Immigrant New York

I woke up this morning not wanting to get out of my bed even though i should be happy that it was the last day of class but because it was raining i was so tempted to stay in my bed but then i thought to myself i might as well suck it up because I've done this for about 6 weeks now. As usual I'm always the early bird and likes to be on time so i left my house 9am to catch the Q83 and hopped on the E train. By the time i got to Penn Station it was 10:20 so i walked around to kill time and wait for the rest of the students and the professor to start. I also made sure that i put money on my metro card so i wouldn't have to do so when we were getting ready to leave and to my surprise as we getting ready to hop on the F train to Delancy Street, i swiped my card and it wouldn't work. I tried to yell out to Vanessa but she was already gone so i stayed to put money on my card since there were no students from my group behind. Thinking that they would wait, by the time i swiped my card i didn't see which direction they went or even saw anyone from the class. I ran up the stairs trying to get signal so i made a few calls to Mike and of course no answer ( he's famous for that). I also tried to call Vanessa but her phone seemed to be off. By this time I'm sweating and getting irritated. Thank God i have a smartphone so i went on the website to get the class schedule to see which train i was suppose to take and where to get off at. I went down the ramp to wait on the F train and it was taking so long and by then my patience level was not so great. I was about to go home to my bed and enjoy my rainy day in if the train didn't come. Finally the train came and i got on there and got off at Delancy Street. Once i got off the train i exited on the west side( good thing i did that) and once again i called Mike's phone multiple of times and no answer and to my luck as I'm walking, i saw Makeda and the rest of the class across the street from Essex Street Market. I wanted to make a comment to Mike but i don't think he even realized that a student was missing. By this time it was pouring(worst than when we were in Times Square), so we decided to walk a few blocks to the Tenement Museum a bit early and waited until our tour guide arrived. This museum was a former tenement that was founded in 1988 to preserve the heritage of the nation's immigrants, honoring the millions who lived on the Lower East Side and in other immigrant ghettos (BG,p.122). The museum includes five apartments in a  six-story Italianate brownstone have been restored to their 19th century appearance to recreate the experiences of the families who lived there (BG,p.122). Tenements were built to exploit all available space and maximize the return for the landlord and this was one of many horrors of immigrant life(BG,p.122). The tour focused on the Moore family who was an Irish family living in a German community. When we got to the museum, we watched about four songs that was in the form of news that talked about the hardships that the Irish people faced. One of the major problem was that the Irish were being discriminated against and they could not apply for jobs which made it hard on them because a tenement around that time cost around $10 a month. One of the songs was talking about how these people would drink spoiled milk that consisted of ammonia,bleach,and other substances and people would die from drinking the milk even babies. After listening to the songs, we went to another section of the museum where we saw three small rooms, a bedroom, the kitchen,and a parlor. The tour guide told us you would find four families living in one floor with at least 12 people in a family. The rooms were not big either but that wasn't even the half of it. The living conditions were horrible; everyone in the tenement used one source of water and bathroom and in order to get access to the water, they would have to climb 5 floors down to go use it and on top of that there was no electricity around that time. People didn't have electricity and indoor toilets until the early 1900's. Joseph Moore lived in the tenement with his wife,Bridget and their three daughters. Joseph worked as a waiter earning $20 to try to make a " better" life for his family. We learned that their youngest daughter got sick and because there was no medicine at that time except for opium and alcohol a.k.a " the cure of all diseases" and eventually their youngest daughter died. After the death of their daughter, they moved. We also got to get a look at another family, the Katz, who lived on the same floor as the Moore's. We saw a couple of things that they left behind such as toothbrush,comb,shampoo and a small milk jug.I really enjoyed the museum because i had the privilege of learning what these families went through and to think that around that time the upper east side was flourishing while others were suffering and no one seemed to care..



After the museum, we walked a short distance to enjoy our final meal together at the super-authentic Congee Village. We had two big tables and we all had sesame chicken,vegetables,pork fried rice and fried chicken. I enjoyed the food,the only thing i did not like was the noodles. It was funny because a few students wanted to try bubble tea and they were told that they didn't have anymore and then the waiters came out with what looked like chocolate milk so we tried it and it was funny because we did not know what was in there. The other students and i had a ball messing with Meritta's head. Right after lunch we met with a local historian who guided us  on an Immigrant New York walking tours that took us through the Lower Eastside, the Bowery, and parts of Little Italy and Chinatown. I don't usually like tours but i knew that i was going to enjoy this tour because the tour guide was a college student just like we are so it made it easier to relate to him. He gave us a little background on the immigrants and we learned that some of the immigrants who migrated did not all go to one place; some went to areas that were specific to where they originated from.Our first stop was the Forward Building,which became the office for the Jewish Daily Forward. George Boehn designed the building in 1912. and it became the largest Yiddish-language paper of its time.The Jewish Daily Forward was secular and focused on issues of labor and assimilation http://streeteasy.com/nyc/building/the-forward-building .  Next we talked about the Eldridge Street Synagogue which was built in 1887. It was built by Eastern European Jews. When it first opened, hundreds of newly arrived immigrants from Russia and Poland gathered there to pray, socialize and build a community.It was a place where the Jews could worship openly and freely.The synagogue represented newly- found religious freedom for its immigrant founders and it was also a symbol of their economic aspirations. With its soaring 50-foot ceiling and exuberant Moorish-style interior, Eldridge Street provided an inspiring contrast to the crowded tenements, factories and shops of the Lower East Side http://www.eldridgestreet.org/history/history.
Our next exploration on the agenda was Chinatown.While many of Manhattan's other ethnic enclaves are shrinking or gentrifying, Chinatown is expanding eastward beyond its original boundaries into the Lower East Side and northward into Little Italy. Chinatown offers the neighborhood ambiance,bargains,food,knockoff designer handbags and perfume ( BG,p.107). Chinatown remains plagued by poverty,overcrowding,and physical deterioration; its housing and business space is largely substandard.It supports an underground economy that includes sweatshop labor,counterfeiting,and the smuggling of illegal immigrants (BG,p.108). We walked along Doyers Street which was originally a cart lane.It was once known as " Bloody Angle" recalling the turn of the 20th century tong war during which the two powerful families, the Hip Sings and On Leongs battled each other (BG,p.112). We came across the Church of the Transfiguration which was built as the Zion Episcopal Church that now serves as a Roman Catholic parish with masses given in English, Cantonese,and Mandarin (BG,p.112).Our last stop of the day was Little Italy. Little Italy is an ethnic enclave dating from the 1880s that has become increasingly Asian in recent years. The Italian population has moved away and today Little Italy has become a tourist draw,attracting visitors to its cafes,restaurants,and ethnic food stores (BG,p.114). We wrapped up the class and thanked our tour guide. I really enjoyed his tour because he knew what he was talking about and he didn't bore us. We parted ways from the teachers and me and Vanessa went to do a little fashion to finish the day.