"This book captures the uniqueness of the Lower East Side . . . the rich array of historic and cultural aspects of one of the most important neighborhoods in our country. It brings the past and the present vividly alive."  — Hon. Sheldon Silver, Speaker, New York State Assembly

The Lower East Side
REMEMBERED&REVISITED
History and Guide to a 
Legendary New York 
Neighborhood

The Lower East Side  Remembered & Revisited History and Guide to a  Legendary New York  Neighborhood By Joyce Mendelsohn 125 b/w illustrations • 5" x 8½" 160 pages • Paper EAN 9780970868503 ISBN 0-9708685-0-2 $12.95 in bookstores, or $16.50 postpaid from the publisher, The Lower East Side Press To order, call toll-free 1-800-345-6665 or click here  to order online.

FEW PLACES IN AMERICA can boast such a wealth and variety of memories as New York's Lower East Side.  The first home for waves of new immigrants from around the world, a center for daring artistic and social experimentation, and — above all — the historic center of the American Jewish experience, the Lower East Side is a neighborhood of continuity and change, preserving the layers of history of past generations and at the same time renewing itself to adapt to the lives of its newer inhabitants. In this lovingly written, richly illustrated volume, Joyce Mendelsohn, an admired author, urban historian, and former Director of Education at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, celebrates and guides us through this unique and legendary neighborhood that for two centuries has nourished, and still embodies, the hopes and struggles of newcomers to the American Dream. Organized as a series of four self-guided walking tours (maps included) the book is actually an original, deeply researched and wonderfully satisfying history of the neighborhood where, as it happens, Mendelsohn’s own grandparents raised their family. Wearing her world-class erudition lightly, she gets her points across cleanly and enjoyably. Undoubtedly, her years of teaching in the New York City public schools and at the New School University were a big help there — and likewise the decision to enrich the book with over 125 warmly evocative vintage photos and drawings, well chosen and expertly reproduced. While entertaining us, Mendelsohn manages to slip an astonishing amount of information into her deftly written text. Did you know, for instance, that slavery in New York was abolished July 4, 1827? That in 1843 almost 50% of New York’s population was foreign-born?  That the Neighborhood Guild on Eldridge Street was the first settlement house organized in America? That there used to be a real orchard on Orchard Street? Or that early every morning, you can find several dozen elderly Chinese gentlemen bringing their pet songbirds — they call them hua mei — to enjoy a communal avian outing in a certain park on Delancey Street? Of course you didn’t.  Discover all these, plus venerable synagogues, churches, Buddhist temples and cultural centers, a public school now a nursing facility for people with AIDS, and century-old tenements converted to upscale housing.  From Yiddish theater to the avant-garde, from traditional shops to designer boutiques, from homey eateries to trendy clubs and gourmet restaurants — these are the ever-changing faces of the Lower East Side.  Whether you visit the Lower East Side in person, in memory, or vicariously in your armchair, The Lower East Side Remembered & Revisited is your indispensable guide to one of New York's — and America's — most legendary and colorful neighborhoods. About the Author     Joyce Mendelsohn teaches courses on New York City history and architecture at New School University and has lectured at Cooper Union, Baruch College, the South Street Seaport Museum and other New York City institutions.  One of the best-known of New York's scholarly tour leaders, she also served from 1992-94 as Director of Education at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.  Her previous book, Touring the Flatiron: Walks in Four Historic Neighborhoods, was published by the New York Landmarks Conservancy in 1998. Top of Page Trivia Quiz How High is Your Lower East Side IQ? Everybody knows the Lower East Side — or thinks he does.  Here are a few questions to challenge every New Yorker’s knowledge and memory, along with some other tidbits, historical and otherwise.  (Find the answers at the foot of this page.) How did Houston Street get its name? What notorious Western desperado got his start on the Lower East Side? Where and what was “The Yiddish Rialto”? The Lower East Side can claim what is probably the only heroic, larger-than-life-size bronze statue of Lenin in the United States.  Where and why? What notorious political boss got his start as a volunteer fireman on Henry Street and ruled the city for years, only to end his days in a jailhouse not far from where he started?  What world-class university got its start above a clothing store on East Broadway in 1886? Why was the Williamsburg Bridge nicknamed “The Jews’ Highway”? One of show business's most popular young couples had a surprise wedding at one of the Lower East Side's oldest religious sites.  Who, where, and when? Of a certain Jewish kid from the Lower East Side, Jerome Kern once said, “He doesn’t have a place in American music; he is American music.”  Whom did Kern have in mind?  (Hint: this was the Jewish kid who wrote “Easter Parade” and “White Christmas.”)

