Jewish Migration & Social Bonding

From The Peopling of NYC

Brownsville, a Brooklyn neighborhood that acquired a reputation as a vicious slum and breeding ground for crime, had a sizeable number of Lower East Side Jews up until the late 1940s. Brownsville had been a first step for Jewish immigrants, and now, mainly due to the large amounts of Blacks and Hispanics moving into the area, many Jews were ready to take the next step. Jews moved out into Boro Park and Flatbush, these were more established neighborhoods with better schools, etc. However the Jewish migration didn’t stop there. During the 1950s-1960s, Jews, along with the middle class moved to the suburbs. The availability of automobiles, the new highways, and the continued postwar prosperity led to the explosion of suburbanization. William Levitt was responsible for design of many suburbs in Long Island, often called Levittowns in his honor. He purchased 4,000 acres of land near Hempstead, LI. Then he transformed that into 17,000 single family homes, priced just right for young families. The suburbs came with “village greens,” sports fields, and public swimming pools. Jews flocked to the suburbs for a sense of community.

In the Top Right Hand Corner is TIME Magazine cover featuring William Levitt (the architect of the modern suburb). Directly to the left of the TIME Magazine is a photograph of a former tenement house in the LES (in the past, the LES was an Ethnic Enclave for poor immigrant Jews). Below it are two mansions on Manhattan Beach (A rich Jewish Ethnic Enclave.)

Map It (A Visual Representation of Jewish Migration)