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Lower East Side
Contents
Development as an Immigrant Neighborhood >
The Immigrants > The Physical Landscape > Continuity
and Change following World War II > Gangs
on the Lower East Side > Orchard Street Shopping: From Pushcars to Discount Clothing to Fashion Boutiques
Orchard Street Shopping: From Pushcars to
Discount Clothing to Fashion Boutiques
According to a 1927 Department of Public Markets report, the first
four peddlers set up pushcarts on Hester Street in 1866. For the
next 75 years, the open-air pushcart market remained an institution
of immigrant life on the Lower East Side. By 1900, there were 25,000
pushcart operators in New York City, leading Jacob Riis to observe,
"There is scarcely anything else that can be hawked from a
wagon that is not to be found, and at ridiculously low prices. Bandannas
and tin cups at two cents, peaches at a cent a quart, "damaged"
eggs for a song...The crowds that jostle each other at the wagons
and about the sidewalk shops, where a gutter plank does the duty
for a counter! Pushing, struggling, babbling, and shouting in foreign
tongues a veritable Babel of confusion." 1
The pushcarts lining the crowded streets of the Lower East Side
took their cultural cues from old world markets-the center of street
life in Europe. For thousands of immigrants, the pushcart represented
a traditional means of subsistence and, for some, a means to future
prosperity. The pushcart peddler's day began at dawn when he or
she retrieved the pushcart from the stable where it was rented for
about a quarter a day. One such pushcart stable stood on Sheriff
Street. From there, it was on to buy surplus from wholesalers, then
to a long day selling wares and haggling over prices that often
lasted well into the night. 2
While the pushcart served as a means of subsistence for many new
arrivals to the Lower East Side, some believed that the "old-world"
flavor of the open-air market represented the reluctance of immigrants
to sufficiently 'Americanize." Many local Lower East Side merchants
did not share the vendors' perspective and viewed the carts not
as a traditional means of subsistence, but as a public and personal
embarrassment. On the other hand, merchants were becoming aware
of the nostalgic draw the neighborhood held for ex-Lower East Siders.
But the merchants insisted upon circumscribing nostalgia for the
old pushcarts. The pushcart markets would be used to draw back old
customers, but only in clean and sanitary markets instead of on
the streets. They considered indoor markets a perfect solution.
3
Following his election as mayor in 1934, Fiorello La Guardia took
up the issue of public markets and pushcart peddlers with a vengeance.
Using huge sums of federal money pouring into NYC for the purpose
creating of jobs by promoting municipal improvements, La Guardia
had indoor municipal markets constructed, including the Essex Street
Market, which opened on January 10, 1940 and included 475 stalls.
The markets opened with revised rules aimed, even if only implicitly,
at de-ethnicizing the markets and reflected La Guardia's determination
to "professionalize "the peddlers. But La Guardia and
local storekeepers failed to realize that the pushcart as a representation
of immigrant culture appealed to many New Yorkers and actually attracted
customers to the neighborhood. Immigrants and their families who
had moved away often returned for a nostalgic trip down memory lane.
Others found the immigrant cultures interesting and exciting as
well. By 1941, the merchants on Orchard Street reported a 60% decrease
in business since the removal of the pushcarts. 15,000 peddlers
lined the streets when La Guardia came to power in 1934. By 1945,
a little over ten years later, only 1,200 still stood. 4
Many of the merchants on Orchard Street who had fought to remove
the pushcarts specialized in discount clothing. In the decades after
World War II, the Lower East Side, especially Orchard Street, became
well-known as the place to come if you were shopping for bargains.
Places like Friedlich's at 197 Orchard typified the kind of personal
service and reasonable prices that led many to the Lower East Side
rather than the department stores. Some recall older Jewish men
who could tell your size just by looking at you.
Beginning in the 1970s, the open-air market returned to Orchard
Street, albeit in a different form. To attract Sunday shoppers,
Orchard Street closed to automobile traffic, creating a pedestrian
mall in which customers could browse, haggle over prices, and purchase
a variety of products at bargain prices. Storeowners, who ordinarily
conducted business within the confines of their shops, brought their
merchandise out on the street. Clotheslines were draped with designer
jeans, sweaters, dresses, coats, designer look-alikes and blazers;
tables were arranged with shoes, wallets, belts, and bags. Today,
Orchard Street continues to close to traffic north of Delancey Street
on Sundays.
Small businesses like these have served as workplaces and centers
of community life for generations of immigrants. Often the store
doubled as a home, with many families living in the back of their
shops. For some younger Puerto Ricans and other newer communities
on the Lower East Side, older Jewish merchants provided them with
their first job. Leticia Torres, now Director of Community Services
at the Educational Alliance, remembers getting her first job at
Friedlich's in the 1960s.
In 1999, Mayor Giuliani launched a new campaign against street vendors-many
of whom were new immigrants-as part of his Quality of Life campaign.
Local merchants, many descendants of earlier generations of Italian,
Chinese, Jewish, and other immigrants, protested that the vendors
blocked sidewalks and violated health codes; some protested the
smell. Giuliani reduced the number of licenses the city would issue
each year from 4,000 to 3,000. But as one vendor put it, "We
don't speak English, and restaurants and factories aren't hiring.
We bring cheap food to factory workers; I have regular customers
who depend on me."
Today, clothes are coming back to Orchard Street. While there are
fewer discount clothing and fabric stores, there has been a dramatic
increase in fashion boutiques, many of which are run by young American
designers catering to a higher-income clientele. There has also
been an increase in the number of trendy bars, cafes, and restaurants
in the neighborhood. One has even taken the name "Tenement"
and serves food associated with various immigrant groups. In addition,
there are restaurant supply and food stores, often run by Fukinese
immigrants who sell wholesale food to Chinese restaurants around
the city.
1 Suzanne Wasserman, The Good Old
Days of Poverty: The Battle over the Fate of New York City's Lower
East Side During the Depression (New York University, Department
of History: Ph.D. Dissertation, 1990).
2 Jeff Kisseloff, You Must Remember
This: An Oral History of Manhattan from the 1890s to World War II
(San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989); Wasserman, The
Good Old Days of Poverty.
3 Wasserman, The Good Old Days
of Poverty.
4 Daniel Bluestone, "The Pushcart
Evil," in David Ward and Oliver Zunz, eds., The Landscape of
Modernity: New York City, 1900-1940 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, Wasserman, The Good Old Days of Poverty.
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