Arab Museum-Little Syria story

posted on: Apr 4, 2015

In a story March 27 about a ‘Little Syria’ exhibit going to Ellis Island, The Associated Press, due to incorrect information from the Arab American National Museum, erroneously reported the date the exhibit will open. It opens Oct. 1, 2016, not Oct. 1 of this year.

DETROIT (AP) — The Arab American National Museum is sending its exhibition about one of the earliest Arab-American settlements to Ellis Island, the same place where many of those immigrants first set foot in the U.S.

The “Little Syria” exhibit documents the once-thriving Lower Manhattan community that was home to many Arabs, including author and poet Khalil Gibran, and some of America’s first Arabic language newspapers during the immigration wave of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The exhibit was created by the Smithsonian-affiliated Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb that’s home to one of the nation’s largest Arab-American populations, with help from New York residents.

Arab museum director Devon Akmon told The Associated Press that having the exhibit at the historic immigrant gateway shares a largely unknown piece of history with an audience eager to learn about their own families’ immigration journeys as well as others.

“Our goal is always to place the Arab-American story in the context of the great American story,” he said.

Most of the neighborhood was razed to build the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and later the World Trade Center site.

Advocates long have lobbied to preserve, protect and promote the few remaining buildings: a church, community house and tenement. A neighborhood group worked with city officials to create and install a historical sign and six bench plaques in a nearby park commemorating the Washington Street neighborhood’s history and hopes to do more.

The traveling exhibit runs from Oct. 1, 2016 through Jan. 9, 2017, at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum.

The Michigan museum announced plans for the exhibit and other events Friday as part of its 10th anniversary in Dearborn. The city is often described as the capital of Arab America, with its several mosques, Arabic-signed restaurants and retail shops, and a large population that traces its roots to many Middle Eastern countries.

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Source: www.huffingtonpost.com