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Mapping the intersections of Queer/Yiddish identity

The months following the Stonewall riots in June of 1969 were filled with organizing activity among New York’s LGBT community. A bit over a year later, in September of 1970, a group of gay and lesbian organizations staged a sit-in at New York University’s Weinstein Hall. The protest and occupation of Weinstein Hall grew came in response to the cancellation of a gay dance. Protestors occupied the building for five days, until being forcibly removed by police. One of the most outspoken figures to emerge from the protest was Sylvia Rivera, who had also been involved in the Stonewall riots (some sources dispute her presence at the riots). Rivera, then only 19, who identified as a drag queen, had already spent much of her life in survival mode on the streets. She was orphaned at a young age and from about the age of 11, she was involved in sex work in order to survive. The fact that she survived at all is likely due to her being taken in by local drag queens, who became her family. One month after the protest at Weinstein Hall, Rivera and a small group of activists founded STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) and nominated her close friend, Marsha P. Johnson, to serve as president of the organization. Johnson, who also identified as a drag queen, was a well-known figure in the city’s LGBT and arts communities and had modeled for Andy Warhol. Like Rivera, Johnson also survived by doing sex work. She was also one of the Village’s most well-known activists and was veteran of the Stonewall riots. Johnson refused the position, instead serving as vice-president while Rivera took the lead role in the new organization. The fledgling organization began its life in a trailer truck parked in the Village. It didn’t offer much in the way of creature comforts, but it was a badly needed shelter and safe space for homeless LGBT and trans youth, and roughly two dozen young people made a home there until Rivera and Johnson arrived one day to find it being towed. After the trailer was towed, Johnson and Rivera were able to arrange to rent a former tenement at 213 East Second Street, which was owned by Michael Umbers. Umbers was the kind of curious personality that proliferated in the Village—he was both a well-known Mob figure and a supporter of gay rights. The building was in disrepair and had no electricity or running water. Rivera and Johnson did what they could to make it inhabitable and continued to do sex work to pay the $200 rent, insisting that the young people who sought shelter there stay off the streets. In addition to providing food, clothing, and shelter for LGBT youths, the pair hoped to use the building’s top floor for classes, knowing that many of their charges had been on the streets since childhood and had never gotten an adequate education. After only eight months in the building, however, Umbers enlisted city marshals to evict the organization for failure to pay rent. The building was later demolished. There was reportedly one later iteration of STAR House in different location, but little is known about the organization after it left 2nd Street. Although its lifespan appears to have been short, it was nonetheless a trailblazer. It was the first LGBT youth shelter in the nation as well as the nation’s first organization to be led by trans women of color.

Founded in 1970, STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) House was the first LGBT youth shelter in the United States. The organization was established by Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, both of whom were drag queens who had been active in the early gay rights movement in New York City. STAR House offered a number of services and advocacy for homeless LGBT youth, all while both Johnson and Rivera were barely out of their teens and themselves living a precarious existence. Unfortunately, the group was evicted just months after moving into the building, which was later demolished. Another property currently occupies the site.

Site of the STAR House (1970)

Clara Lemlich Shavelson was born in Ukraine in 1886 and came to the United States with her family in 1904. Like thousands of European immigrants, Shavelson and her family settled in New York City and Clara found work in a garment factory. Garment factories in the early 1900s frequently employed young women, where they often worked eleven-hour days, six days a week. A typical salary for a woman in the garment industry was often just $3 a week. By the time she arrived in the United States as a teenager, Shavelson was already well-versed in Marxism and though she worked long hours in New York, she found time to read Russian literature and studied Marxist theory in her free time. In 1906, she joined the Ladies’ Garment Worker Union (ILGWU). She developed a reputation for her fearless willingness to speak out and to put herself in harm’s way, despite her diminutive size. Already something of a well-known fixture at picket lines, Shavelson made her mark in 1909 at a union meeting at the Cooper Union. Speaking in Yiddish, she declared to the audience, “I am tired of listening to speakers who talk in general terms. I move that we go on a general strike!” She was just 23 at the time. The audience cheered in solidarity, and the next day, thousands of workers, many of them young women, began an eleven-week general strike of the city’s shirtwaist industry. The Uprising of the 20,000, as it came to be known, was the largest strike by women to date in United States history. Many male union members had cautioned against the strike, arguing that it would be too costly and potentially too dangerous for women. The overwhelming majority of the strikers were young, Jewish women, with men making up a small percentage of those on the picket line. The participation of men in protesting an industry in which most workers were women guaranteed a complete work stoppage. Some estimates place almost thirty thousand workers in the streets over the course of the strike. Over the course of the strike, there were more than 700 arrests, including Shavelson's. (Between 1906 and 1909, she was arrested 17 times.) Police brutality among the strikers was rampant, and Shavelson suffered several broken ribs. She kept her injuries to herself, fearing that her parents would forbid her from rejoining the picket line if they knew. The strikers gained some modest concessions from employers, although many of the workers' demands for reforms were ignored. One of the city's largest garment manufacturers, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, refused to make needed reforms. Two years after the strike, the Triangle factory would be the site of one of the country's deadliest workplace disasters, when 146 workers--some of whom had been among the 20,000--died in a fire on the building's upper floors. Many of them died when they jumped from the eighth and ninth floors, rather than remain in the building and be burned alive. Clara married Joe Shavelson in the 1910s and the couple eventually had three children that they raised in Brooklyn. As a wife and mother, Shavelson continued her work as an activist, organizing tenant unions and rent strikes among the women in her Brooklyn neighborhood. She also joined the Communist Party and would remain a loyal member for the rest of her life, although she would later renounce her prior support of the Soviet Union. Near the end of her life, she helped organize nurses and orderlies at her retirement home into a union. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation reports that Shavelson's residence at 278 has apparently been combined with the building at 280, with the original building still standing behind the more modern facade.

