May is Lower East Side History Month, an annual celebration of one of New York City’s most layered and dynamic neighborhoods. Founded in 2014, the month-long observance brings together community organizations, preservationists, artists, historians, and residents to explore the stories that have shaped the Lower East Side, which includes the East Village, Chinatown, and Loisaida, […]
I was holiday shopping at my local bookstore and was delighted to encounter Emily Jenkins’ “All of a Kind Family Hanukkah.” In the book, a Jewish immigrant family prepares for Chanukah in their Lower East Side Tenement in 1912. The family’s four daughters share a room, make latkes, throw tantrums, and in the end light […]
Many New Yorkers were left reeling from the closure and demolition of the Landmark Sunshine Theater on East Houston Street in 2018. Just outside of Village Preservation’s catchment area, the Landmarks Sunshine was a beloved institution which had served up independent cinema for two decades, and in a past life was a Yiddish theater. In […]
On November 22, 1909, a frail 23-year-old woman, who’d been brutally beaten by strike-breakers, was helped up onto the stage of the Great Hall at the Cooper Union. Leaders of the labor movement – all men – had been speaking for hours to a crowd of thousands, speaking out against poor garment factory working conditions […]
It’s always fun to look at then and now photos of buildings and streetscapes we’ve long come to admire here on Off the Grid. Today, just ahead of the Labor Day weekend, we wanted to check in on the Hebrew Actors’ Union building at 31 East 7th Street in the East Village. With its stark […]
Do you know where this building is located? One of the most well known and talented families of Yiddish theater who also happened to own some of the theaters on the Yiddish Rialto once called it home. It was built by one of the most prolific developers in the Lower East Side and East […]
