LESHP and PS 126/Manhattan Academy of Technology partnership

Lower East Side History Project is proud to announce an exciting new partnership with Public School 126/Manhattan Academy of Technology, located at 80 Catherine Street in Lower Manhattan.

The pilot project, launched in September of 2013, attempts to bring history to life through hands-on experiences and researched based learning. The goal is to get students excited about the extensive, influential, multicultural history in their own back yard and inspire future community involvement.

Eric Ferrara addresses the class.

Over the next several months, students will be reading, writing, discussing and learning about how the Lower East Side has evolved over the centuries, highlighting the contributions of various ethnic groups and cultures that called the district home.

Special programming includes walking tours of the neighborhood, in-class guest lecturers and interactive experiences intended to nurture a first hand understanding of our neighborhood's rich history.

Alfonso Guerriero

The school-year long program will culminate in May, 2014 with a gallery exhibition showcasing what the students have learned through a series of photographs and art installations created throughout the year. 

The program was written by 8th grade history educators, Alfonso Guerriero and Christopher Piccigallo in collaboration with Lower East Side History Project. Both Mr. Guerriero and Mr. Piccigallo were born within blocks of PS 126, which makes this project extra special for the veteran teachers.

Christopher Piccigallo

"We are so excited about creating a partnership with LESHP and through their support, start our pilot program that teaches 8th grade American history through the school's Lower East Side community," says Alfonso Guerriero. "The young historians of PS 126/Manhattan Academy of Technology are deeply invested in exploring and understanding the history of our community."   

LESHP director Eric Ferrara suggests, "This is an awesome opportunity to get kids interested in not only history but other cultures these students may encounter on a daily basis. They get to learn about our shared and individual histories which I believe helps create stronger community relationships and inspires involvement in future preservation efforts."

Guest speaker Adam Woodward
shows the class a Revolutionary War
era relic he uncovered locally.

"I'm really impressed by the curiosity shown by the students and the passion that Al and Chris bring to the table," Ferrara said. "These guys worked tirelessly over the summer to ensure that this program is historically accurate and inclusive enough to reach each child in the classroom, regardless of their individual backgrounds."

This unique program has already gained an overwhelming amount of support from parents, educators and administrators, as well as the students themselves. For many, this is the first time that they are fully exposed to the history of their own ancestry, let alone the neighborhood they live in.

LESHP is very excited about this project and we look forward to a successful school year.

To learn more about Lower East Side History Project, visit leshp.org. For more information about PS 126, visit ps126mat.com.

A project that 8th grade students of PS 126 are working on, depicting Native American life in Lower Manhattan.

Another look at the Native American project.

Eric Ferrara featured in new book, "ITALIANS: Un Tricolore a Stelle e Strisce"

LESHP director Eric Ferrara is featured in a new book called, ITALIANS: Un Tricolore a Stelle e Strisce

Authors Giovanni Pellerito and Peter Zullo highlight the contributions of Italian-Americans currently living and working in Little Italy districts across the nation. Check it out here:

http://www.benvenutaitalia.com/en/1519/presentazione-in-anteprima-di-italians-un-tricolore-a-stelle-e-strisce/

LESHP & The Great Gatsby

LESHP mentioned in the closing credits of The Great Gatsby, taken from the movie premiere on 5/1/13.

Last year, Lower East Side History Project's Eric Ferrara and Seth Abrams had the pleasure of consulting the new Warner Brothers' film, The Great Gatsby. Eric and Seth got to meet and work directly with director Baz Luhrmann, writer Craig Pearce and actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Toby Maguire, Joel Edgerton and Carrie Mulligan.

Last night was the premiere of The Great Gatsby at Lincoln Center and we are proud to say that Eric & Seth's work can be seen throughout the film.

We won't spoil the movie and give away any details but LESHP was brought in to help give a realistic sense of gangsterism in 1920s NYC and inspire ideas about how characters like Jay Gatsby and Meyer Wolfshiem made money beyond bootlegging.