Clara Lemlich Shavelson emigrated to the United States from Ukraine with her family in 1904. Like many young immigrant women, she took a job as a garment worker and soon joined the Ladies’ Garment Worker Union and developed a reputation as a fearless activist for workers’ rights. In 1909, she was a leader of a massive strike of shirtwaist workers, known as the Uprising of the 20,000. After marrying and having children, she turned her activism to organizing women in her community in boycotts and rent strikes.

Former Residence of Labor Activist Clara Lemlich Shavelson 

In the 1880s, the Congregation Kahal Adath Jeshurun commissioned German architects Peter and Francis Herter to design and construct a synagogue for them. After purchasing the land needed for the synagogue, the building’s construction began on September 24, 1886, and on September 30th of 1887, it was completed and open for worship. The Herter brothers held nothing back when constructing the building, and this was apparent when the synagogue received a great deal of praise from its neighbors. The Eldridge Street Synagogue flourished in the following decades, and the congregation continued to grow steadily until the mid-1900s. In the 1950s, the synagogue began to structurally deteriorate, especially in the main sanctuary, and once it began to suffer from serious water damage, the main sanctuary was excised from use. Despite this, services continued elsewhere in the synagogue.In 1971, New York University Professor Gerald Wolfe visited the main sanctuary of the synagogue and decided to form the Friends of the Eldridge Street Synagogue foundation, which would serve to restore the Sanctuary to its former glory. After the founding of the organization, the synagogue was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 28, 1980, and was designated as a New York City Landmark on July 8, 1980. Restoration efforts would begin fifteen years after the founding of the Friends of the Eldridge Street Synagogue in 1971, and would continue until 2007 when the renovations were finally completed. During the time of the renovations, the synagogue was designated as a National Historic Landmark on June 19, 1996. The renovations culminated in the opening of the Museum at Eldridge Street in 2007, which displays exhibits about the history of American Jews.

The Eldridge Street Synagogue is a historic synagogue located in the Chinatown neighborhood of Manhattan. Built in 1887, it is one of the first Eastern European Jewish Synagogues built in the United States. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in March of 1980, designated as a New York City Landmark in July of 1980, and designated as a National Historic Landmark in June of 1996. After extensive renovations, the synagogue hosts the Museum at Eldridge Street, and the Kahal Adath Jeshurun congregation still meets in the synagogue for worship.

The synagogue's front facade after renovations, 2012 ((By Alexisrael (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons))

Eldridge Street Synagogue

Originally known as Iceland Brothers, the world-famous Katz’s Deli opened in 1888 on Ludlow Street. The deli’s opening coincided with a surge of immigration from Eastern Europe. Many of those immigrants were Jewish and a number of them settled in the tenements of the Lower East Side. As a result, the Lower East Side became the heart of Manhattan’s Jewish population. Iceland Brothers was one of many delis established in the Lower East Side during the immigration of the late 1800s. In 1900, the Iceland brothers were bought out by their business partners, the Katz family, and the restaurant was renamed Katz’s Delicatessen. Within a few years, numerous Yiddish theaters were established in the neighborhood and because of its proximity to them, Katz’s became a regular gathering place for celebrities. To this day, its walls are still adorned with photographs of the many stars who have frequented the deli. It was also a popular spot--something of a community living room--for ordinary residents as well, particularly on Friday nights, when the deli served hot dogs and beans to locals. In 1923, when the subway was constructed, Katz's moved from its original location across the street, where it remains. Katz's was already a beloved Manhattan institution when it was featured in the 1989 film When Harry Met Sally. The movie, in which Meg Ryan's character fakes an orgasm at a table in Katz's, made the deli known throughout the world. Today, a sign hangs above the table where Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal sat to identify it to curious visitors. Most people outside New York know Katz's primarly because of When Harry Met Sally, but the deli has actually been featured in other films, including the Frank Sinatra flick The Contract on Cherry Street, as well as Donnie Brasco and others. The deli is as popular today as ever and is typically packed, with most diners choosing Katz's famous pastrami sandwich. It reportedly sells roughly 15,000 pounds of pastrami each week.

