Re-Creating the Lower East Side

By Suzanne Wasserman

Beginning in the 1920s, many former Lower East Side residents began returning to their old neighborhood for visits because they missed the smells, sights, and sounds of their recent pasts. Merchants figured out that they could accommodate their nostalgic longings by creating synthetic, re-creations of Lower East Side restaurants and cabarets. Contemporary entrepreneurs are currently catering to the more notorious aspects of the past, maybe inspired by the recent Gangs of New York craze. New venues use the past to attract customers – such as the Boss Tweed Saloon on Essex Street.

The photograph above was taken by the Danish photographer Jacob Riis, who hoped to eradicate slums like this one at Gotham Court. An infamous slum, it had started out as a model tenement.

I doubt that the developers of this condominium on the Lower East Side have any idea about the notorious association of its name.




Excerpted from a talk by Suzanne Wasserman at the Vernacular Architecture Forum.