Coping with tragedy through song: balladry of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
On March 25th, 1911, a fire broke out on the factory floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. By the time the flames had been put out, 145 workers, mostly young immigrant girls, had perished. The tragedy sent shockwaves through the immigrant community and became a symbol of the rampant mistreatment of workers by factory owners […]
Continue Reading
Exhuming the Signage of the Long Lost ‘Garden Cafeteria’ on East Broadway
A version of this article originally appeared in Bowery Boogie. Visitors to the Museum at Eldridge Street will be treated to an extra dose of neighborhood nostalgia, now that a massive sign from the beloved Garden Cafeteria has been installed on its walls. The East Broadway restaurant was once a Lower East Side institution and for decades […]
Continue ReadingGriff Family Recipes for a Sweet New Year
This post was adapted from a piece written by Hanna Griff-Sleven and last published in 2018. The Museum’s former Program Director, Hanna Griff-Sleven, not only cooked up many great programs (including our signature Egg Rolls, Egg Creams, and Empanadas Festival!) but is a wonderful chef, too. In this post from 2011, she shares some delicious […]
Continue Reading
What makes a museum a museum?
This post was researched and written by Haley Coopersmith. When you hear the word “museum” what comes to mind? Gilded reliquaries filled with the bones of biblical saints? Fiji mermaids, human skulls, and marble busts in glass cases? Or maybe rooms stuffed to the brim with a variety of taxidermy specimens and fossilized remains from […]
Continue Reading
On this day: bad press for “our down-town brethren”
This post was written by Museum intern Lila Norris. As you may have read, last week on September 4th marked the anniversary of the Eldridge Street Synagogue opening its doors, but this week marks another related anniversary regarding press that followed that opening. On September 11th, 1887 the Reform-based publication The American Isrealite, published in […]
Continue Reading
On This Day in 1887: Eldridge Street Synagogue opens its doors!
Today is a huge anniversary for the Museum and our landmark synagogue – on September 4th, 1887 the Eldridge Street Synagogue officially opened to the public. Remarkably, construction in the incredibly ornate building had begun only ten months earlier. And on September 4th, 1887, the Lower East Side gained its first purpose-built, large-scale synagogue. It […]
Continue Reading
Chop Suey’s Unbirthday
This post originally appeared on August 29, 2018 and has been modified slightly for reposting. We like to use this blog as a place to mark moments in time that are important to our collective past and present. But it can also be important to take stock of what is not, along with what is. […]
Continue Reading
Where You Live in New York May Say a Lot About Your Jewish Heritage
This blog post was written by Museum intern Dalia Rubinstein. It’s no secret that New York is one of the Jewish capitals of the world. The city alone is home to 1.1 million Jews, making it the largest Jewish community outside of Israel. It boasts the largest Jewish population of any world city, larger even […]
Continue Reading
The Lower East Side Goes to Camp
This year camp is all the rage, but I’m not talking about fashion or aesthetics. Think rather of the outdoors, friendship bracelets and nostalgia for your childhood. Today there are hundreds of summer camps around the country that cater to a range of interests from theater, religion, rocket science to sports. But this is old […]
Continue Reading
Not-So-Living History: The Queens Cemetery Belt
This post was written by Museum intern Sophie Brous. If you’ve ever flown over New York City, you may have noticed the huge number of cemeteries spanning the area around the Brooklyn-Queens border. Known as the Queens cemetery belt, this massive stretch of land claims at least 5 million interred in its soil. In fact, […]
Continue Reading
