Arab American National Museum Developing

posted on: May 26, 2011

The Arab American National Museum is planning a traveling exhibit to document what had been one of the earliest settlements of Arabs in America.

The museum in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn is holding a benefit Thursday at New York city’s University Club to help pay for creation of the exhibit about “Little Syria.” The neighborhood that’s now the site for the former World Trade Center was home to many Arabs during the first wave of immigration in the early 20th century.

The museum says it hopes to resurrect stories of this community on Manhattan’s lower west side that was home to poet Khalil Gibran and some of America’s first Arabic language newspapers.

The exhibit is being developed by museum curators and a group of New York residents.

The Republic