New York's Lower East Side

New York's Lower East Side

Living Conditions for Jewish Immigrants

This painting by Albert Potter appeared very informative to me as it so vividly depicts New York's Lower East Side. During the beginning of twentieth century, the Lower East Side was essentially the main area where a large amount of Jewish immigrants lived. The painting displays these people crowded heavily with various signs of community and patronage. As the streets remain busy and congested, the Lower East Side was able to provide a popular mean of pushcart trading and other retail occupations. Some of these include the incorporation of restaurants, kosher butcher shops and bakeries, which all seem fitting for the preference of Jewish immigrants. Potter was another Jewish immigrant that travelled from Russia in order to seek a better life through his works of art. I felt that this depiction of an immigrant living environment was able to capture quite a few different messages about the life of a Jewish American citizen. I saw that a place such as this provided a strong sense of community that allowed those of the Jewish culture to continuously relish and immerse themselves in their own culture. Not only this, but the fact that most were attempting to adapt further into living at somewhat of an American lifestyle. So having a constant reminder of the past life and culture they lived through only further benefitted the immigrants to remain intact with pieces of their old lives in a place where so many different cultures are mixed amongst each other. Yet even though these Jewish immigrants were Americanized, they were able to still hold on to a small piece of home to themselves in the process. This type of community could of proved useful to Abraham Cahan's fictional character Yekl, as he could of used this type of environment to his advantage of keeping his priorities for his life and family's future in the right place instead of the opposite route that he had followed.

Albert Potter

Albert Potter (1903-1937) Eastside New York, between 1931 and 1935. Woodcut print. Ben and Beatrice Goldstein Foundation Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (67)

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/haven-century.html#obj13

Ben and Beatrice Goldstein Foundation Collection, Library of Congress

1931-1935

Evan Orfanos