Lower East Side Landmarks    Discovering the   “Lost”Architectural   Treasures of the   Lower East Side Think “Lower East Side,” and you likely picture — and pretty accurately, at that — a historically down-at-heels working-class immigrant district.  Yet, just last year a newly designated Lower East Side Historic District, comprising over 500 properties, was placed on the National and State Registers of Historic Places.  And tucked away among the aging tenements and utilitarian commercial structures, you can find—if you know where to look—a wealth of fascinating, even beautiful buildings, including historic ecclesiastical buildings and lesser-known works by some of the city’s most prominent architects.  Here are a few; if you like them, you can find more in Joyce Mendelsohn's new book, The Lower East Side Remembered & Revisited.   The Congregation Anshe Chesed building at 172 Norfolk Street (now the Angel Orensanz Foundation) not only is New York’s oldest surviving synagogue (erected 1850) and one of its largest (capacity 1,200) but also was the first building on the Lower East Side erected specifically as a synagogue.  The designer was Berlin-born Alexander Saeltzer, architect of the old Astor Library (now the Public Theater) on Lafayette Street, who modeled it after the monumental Gothic-style cathedral of Cologne. The Eldridge Street Synagogue was the first great house of worship in the U.S. built by Eastern European Jews.  The architects (Herter Brothers, 1887) combined an abundance of Moorish, Romanesque and Gothic elements in its lavish design.  Neglected and in partial ruins in the 1970s, it is now undergoing a multi-million-dollar restoration and is a registered New York City Landmark and a National Historic Landmark.   The Bialystoker Synagogue at 7 Bialystoker Place was originally built in 1826 as the Willett Street Methodist Church, a simple rectangular edifice, built of durable Manhattan schist from a quarry on nearby Pitt Street, with a low-pitched pedimented roof and arched windows.  Converted to a synagogue in 1905 and recently restored, today it is one of only four early-19th century fieldstone religious buildings surviving from the late Federal period in Lower Manhattan.  The elegant structure now known as Iglesia del Nazareno (Church of the Nazarene) at 61-63 Rivington Street began life as the Rivington Branch of the New York Public Library.  Built in 1905, it was designed in Colonial Revival style by McKim, Mead & White, probably the most prestigious architectural firm of their day.  When new, the building had an open-air rooftop reading room, the first of its type, to offer a breezy setting with ample natural light in an era when most of the patrons lived in dark, cramped tenement quarters. The handsome Georgian-style University Settlement building at 184 Eldridge Street was designed in 1899 by two then-unknown young architects, John Mead Howells, who, with partner  Raymond Hood, would later design such distinguished landmarks as the Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News buildings, and I.N. Phelps Stokes, who later designed St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University but is best remembered as author-compiler of the six-volume Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909, the essential reference work on New York City history. The former Loew’s Canal Street Theater at 31 Canal dates from the era of lavish movies palaces (built 1926) and still bears traces of its original grandeur in its glazed white terracotta façade, richly decorated with masks, wreaths, griffins and other classical ornamentation.  The architect, Thomas W. Lamb, was one of the great designers of lavish, sophisticated theaters, on Broadway and even around the world.  Top of Page More Fun Facts Some Lower East Side "Famous Firsts"   The former Anshe Chesed building