-rise character of the area. Loisaida / ˌ l oʊ . iː ˈ s aɪ d ə / is a term derived from the Spanish (and especially Nuyorican ) pronunciation of " Lower East Side ". Originally coined by poet/activist Bittman "Bimbo" Rivas in his 1974 poem "Loisaida", it now refers to Avenue C in Alphabet City , whose population has largely been Hispanic (mainly Nuyorican ) since

11102-399: The river, has for years been occupied by a stubbornly persistent plague of street dealers in narcotics whose flagrantly open drug dealing has destroyed the community life of the neighborhood. In common, Mele notes, the early uses shared the "mystique of 'living on the edge.'" As early as 1989, however, a Newsday article suggested the mood, even among newcomers, had changed: Residents call

11224-407: The river, with a canal up the middle. The commissioners wrote: "The place selected for this purpose is a salt marsh, and from that circumstance, of inferior price, though in regard to its destination, of greater value than other soil." Despite having sought a binding plan, the city requested many modifications from the state during execution, generally along lines demanded by property interests. Given

11346-421: The same are overflowed by the spring tides, particularly near the seaboard. These meadows resemble the lows and outlands of the Netherlands. Most of them could be dyked and cultivated. The Dutch, then, were singularly attuned to the potential for land reclamation. During the city's first two centuries, however, large-scale landfill was limited to the more commercial southern end of the island, particularly wharfs at

11468-435: The shipping and fishing industries. The tide of German immigration to Pennsylvania swelled between 1725 and 1775, with immigrants arriving as redemptioners or indentured servants. By 1775, Germans constituted about one-third of the population of the state. German farmers were renowned for their highly productive animal husbandry and agricultural practices. Politically, they were generally inactive until 1740, when they joined

11590-423: The shore. In this way, upland farmers gained access to the unique tidal ecosystem—"salt meadow" as they called it—and with it, " salt hay ," a cordgrass species valued as fodder. In his influential Description of New Netherland (1655), Adriaen van der Donck informed his fellow Dutchmen: There [are] salt meadows; some so extensive that the eye cannot oversee the same. Those are good for pasturage and hay, although

11712-482: The shoreline such that Alphabet City and the Lower East Side were no longer an isolated bulge. When this plan succumbed to political squabbles and landowner demands, the city appealed to the state to dictate a design. The result was the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 , setting out the street grid of Manhattan above Houston Street. "In general," the commissioners resolved, everything "should be rectangular." However,

11834-477: The side streets by such developers as Elisha Peck and Anson Green Phelps ; Ephraim H. Wentworth; and Christopher S. Hubbard and Henry H. Casey. Following the rapid growth of the neighborhood, Manhattan's 17th ward was split from the 11th ward in 1837. The former covered the area from Avenue B to the Bowery, while the latter covered the area from Avenue B to the East River. By the middle of the 19th century, many of

11956-412: The sinking of the General Slocum on June 15, 1904, in which over a thousand German-Americans died. The Germans who moved out of the area were replaced by immigrants of many different nationalities. 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. In How

12078-542: The site was incrementally raised 10–12 feet between 1820 and 1840, occupied from the 1840s (with the aid of a private cistern), and only drained by the proposed sewer line in 1867. The Alphabet City area initially developed along the riverfront, during the 1820s, as part of the city's expanding shipbuilding and repair industry. Shipyards tended to form tight clusters in close proximity to specialized workers, such as ship carpenters, and ancillary manufacturers, such as iron works . They also required lots of cheap space. Hence,

12200-447: The sons of toil." The Commissioners' Plan and resulting street grid was the catalyst for the northward expansion of the city, and for a short period, the portion of the Lower East Side that is now Alphabet City was one of the wealthiest residential neighborhoods in the city. Following the grading of the streets, development of rowhouses came to the East Side and NoHo by the early 1830s. In 1833, Thomas E. Davis and Arthur Bronson bought

12322-609: 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. Many old tenements, deemed to be "blighted" and unnecessary, were destroyed in the middle of the 20th century. The Village View Houses on First Avenue between East 2nd and 6th Streets were opened in 1964, partially on the site of

12444-527: The time and that holding onto it would deter development. Urban historian Edward Spann lamented, "What was perhaps the most far-sighted feature of the Plan was the first to be completely eliminated." In the same act that abolished the market place, the state accommodated a landowner petition to narrow just the lettered avenues. From the standard avenue width of 100 feet (30 m), Avenue A was reduced to 80 feet (24 m), Avenues B, C and D to 60 feet (18 m),

12566-735: The time in Belleville, Illinois until his death. A few German Jews came in the colonial era . The largest numbers arrived after 1820, especially in the mid-19th century. They spread across the North and South (and California, where Levi Strauss arrived in 1853). They formed small German-Jewish communities in cities and towns. They typically were local and regional merchants selling clothing; others were livestock dealers, agricultural commodity traders, bankers, and operators of local businesses. Henry Lehman , who founded Lehman Brothers in Alabama,

12688-485: The water. Irregular bits of land protruded beyond First Avenue and, for these cases, the commissioners turned to lettered avenues. Avenues A and B appeared around Alphabet City, popped up again above midtown, and once more in Harlem (they were eventually renamed or eliminated above Alphabet City). Avenues C and D existed only in Alphabet City. Thus the neighborhood was misaligned with the old grid and relatively disconnected to

12810-566: The wealthy had continued to move further northward to the Upper West Side and the Upper East Side . 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." 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

12932-529: The wetlands. Dutch settlers brought a different model of land ownership and use. In 1625, representatives of the Dutch West India Company set their sights on lower Manhattan, with plans for a fortified town at its tip served by farms above. In 1626, they "purchased" the island from a local Lenape group and began parceling the land into boweries (from the Dutch for "farm"). The northern half of