Though we played a small part in this truly extravagant production, this is the biggest project that LESHP has worked on thus far and very honored to be part of it. Thank you Baz Luhrmann and Warner Brothers for the opportunity.

See some photos:

Eric Ferrara wins an Acker Award!

The Acker Award is a tribute given to members of the avant garde arts communities of New York City and San Francisco who have made outstanding contributions in their discipline in defiance of convention,  or else served their fellow writers and artists in outstanding ways.  The award is named after novelist Kathy Acker who in her life and work exemplified  the risk-taking and uncompromising dedication that identifies the true avant garde artist.

LESHP's founder and director has been honored with an award this year and he is in great company:

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: Barney Rosset and Fred Jordan
EDITORIAL: Ron Kolm and Jim Feast​
WRITERS: Richard Kostelanetz​, Peter Lamborne Wilson, John Strausbaugh
POETRY: Bob Holman, Steve Dalachinsky, Eileen Myles, Jim Brodey,  Patricia Smith, Harry Nudel, Lionel Ziprin (Posthumous), Dorothy Firedman, Konstantin K.Kosminsky​
FICTION: Carl Watson, John Farris, Janus Eidus
THEATER: Judith Malina (The Living Theater), Crystal Field (Theater For The New City), Taylor Mead, Augusto Mecharize, Hapi Phace (Mark Rizzo), Tabboo Stephen Tashjian, Peter Kwaloff
BIOGRAPHY: C.Carr
ART: Boris Lurie (Posthumous), John Evans, Jose "Cochise" Quiles, Elsa Rensaa, Dash Snow (Posthumous), Jerry Pagane, Anthony Dominguez, Peter Missing, Joe Coleman, Spider Webb
PUBLISHERS: Dan Simon (SEVEN STORIES PRESS), Jim Fleming (AUTONOMEDIA)
PHOTOGRAPHY: Ira Cohen, Alice O'Malley, Paula Grimaldi-Reardon
PERFORMANCE: Tuli Kupferburg, Valery Oisteanu,  Red Ed, Steve Ben Israel
VIDEO: Nelson Sullivan
FILM: Nick Zedd, Howard Guttenplan (Millenium Theater), MM Serra (FILMMAKERS COOP)
COMMUNITY SUPPORT: Patricia Parker (VISION FESTIVAL), Klara Palotai, Jody Weiner, Monica Panomarev, Lia Gangitano, Lucien Bahaj
BUILDING PRESERVATION AWARD: Angel Orensanz
MUSIC: Danny "Lord Ezec" Singer, James "Jimmy G." Drescher, William Parker, LAch Anti-Folk, , Razbeez (Posthumous), Joey Semz (Joe McCarthy)
VENUES: Steve Cannon (TRIBES), Hilly Crystal (CBGB), Al Orensanz and Maria Neri (ANGEL ORENSANZ FOUNDATION)
HISTORIANS IN FILM: Jeremiah Newton, Eric Ferrara

Join the award ceremony:

Thursday, June 6, 2013
7pm – 10pm
SoHo House 
139 Ludlow Street

More info: http://www.ackerawards.com

Recap: "Lower East Side Oral Histories" at La Mama Galleria

Nina Howes introducing Lower East Side: Oral Histories

On Tuesday, April 9, 2013, several long time neighbors gathered for a special event celebrating a new book by Nina Howes and Lower East Side History Project's Eric Ferrara, entitled, Lower East Side: Oral Histories (History Press, 2012).

The event--which was sponsored by Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and the East Fourth Street Cultural District--featured a handful of the twenty-five interviewees whose stories and personal photos were documented for the project.

"Vintage Bowery" fundraiser, March 20, 2013

This is an important fundraiser for Bowery preservation efforts. Honorary hosts include Martin Scorsese, Luc Sante and Angela Westwater. (LESHP's Eric Ferrara is on the host committee.)

Cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, live Performances and a VIP guest list all for a really good cause. Well worth the min $125 ticket price, if you can swing it :)

Vintage Bowery
A Benefit to Celebrate the Designation of The Bowery Historic District to the National Register of Historic Places
Wednesday, March 20, 2013, 7:00PM – 9:00PM
@ The Bowery Hotel, 335 Bowery, New York City

Honorary Hosts Luc Sante Martin Scorsese Angela Westwater

Host Committee Kent Barwick, Chair Simeon Bankoff Ellie Covan Sara Driver Eric Ferrara Joe Franklin  Michael A. Geyer Frank Giresi Margaret Halsey Gardiner Bob Holman Jim Jarmusch

Host Committee (cont.) Tom Klem  James Macklin Jay Maisel Joyce Mendelsohn Mick Moloney Richard Moses Joseph Perrotta Lisa Phillips Nicholas Quennell Peter Quinn Marci Reaven Mike Wallace

Tickets and Sponsorship Information: http://tinyurl.com/vintagebowery2013
*Please RSVP by Friday, March 15th. For More Information, (212) 566-2729

LESHP makes NewYork.com's "12 tours locals will love" list

Thank you NewYork.com! Five LESHP tours made their "12 tours locals will love" article...

"New Yorkers have a reputation for rolling their eyes when it comes to tours of the city. After all, when you live here, why  pay money to walk around your own backyard? As it turns out, there are fascinating, information-packed tours out there  even skeptical NYC locals are sure to love. These journeys of discovery will leave the know-it-alls wide-eyed and impressed, and give visitors and residents alike a fresh perspective on their surroundings."

http://www.newyork.com/articles/tours/12-tours-even-locals-will-love-60244/

Eric Ferrara makes cover of GIA newspaper

LESHP director Eric Ferrara is featured with Italian American Museum founder Dr. Joseph Scelsa on the cover of this month's Giornale Italo Americano -- a popular and unique newspaper written in both Italian and English.

Ferrara was in Little Italy on January 31, 2013 for a standing-room only presentation for his new book, Lower East Side: Then & Now.

 

Eric Ferrara at the Italian American Museum

Thank you to the Italian American Museum (155 Mulberry Street) for hosting a book signing/presentation last night with LESHP director Eric Ferrara, who was promoting his new book, Lower East Side: Then & Now.

Eric Ferrara at the Italian American Museum, January 31, 2013

New book: "Lower East Side: Then & Now"

We are proud to announce the release of a new book by Lower East Side History Project's Eric Ferrara and David Bellel, entitled Lower East Side: Then & Now, published by Arcadia Publishing.

Using side-by-side images, Ferrara and Bellel compare drastic changes over the last century to select local storefronts and street scapes by presenting dozens of rare and previously unpublished photographs, along with an historical summary of each photo based on original research.

Lower East Side: Then & Now also features "now" images by local photographer Shirley Dluginski and an insightful foreword by historian Joyce Mendelsohn, author of The Lower East Side Remembered and Revisited.
 

The Villager covers "Lower East Side: Oral Histories" book launch

A new book, Lower East Side Oral Histories, is a compilation of interviews by Nina Howes and edited by Lower East Side History Project's Eric Ferrara.

On November 30, 2012, several people involved in the book gathered for a launch party at Duo Multicultural Arts Center. We thank The Villager for covering the event! Read the article.

Above, from left, Nina Howes with interviewees James Galuppo, Nilda Rivera, Jan Lee, Joe Preston, Rebecca Lepkoff, Frankie Alexander and Markian Surmach, son of the late Myron Surmach, who was interviewed for the book.
Copyright Tequila Minsky/The Villager

 

 

LESHP mentioned in Daily Mail article about new BBC TV show

Thanks to the UK's Daily Mail for mentioning LESHP in this article about a new BBC series called "Copper," which is set in NYC's Five Points in the 1860s.

From the article:

"The Lower East Side History Project today gives walking tours of wh
ere the area of 'Five Points' once stood.

The non-profit organisation is dedicated to documenting, researching and preserving the history of the Lower East Side - which encompasses several neighbourhoods and enclaves including the East Village, Little Italy, the Bowery and Chinatown.

