Arrival in the Big Apple: Lower East Side, N.Y.

From The Peopling of NYC

Americanization was ultimately a change in class and status. Eastern European Jews arriving in the ports of New York City were suddenly transformed from artisan, craftsman, and petty merchants, into proletarians.

Coping with the many disparities of the New World and settling into a different society, Eastern European Jews grew nostalgic for what they had abandoned in the Old Country: family, religious practices, etc. Still, most came with high hopes of “making it,” putting adequate food on the table, and letting their children skip this hard process of erecting a future from the ground up. New York City was the perfect place to achieve this goal. By 1900 17:23 (???) million Eastern European Jews stayed in the N.Y. area, outdoing every immigrant group. By 1892, 75% of Jewish immigrants lived in L.E.S.