13054-465: The wharfs. Throughout this period, the industry was dominated by in-migrants drawn to the booming shipyards from surrounding countryside and boatbuilding regions across New England . They shared a traditional production model in which artisans progressed from apprentices to journeymen to masters , all while living and working side by side. Sean Wilentz , who documented the sweatshop proclivities of antebellum New York City, points to shipbuilding as

13176-482: The white population in the United States. The brief Fries's Rebellion was an anti-tax movement among Germans in Pennsylvania in 1799–1800. The largest flow of German immigration to America occurred between 1820 and World War   I , during which time nearly six million Germans immigrated to the United States. From 1840 to 1880, they were the largest group of immigrants. Following the Revolutions of 1848 in

13298-722: The width of most cross-streets. "Incapable of use as thoroughfares to and from the City," wrote the city council, "they cannot be considered as avenues in the proper Sense of the term." Instead, they should "correspond as far as possible with the Old Streets [below Houston] of which they will form the Continuation & be called by the Same names & be regulated by the Corporation as Streets." Weighing heavily in these decisions

13420-470: The world. The first significant groups of German immigrants arrived in the British colonies in the 1670s, and they settled primarily in the colonial states of Pennsylvania , New York , and Virginia . The Mississippi Company of France later transported thousands of Germans from Europe to what was then the German Coast, Orleans Territory in present-day Louisiana between 1718 and 1750. Immigration to

13542-498: Was America's first foreign language neighborhood; hundreds of political, social, sports and recreational clubs were set up during this period. Numerous churches were built in the neighborhood, of which many are still extant. In addition, Little Germany also had its own library on Second Avenue in nearby East Village, now the New York Public Library 's Ottendorfer branch. However, the community started to decline after

13664-534: Was a salt marsh , regularly flooded by the tides of the East River (technically an estuary, not a river). Marshes played a critical role in the food web and protected the coast. The Lenape Native Americans who inhabited Manhattan before European contact presided over similar ecosystems from New York Bay to Delaware Bay . They tended to settle in forest clearings. In summer, however, they foraged shellfish, gathered cordgrass for weaving, and otherwise exploited

13786-650: Was a dearth of units available for immigrants, resulting in the subdivision of many houses in lower Manhattan. Another solution was brand-new "tenant houses", or tenements , within the East Side. Clusters of these buildings were constructed by the Astor family and Stephen Whitney . 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. Numerous tenements were erected, typically with footprints of 25 by 25 feet (7.6 by 7.6 m), before regulatory legislation

13908-591: Was a particularly prominent example of such a German-Jewish immigrant. They formed Reform synagogues and sponsored numerous local and national philanthropic organizations, such as B'nai B'rith . This German-speaking group is quite distinct from the Yiddish-speaking East-European Jews who arrived in much larger numbers starting in the late 19th century and concentrated in New York. The port cities of New York City, and Baltimore had large populations, as did Hoboken, New Jersey . In

14030-627: Was also the Elector of Hanover in Germany, hired 18,000 Hessians . They were mercenary soldiers rented out by the rulers of several small German states such as Hesse to fight on the British side. Many were captured; they remained as prisoners during the war but some stayed and became U.S. citizens. In the American Revolution the Mennonites and other small religious sects were neutral pacifists. The Lutherans of Pennsylvania were on

14152-587: Was demolished in 2012 for the construction of a 33-unit rental called "The Robyn". In 2010, GVSHP and the East Village Community Coalition asked the LPC to consider for landmark designation 326 and 328 East 4th Street, two Greek Revival rowhouses dating from 1837–41, which over the years housed merchants affiliated with the shipyards, a synagogue, and most recently an art collective called the Uranian Phalanstery . However,

14274-481: Was designated by the LPC in January 2012. Several notable buildings are designated as individual landmarks. These include: Other buildings of note include "Political Row", a block of stately rowhouses on East 7th Street between Avenues C and D, where political leaders of every kind lived in the 19th century; the landmarked Wheatsworth Bakery building on East 10th Street near Avenue D; and next to it, 143-145 Avenue D,

14396-605: Was followed in 1608 by five glassmakers and three carpenters or house builders. The first permanent German settlement in what became the United States was Germantown, Pennsylvania , founded near Philadelphia on October 6, 1683. Large numbers of Germans migrated from the 1680s to 1760s, with Pennsylvania the favored destination. They migrated to America for a variety of reasons. Push factors involved worsening opportunities for farm ownership in central Europe, persecution of some religious groups, and military conscription; pull factors were better economic conditions, especially

14518-522: Was passed in the 1860s. 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 Tenements . Reform movements, such as the one started by Jacob Riis 's 1890 book How the Other Half Lives , continued to attempt to alleviate

14640-489: Was poet Allen Ginsberg , who moved to 206 East 7th Street in 1951. His apartment served as a "nerve center" for writers such as William Burroughs , Jack Kerouac and Gregory Corso . Further change came in 1955 when the Third Avenue elevated railway above the Bowery and Third Avenue was removed. This in turn made the East Side more attractive to potential residents, and by 1960, The New York Times said that "this area

14762-590: Was the largest single immigration to America in the colonial period. Most were first settled along the Hudson River in work camps, to pay off their passage. By 1711, seven villages had been established in New York on the Robert Livingston manor. In 1723 Germans became the first Europeans allowed to buy land in the Mohawk Valley west of Little Falls . One hundred homesteads were allocated in

14884-438: Was the marsh itself and the water that drained—or failed to drain—through it. The debate about grading and draining Alphabet City's streets went round and round for over a decade, even as filling proceeded. The standard design called for the land to slope down to the river uniformly throughout the watershed, which extended as far inland as Bowery . However, landowners, who would be assessed the cost of road construction, objected to

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