Neighborhood Guide: The Lower East Side - New York Public Library

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: : section 4 : : Social Reform and Its Impact on the Lower East Side : : : : section 5 : : Construction and Destruction on the Lower East Side: 1933–1934 : : 5. Compare this playground with modern playgrounds that exist today. How are they the same? How are they different? 6. What do you think we have learned about what makes a good playground over the years? image 4. Italian family eating supper, East Side, New York City, 1915 questions: 1. Have students focus on different elements of the photograph, such as facial expressions, clothing, and apartment furnishings. What do they tell us about the lives of the people in this photograph? 2. What do they tell us about the message the photographer is trying to send? 3. Who might have been the intended viewer of this photograph? 4. How might the photographer have chosen to depict these people differently to send a different message? section 5 Construction and Destruction on the Lower East Side: 1933–1934 40 41
: : section 5 : : Construction and Destruction on the Lower East Side: 1933–1934 : : : : section 5 : : Construction and Destruction on the Lower East Side: 1933–1934 : : New York City is defined by change. Those who live here long enough will see the city transform before their eyes. Places are continually being torn down, recreated, rebuilt, and reused. The reasons for this constant redefinition of New York City are numerous: New technology, increased population, outdated modes of business, rehabilitation, vanity, overcrowding, overpricing, abandonment, and decline all contribute to neighborhood change and propel the people who make it happen. New York City’s Lower East Side has gone through many of its own transformations, not only in terms of population, but also in physical scale. Small wooden tenements were replaced by taller, brick ones, the destruction of which made way for high-rise middleand low-income housing complexes, which have been joined in recent years by other high-rise, luxury apartment buildings. Subways, parks, and highways have been built to meet the needs of a growing and more mobile population. Whatever the reasons that lay behind construction projects, they are often presented to address a community need. In 1933, Knickerbocker Village was constructed on a block of the Lower East Side that was condemned as a slum. This block, called the “Lung Block,” between Catherine, Market, Monroe, and Cherry streets, had a series of apartments and rooming houses that housed working families. It was called the “lung block” because its excessive overcrowding led to rampant disease, particularly tuberculosis. According to reformer Ernest Poole, nearly 4,000 people lived on just that block in 1903. Thirty years later, the population was less dense, but the buildings had not seen much improvement. The plan to erect Knickerbocker Village was pitched as an opportunity to replace dilapidated housing with modern, middle-class facilities, allowing for a better living standard. In order to do so, the existing buildings were condemned and torn down and families were displaced. This cycle of condemnation, displacement, construction, and repopulation fell under the name of “slum clearance.” Today, slum clearance is often seen in a negative light, because it disbanded communities of people who did not want to move and had established connections and family in its neighborhoods. Often projects such as Knickerbocker Village replaced long-time neighborhood residents with more well-todo New Yorkers from other parts of the city. However, at the time, it was generally seen as a positive force, ridding the city of areas that were run-down and posed health hazards. Like development projects today, Knickerbocker Village garnered a variety of opinions and generated debate. This construction project had specific stated intentions, some of which were fulfilled, and some of which were not. In can be interesting to consider how projects were viewed at the time they were created in relation to our perceptions of these projects today. Suggested Activities: The following resources each have questions for interpretation and can be looked at individually or in a group. Images 2–5 are of the before, during and after the building of Knickerbocker Village. The questions that follow these images are meant to be used for all three as a group. In addition, you might want to try some of the suggested activities in the How to Use This Guide section of the resource. Something to Try: Look back at the map and print of Rutgers Farm in Section 1. Try to find where Knickerbocker Village would be on the map. Look at a map of the area today. How has the neighborhood changed? RESOURCES image 1. Youth learning to gamble on the Cherry Street sidewalk NYPL, Manuscripts and Archives Division, Fred F. French Company Records. 42 43
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