One of the oldest and most famous of New York’s restaurants, Katz’s Deli has been serving the public since 1888. At the time, thousands of European immigrants were pouring into the city, with many of them settling on the Lower East Side. A large percentage of the city’s new arrivals were Jewish, and the Lower East Side became a thriving hub of Jewish culture, with Yiddish theater, in particular, flourishing. Because of its proximity to many of Yiddish theaters, Katz’s became a popular gathering place for entertainers. The deli is most well-known for its use as a backdrop in the film When Harry Met Sally.

Katz's Delicatessen

The neo-Italian Renaissance building at 538 East 11th Street
was originally constructed in 1904-1905 as a public bath house for poor
immigrants living in the East Village. In the 1990s and early 2000s, it was
home to photographer Eddie Adams' Bathhouse Studios [1; 2]. Thirteen free public baths were constructed by the City as part
of a social reform movement to help the poor, particularly immigrants, at the
turn of the 20th century. Intended to promote health, the baths were used as
much for keeping cool in the summer as actually bathing [2]. The public bath
movement, begun in the 1840s by Dr. Simon Baruch, finally reached New York's
crowded tenements (where no bathing facilities existed) thanks to the efforts
of charitable organizations and Dr. Baruch [1; 2]. At that time, the East
Village was a German immigrant neighborhood [1]. The 11th Street Public
Bathhouse was designed by prominent New York architect Arnold W. Brunner, who
was commissioned by the City. Decorated with nautical themed friezes, its façade
is Indiana limestone. The building featured separate entrances and changing and
bathing areas for men and women, with seven bathtubs and 94 "rain
baths" (showers) [1; 2]. The shower rooms were lit by skylights on both
the first and second floors. On December 18, 1905, it opened to the public.
Bathers were allowed twenty minutes and had to provide their own soap and
towels. During heat waves, particularly that of 1906, when more heat-related
deaths occurred than at any other time in the city's history, the baths were
swarmed, but the rest of the time attendance was low. In response, pamphlets
were written and classes offered in tenement neighborhoods to educate the
public about the importance of hygiene, but attendance declined nonetheless.
Partly, this was due to the introduction of the Tenement House Law of 1901,
which required new buildings to include toilets; many owners included bathing
facilities as well [1]. The 11th Street Baths were among the most used of the
facilities in the city, and remained open until 1958 [1; 2].



In 1961, the building was converted into a parking garage
and, later, as the neighborhood declined in the 1970s and 1980s, the bathhouse
was used as a warehouse, wholesale grocery, and art restoration space.
Unfortunately, the building was also the site of drug deals and earned a
reputation as such [1]. In 1980, the block on which the 11th Street Baths are
located was the setting for the film Ragtime
(James Cagney's last role). The bathhouse became the production crew's
workspace during the filming, and the block was restored. Eddie Adams, a
Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, purchased the building in 1995 and
converted it into a studio [1; 2].

The neo-Italian Renaissance building at 538 East 11th Street was originally constructed in 1904-1905 as a public bath house for poor immigrants living in the East Village. In the 1990s and early 2000s, it was home to photographer Eddie Adams' Bathhouse Studios [1; 2].

11th Street Bathhouse (image from Landmarks Preservation Commission Designation Report, 2008)

11th Street Public Baths

The Museum's holdings are grouped into three main categories: folk art, fine art, and archives. The archives contain 30,000 documents and photos. The museum also hosts lectures and other public events.&nbsp;&nbsp;Information about all the Museum's current and upcoming activities can be found in its free monthly electronic newsletter available on its website below.

The Ukrainian Museum is the largest museum in the U.S. committed to acquiring, preserving, exhibiting, and interpreting articles of artistic or historic significance to the rich cultural heritage of Ukrainians. In 2005, the Museum moved into a new, state-of-the-art facility in the heart of Manhattan's vibrant East Village. The building was designed by Ukrainian American architect George Sawicki of Sawicki Tarella.

The Ukrainian Museum is the largest museum in the U.S. dedicated to Ukrainian culture and history

Entries on This Tour

Exploring Queer Yiddish History

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