Around 1900, lower Manhattan was one of the most densely populated places on the planet. Within a few blocks lived Irish, Cantonese, Neapolitans, Sicilians and Eastern European Jews, each with their own language, temples and rules. Thirteen stops between the most feared crossroads of the nineteenth century, the bend of the photographer who shamed the city, the church that changed congregations three times, the street of the tong wars, the arch for Chinese American soldiers, the oldest Jewish cemetery on the island, the great synagogue on Eldridge Street, the building where seven thousand immigrants lived, the street that was once a canal, the museum of Chinese memory, the mob corner, the heart of the San Gennaro feast and the old cathedral the Irish defended. Approximate audio duration: 25 minutes.
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Chinatown y Little Italy: cuando Manhattan era un mosaico de aldeas
Hacia 1900, el bajo Manhattan era uno de los lugares más densamente poblados del planeta. En pocas cuadras convivían irlandeses, cantoneses, napolitanos, sicilianos y judíos de Europa del Este, cada uno con su idioma, sus templos y sus propias reglas. Trece paradas entre el cruce más temido del siglo diecinueve, la curva del fotógrafo que avergonzó a la ciudad, la iglesia que cambió tres veces de fieles, la calle de las guerras de los tongs, el arco de los soldados chinos, el cementerio judío más antiguo de la isla, la gran sinagoga de Eldridge Street, el edificio donde vivieron siete mil inmigrantes, la calle que fue un canal, el museo de la memoria china, la esquina de la mafia, el corazón de la fiesta de San Gennaro y la catedral vieja que defendieron los irlandeses. Duración aproximada de audio: 25 minutos.
Tour stops
13 stops · ~25 min of audio · 4.25 km on foot (~1 h 5 min walking) · about 1 h 30 min in total
You are standing near the corner of Worth Street and Baxter Street, facing the courthouses at the edge of a park. Nothing marks it, but this was Five Points, the most famous and most feared neighborhood of nineteenth-century New York.
The name came from a crossing of streets that formed five corners. Back then they were called Orange, Cross and Anthony. Today they are Baxter, Park and Worth, and the grid has changed so much that the original intersection no longer exists.
Beneath your feet there was a freshwater pond, the Collect Pond. In the early nineteenth century, by then badly polluted,…
2
Mulberry Bend and the Photographer Jacob Riis
You are in Columbus Park. Look around: groups of older neighbors playing cards and xiangqi, Chinese chess, and sometimes someone playing the erhu, a two-stringed fiddle. This is Chinatown's open-air living room.
A hundred and forty years ago, this place was the opposite. This was Mulberry Bend, the curve in Mulberry Street. It was a strip of tenements, back courts and alleys, home mostly to immigrants from southern Italy.
The man who made it famous was Jacob Riis, a Danish-born journalist. He walked these alleys at night with a camera and magnesium flash powder, a new technique at the time. …
3
Mott Street and the Church of Three Villages
You are on Mott Street, in front of a stone church with a small bell tower. This is the Catholic Church of the Transfiguration. Look at the signs: Mass times are posted in English, Cantonese and Mandarin.
The building dates from 1801. It was built by English-speaking Lutherans and later became an Episcopal church. In 1853 it was bought by a Catholic parish founded by the Cuban priest Félix Varela, an exile who devoted his life to the city's poor immigrants.
At first its parishioners were Irish. Then, in the late nineteenth century, Italians arrived. And as Chinatown grew, the parish began se…
4
Doyers Street, the Bend of the Tong Wars
You have stepped into Doyers Street, a short lane that bends at almost a right angle. Notice how the curve keeps you from seeing the far end. That shape, inherited from an old cart road, made it famous for all the wrong reasons.
It is named after Hendrick Doyer, an eighteenth-century distiller who owned land here. A century later the street lay at the heart of the small Chinatown, and the press began calling this bend the Bloody Angle.
In the early twentieth century, two rival associations, the On Leong and Hip Sing tongs, fought for control of the neighborhood, including gambling and opium.…
5
Chatham Square and the Soldiers' Arch
You have come out onto Chatham Square, an irregular plaza where several avenues meet. In the middle stands a granite arch with a Chinese-style roof. It is the Kimlau Memorial Arch, dedicated in 1962.
It honors Benjamin Ralph Kimlau, a Chinese American bomber pilot killed in the Pacific in 1944, during the Second World War. And with him, all Americans of Chinese descent who died in that war.
This is no small detail. During the war China was an ally of the United States, and in 1943 Congress finally repealed the Exclusion Act. Thousands of young men from Chinatown enlisted, and military servic…
6
The Oldest Jewish Cemetery on the Island
Walk a few steps down St. James Place. Behind a fence, on a raised plot, a few weathered gravestones stand among the buildings. It is easy to miss, but it is one of the oldest places in Manhattan.
