Jewish NY: Making Crowds, Escaping Crowds: Life on New York’s Lower East Side with Dr. Sharon Keller.

n 1654 a small group of Portuguese Jews landed in what was then the New Netherlands and they settled in what was to become the Lower East Side. Some 250 years later, by the turn of the 20 th Century, the Lower East Side was arguably the most densely populated area in the world; jam packed with immigrants, mostly Jewish, from Eastern Europe. These new-comers and their families lived in cramped, crowded, often stifling apartments, and the streets were no better. Join us as we look at more than 100 years of life on the Lower East Side. We will discuss what brought the immigrants to this small area of NYC, how they lived, the food they ate, the arts and culture they created, and also the ways that people used to escape from the filth, the noise, the heat, the crowds, and just everyday life.