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In Lower Manhattan, Memories of ‘Little Syria’
At the turn of the last century, Manhattan’s Lower West Side was a bustling hub of life for Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian immigrants who set up shops and moved into tenements in a community known as Little Syria.
Now, there is little left marking the old neighborhood, seen as an epicenter of Arab immigration that was once home to stores like Brooklyn favorite Sahadi’s. But advocates are lobbying the Landmarks Preservation Commission to change that.
“Every Arab-American who would have come to the United States would have probably spent some time or had ties to the Lower West Side of Manhattan,” said Todd Fine, co-founder of Save Washington Street. He calls Little Syria “the beating heart of Arab immigration to the United States,” with an important literary community and restaurants and cafes selling Lebanese food and pastries as the Ninth Avenue El whirred by.
The area was a mix of old world and new, with Arab immigrants remaining steeped in their own traditions while also living side by side with families arriving from Central and Eastern Europe.
The Middle Eastern community was already beginning to disperse as families moved out for more space when the construction of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel in the 1940s destroyed a broad swath of the neighborhood. Other buildings were razed to make way for the World Trade Center.
“You have no idea that was an area [with] a tremendous quantity of ethnic groups all living in tenements,” said Mary Dierickx, a historic preservationist and member of the Friends of the Lower West Side. “You see it on the Lower East Side, you see the history as you walk the streets, but you have no idea down here.”
Marian Sahadi Ciaccia’s family was among those told they had to vacate to make way for the tunnel. Ms. Ciaccia, 77, whose father immigrated from Lebanon, has fond memories of growing up on Washington Street. She delivered the Al-Hoda newspaper and would run with neighborhood kids to the docks when United Fruit boats came in, collecting fresh pineapples and bananas that would fall off.
There was a terrific candy store, she recalls, and relatives lived nearby, including an aunt who owned a lingerie shop down the street. “We had a great childhood,” said Ms. Ciaccia, whose family, like many others, left the Lower West Side for Brooklyn. “Everybody had their doors open, everybody played together, everybody watched each other’s children.”
Unlike other neighborhoods full of immigrant history, there are few reminders left of the area’s rich past. One building along Washington Street, the former St. George’s Syrian Catholic Church, with its striking white terra cotta facade, has received landmark status from the city. Advocates hope two more–a former community house that served the immigrant community starting in the mid-1920s and is now vacant, and a tenement still in use as an apartment building–will also earn the designation.
But the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission has twice declined to consider the community house and tenement. Owners of both buildings declined to comment.
Landmarks Preservation Commission Spokeswoman Lisi de Bourbon referred to a January letter from the commission’s Mary Beth Betts that said the buildings lack the necessary architectural and historical significance and that better examples of the settlement house movement and tenements exist in other parts of the city.
The letter states that the commission has recognized the significance of Little Syria through designating the former church as a landmark.
But advocates like Joseph Svehlak, whose mother’s family emigrated from Moravia and lived in the tenement at 109 Washington St., said landmarking the church alone doesn’t do enough to recognize the neighborhood’s extraordinary diversity. Along with Save Washington Street, he is continuing to push for a hearing on the buildings.
“This failure to advance these requests for a basic hearing risks damaging the reputation of the city, both internationally and among Arab-Americans and other ethnic groups,” states a recent letter signed by a coalition appealing the commission’s decision that includes Queen Noor of Jordan.
They have support from Community Board One, which has recommended the Landmarks Preservation Commission designate the community house a landmark and hold a hearing on both buildings. As a further boost, the tenement has received an award from Place Matters.
“Two acts of government destroyed the neighborhood,” Mr. Svehlak said, referring to demolition that occurred to make way for the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and World Trade Center. “An act of government landmarking these three buildings can tell the story of what was here.”
The neighborhood is also the subject of an exhibition at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Mich. that will travel to New York City in May. “Little Syria, NY: An Immigrant Community’s Life & Legacy” is scheduled to be shown May 3 to 27 at 3LD Art & Technology Center on 80 Greenwich St.
Fine and Carl Houck, a student at St. Francis College in Brooklyn who also goes by Carl Antoun to highlight his Lebanese heritage, formed Save Washington Street and are lobbying in particular for the preservation of the community house. They have raised $10,000 to make improvements to a small park at Greenwich and Edgar streets that was damaged by superstorm Sandy, and plan to install several plaques there to commemorate the neighborhood.
“We think this park, as the closest park to historical Little Syria, can become a place where we can remember all the great accomplishments of this area,” Mr. Fine said.
Mr. Houck’s grandmother grew up in the neighborhood. His great-grandfather Tanus Sadallah owned an import-export business selling “dry and fancy goods, jewelry, notions, etc.,” as stated on a business card Houck keeps as a treasured artifact.
“It’s been disrespected and built upon so many times,” he said. “It deserves its place in history.”
Jennifer Weiss
Wall Street Journal