Jews, Puerto Ricans, and the Politics of Place and Race on the Lower East Side, 1963-1993
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 6-2017 "The World of Our Children": Jews, Puerto Ricans, and the Politics of Place and Race on the Lower East Side, 1963-1993 Barry Goldberg The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2003 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] “THE WORLD OF OUR CHILDREN”: JEWS, PUERTO RICANS, AND THE POLITICS OF PLACE AND RACE ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE, 1963-1993 by BARRY GOLDBERG A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2017 © 2017 BARRY GOLDBERG All Rights Reserved ii “The World of Our Children”: Jews, Puerto Ricans, and the Politics of Place and Race on the Lower East Side, 1963-1993 by Barry Goldberg This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in History in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ____________________ ____________________________________________ Date [Robert David Johnson] Chair of Examining Committee _____________________ ____________________________________________ Date [Andrew Robertson] Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Clarence Taylor Jonathan Rosenberg Hasia Diner Aldo Lauria-Santiago THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT “The World of Our Children”: Jews, Puerto Ricans, and the Politics of Place and Race on the Lower East Side, 1963-1993 by Barry Goldberg Advisor: Robert David Johnson This dissertation examines how Jewish political leaders on the Lower East Side responded to neighborhood change, particularly the influx of Puerto Rican migrants, from the 1960s through the 1990s. Utilizing untapped archival material, including congressional records, municipal papers, legal files, articles from the ethnic press, and quantitative voting data, I demonstrate that the Lower East Side remained home to an influential network of Jewish political leaders, institutions, and voters long after the early twentieth-century. Residing on Grand Street, largely Orthodox, and often descended from Lower East Side Jewish immigrants, this political base created, shaped, and implemented antipoverty, education, housing, and redistricting policy in the neighborhood. These efforts, often undertaken in conjunction with mayoral administrations and both secular and Orthodox Jewish defense agencies, shaped the social relationships, real and imagined community boundaries, and electoral coalitions between Jews and Puerto Ricans on the Lower East Side. As a result, Jewish-Puerto Rican relations became a central feature of both local and citywide politics in the 1960s and beyond. New arrivals to the neighborhood in the 1950s and 1960s, Puerto Ricans challenged Grand Street’s control of neighborhood politics. During the last third of the twentieth century, these residents, collaborating with left-wing Jewish progressives and animated partly by black activism and new civil rights legislation, aimed to organize and provide economic security for iv low-income Puerto Ricans through direct action and legal reform. While Grand Street leaders often paralleled earlier Jewish immigration to postwar Puerto Rican settlement and framed the Lower East Side as an origin point for American Jewish success based on individual uplift, Puerto Rican activists grounded their increasingly coherent agenda in a cosmopolitan vision of the neighborhood as a historic haven for poor newcomers. As such, both Jews and Puerto Ricans tied collective memories of the Lower East Side to specific political claims, most notably those involving the definition and preservation of local space. In all, Grand Street leaders helped shift New York City politics to the right in the late twentieth century. By aligning electorally with outer-borough white ethnic voters, cultivating ties to politically conservative Orthodox groups, and supporting the interests of private real estate, the Lower East Side’s Orthodox base, in both intention and effect, curtailed programs that organized the neighborhood’s poorest residents and accelerated the pace of Lower East Side gentrification. For this reason, Grand Street leaders helped exacerbate racial and class stratification in the neighborhood and reaffirmed broader changes in New York’s political economy during and after the 1970s, particularly the development of luxury real estate. These actions made the Lower East Side a vitally important site for the development of, and ideological fissures within, American Jewish politics in the last third of the twentieth-century. v Acknowledgements I could not have completed this dissertation without the help of several people. First and foremost, my academic advisor, Robert David “K.C.” Johnson, helped me strengthen, refashion, and refine this project from its earliest days as a seminar paper. Professor Johnson’s approach to research and teaching make him a professional role model. I could not have completed this dissertation without his attentiveness, advice, and reliably constructive feedback. He helped move the project forward at several critical junctures. My dissertation committee also offered important assistance. Jonathan Rosenberg conscientiously read my work throughout graduate school and offered important critiques of my writing. Clarence Taylor provided critical feedback as I wrote, and his class on the northern civil rights movement helped inspire this project. Hasia Diner graciously allowed me to attend her graduate seminar, “Jews and the History of American Diversity,” at New York University. Professor Diner pushed me to consider Jewish-Puerto Rican relations as a subject worthy of historical inquiry, and her comments and questions helped clarify my findings. Aldo Lauria- Santiago generously lent his expertise to this project, helping me track down important sources and offering his expertise on Puerto Rican history. He has a contagious passion for historical research and went above and beyond the call of duty in supporting my work. I would also like to thank the CUNY Graduate Center’s History Department, Department of Jewish Studies, Advanced Research Collaborative, and Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs for funding my research. The Graduate Center’s Doctoral Student Research Grant, the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, the American Academy of Jewish Research, and the United Jewish Appeal-Federation also provided important financial assistance. In addition, I am indebted to Jodi Boyle at the University of Albany, Chloe Morse- Harding at Brandeis University, Dwight Johnson at the New York City Municipal Archives, vi Douglas DiCarlo at the La Guardia and Wagner Archives, Troy Johnson at the New York City Board of Elections, and Pedro Hernández at the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños for their invaluable research assistance. Special thanks to John Mollenkopf for his help with Lower East Side election data and Russ Buettner at The New York Times for sharing his research on Seward Park. Archivists and reference librarians at the American Jewish Historical Society, the New York Public Library Dorot Jewish Division, the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, Smith College, the National Archives at New York City, the John F. Kennedy Library, and the Social Welfare History Archives at the University of Minnesota also helped me complete this project. I am also grateful to New York History and the Journal of Policy History for publishing parts of my dissertation research. The Gotham Center for New York History also allowed me to present and workshop parts of my project. Finally, I could not have completed this project without the help of several friends and colleagues. Chuck Meyers and Jeff Rice, two great teachers, wrote letters on my behalf as I applied to graduate school and helped me consider the bigger, “so what” questions of studying history. At the CUNY Graduate Center, research seminars with James Oakes, Judith Stein, Thomas Kessner, and K.C. Johnson helped sharpen my writing and methodology. Max Baumgarten, Ayelet Brinn, Avigail Oren, and Britt Tevis provided important feedback on several parts of the dissertation. My grandmother, Sylvia Barry, whose father settled on the Lower East Side as a young Jewish immigrant, also read parts of my work. Dave Albulario, Wesley Cheng, Jeff Diamant, Ben Hellwege, and Ishani Mukherjee regularly discussed the project – and the ups and downs of dissertation writing – with me at length. Nora Slonimsky deserves special recognition. She is an extraordinary scholar and a lifetime friend. Talks, lunches, and phone calls with her helped me complete this project. Laura Jo Schuster did all of these things and more. She vii took an interest in my research, and her insistence that we go on our very own Lower East Side walking tour helped me visualize the buildings and spaces I was writing about. I could not have finished this dissertation without her patience, laughter, and kindness. I am lucky to have her in my life. Most importantly, I want to thank my family. My parents, Loren and Steve, sister, Melanie, brother-in-law, Ryan, and nephew, Asher, shared in my excitement at new discoveries and empathized