This is the first cemetery of Congregation Shearith Israel, the oldest Jewish community in the United States. Its oldest surviving stone dates from 1683, when New York was a small colonial port at the southern tip of the island.
This community did not come from Eastern Europe. They were Sephardic Jews, descendants of those expelled from Spain and Portugal. In 1654 a group of twenty-three arrived in…
7
The Great Synagogue on Eldridge Street
You are standing in front of the Eldridge Street Synagogue. Look at the façade: horseshoe arches, towers and a huge rose window with a Star of David. Between the tenements and the Chinese shops, it seems to come from another world.
It opened in 1887. It was one of the first great synagogues built in the United States by Eastern European Jews. Its founders came from Poland, Lithuania and the Russian Empire, and they wanted to show that their community was here to stay.
Between 1880 and 1924, more than two million Eastern European Jews emigrated to the United States, fleeing poverty and pogrom…
8
97 Orchard Street, Seven Thousand Lives in One Building
You are on Orchard Street, in front of number 97. It is a five-storey brick building with fire escapes on the front, just like hundreds of others in the area. That is exactly what makes it special: this is the Tenement Museum.
It was built in 1863 by Lukas Glockner, a German immigrant. It had around twenty apartments of three tiny rooms each, with just one window onto the street or the yard. At first there was no running water and no indoor toilets: the privies were out back.
Between 1863 and 1935, according to the museum, some seven thousand people from more than twenty countries lived here…
9
Canal Street, the Street That Was a Canal
You are at the corner of Canal Street and Mott Street. It is one of the loudest streets in Manhattan: fruit stands, fish markets, jewelers, Chinese banks and traffic coming and going from the Manhattan Bridge.
The name is not a metaphor. In the early nineteenth century a ditch ran here to drain the water of the Collect Pond, the same pond that lay under Five Points, towards the Hudson River. When the pond disappeared, the canal was covered over and the street remained.
For a long time Canal Street was a border. To the south lay old Chinatown, squeezed into a few blocks. To the north began Li…
10
The Museum of Chinese in America
You are in front of 215 Centre Street, home of the Museum of Chinese in America. From outside it looks like just another industrial building. Inside, it was designed by Maya Lin, the architect of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
The museum began in 1980 as a neighborhood history project, started by historian John Kuo Wei Tchen and local resident Charles Lai. They began with almost nothing, rescuing letters, photos, menus and objects that families were throwing away as they moved out.
That rescue was crucial. Many of Chinatown's stories were in no official archive. They were the s…
11
Mulberry and Hester, the Mob Corner
You are at the corner of Mulberry Street and Hester Street. Look north: awnings, sidewalk tables, tricolor flags and waiters inviting you in. This is the postcard of Little Italy.
In the late nineteenth century these streets held the largest concentration of Italians in New York. And as elsewhere in the area, each street was a village: it was often said that Neapolitans clustered on Mulberry, Genoese on Baxter and Sicilians on Elizabeth Street. Many came from the same town and settled in the same building.
With the immigrants came extortion too. In the early twentieth century, the Black Hand…
12
Grand Street and the Feast of San Gennaro
You are at the crossing of Mulberry and Grand Street, the heart of what remains of Little Italy. If it is September, you will probably see arches of lights over the street and food stalls: it is the Feast of San Gennaro.
The feast began in 1926, organized by immigrants from Naples in honor of their patron saint. It was a village celebration transplanted to Manhattan: procession, Mass and food in the street. Today it lasts eleven days and draws people from all over the city.
Look east along Grand Street. There is Ferrara, a pastry shop opened in 1892 that still makes cannoli and sfogliatelle.…
13
Nolita and the Old Cathedral of the Irish
You have reached the corner of Mulberry and Prince Street, in the area now called Nolita. In front of you is a high brick wall and, behind it, a stone church. This is Old St. Patrick's Cathedral, the first Catholic cathedral in New York.
Construction began in 1809 and it was dedicated in 1815, to a design by Joseph-François Mangin, the same architect who helped design City Hall. It was the city's cathedral until 1879, when the new St. Patrick's opened on Fifth Avenue.
Its first congregation was mostly Irish. In a city dominated by Protestants, they were not always welcome. In the 1830s and a…
How long does the "Chinatown and Little Italy: When Manhattan Was a Patchwork of Villages" audio tour take?
It has about 25 minutes of audio across 13 stops and a 4.25 km walking route (~1 h 5 min on foot). Plan roughly 1 h 30 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "Five Points, the Most Feared Crossroads" (coordinates 40.7152, -74.0005). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open New York and pick "Chinatown and Little Italy: When Manhattan Was a Patchwork of Villages". No account required to start.
