The Evolution of the Immigrant: The Exodus of the Jew to the Upper East Side and its Causes

This 1903 article that appeared in the New York Daily-Tribune discusses the participation of Jews in the speculative real estate boom on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, which in this case refers to the area north of 59th Street.

The article states in part:

"The story of these men adjusting themselves to conditions and places is similar to that of nearly every Hebrew who once was recorded as an immigrant at Ellis Island. It is difficult for the Hebrew immigrant to forget the section of the city where he found himself and his family most welcome on arriving here. As years passed his affection for the section—the lower East Side—grew greater, if anything, and this fact was and is revealed nearly every week in many ways. Financial success caused many Hebrews to take homes uptown, but vast throngs of Hebrews who are now called wealthy, and who came to this country as immigrants, have up to the present time stood proof against all temptations to become identified in any way with any other section of the city than the lower East Side. Suddenly these Hebrews have changed "about face," and they have decided not only to become owners of tenement and flat houses in the section on the East Side north of Fifty-ninth St., but also hereafter to make their homes in that section. Is not this, indeed, an interesting spectacle in realty affairs, and an important real estate movement in the history of this city?"

This is article number 117 within the Museum's Newspaper Archives. It can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/les-upper-eastside.htm .