Calling it 'one of the oldest, most historically significant and complex quarters in America,' it is today one of the most visited locales in Manhattan."

We are definitely looking forward to this series!

The Villager profiles Lower East Side History Project

Thank you to Terence Confino and The Villager such a great article about LESHP.

He just came off a stint as a media consultant for the Warner Brothers release of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” where he worked directly with Hollywood A-listers like Leonardo DiCaprio and “Spider-Man”’s Tobey Maguire. However, that’s just one of many projects Eric Ferrara, founder and executive director of the Lower East Side History Project, is currently taking on.

Offically formed in 2003, L.E.S.H.P. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to researching, documenting and preserving the history of the Lower East Side... 

READ FULL ARTICLE

Eric Ferrara's St. Marks Place article in The Villager

A big thank you to The Villager newspaper for publishing this article by LESHP director Eric Ferrara:

A lawsuit filed on behalf of neighbors to prevent the demolition of No. 1 St. Mark’s Place was presided over by a Superior Court judge, ending a two-year rift that pitted independent landowners against a corporate behemoth — all over 8-feet of land. Another battle for the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation? Not this time; this took place in May of 1856.

READ FULL ARTICLE: http://www.thevillager.com/?p=1332

New schedule, revamped "Lower East Side" and "East Village" walking tours

We are pleased to announce that our staple "Lower East Side" and "East Village" walking tours have been revamped with with a new route, content and guide -- author and director of Lower East Side History Project, Eric Ferrara.

Ferrara, a fourth-generation Lower East Sider, offers a decade of active research and over a century of ancestral community insight, providing a one-of-a-kind experience suitable for any casual tour-goer or hard-core academic.

Utilizing rare maps, photos, documents, articles and oral histories not found elsewhere, Ferrara digs deep into the neighborhood's forgotten history -- far beyond the familiar "immigrant experience" narrative -- exposing the social, political and cultural intricacies which made this so district vital to the evolution of our city.

Lower East Side Walking Tour
Every Saturday at 12:00pm (beginning January 7, 2012)
http://leshp.org/walking-tours/117-lower-east-side-walking-tour

East Village Walking Tour
Every Saturday at 2:00pm (beginning January 7, 2012)
http://leshp.org/walking-tours/61-east-village-walking-tour

Thank you Andrea Coyle for providing these tours over the last couple of years!

LESHP mentioned in NY Times Article on the Bowery

Thanks to Marc Santora for writing this timely article on the gentrification of the Bowery, and for including our quotes.

The Skids? Not Hardly
Written by Marc Santora
Published March 18, 2011
New York Times

BEFORE the Bowery bums and urban blight, before the restaurant-equipment dealers flooded the sidewalks, before lighting stores illuminated storefront windows and before the area became known as a haven for punk rock, one of New York’s oldest thoroughfares fell into the cross hairs of real estate speculators. They helped transform it into one of the city’s ritziest addresses.

A century later, the speculators are back, and over the past few years the Bowery has undergone another transformation, one that in some ways recalls its heyday even as it risks erasing the markers of its past.

Where flophouses and derelict buildings once stood, luxury condominiums with prices of more than $2,000 per square foot are popping up. Empty lots, gas stations and family businesses have been swept away. Fancy hotels now charge upward of $400 a night for the privilege of crashing on the same Bowery where $4.50 bought a bed for the down and out. Luxury rental apartments — where one-bedrooms start around $4,000 a month — have replaced John McGurk’s long closed but not forgotten watering hole.

“Historically, what happens in New York City has almost always been reflected on the Bowery,” said Eric Ferrara, the director of the Lower East Side History Project and the author of “The Bowery: A History of Grit, Graft and Grandeur.”

“So in this age of high-rise condos and hotels, gourmet cupcakes and chichi boutiques, it is not surprising that the Bowery would be vulnerable to gentrification.”

FULL ARTICLE: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/realestate/20cover-the-bowery.html

LESHP Helps NAT GEO Track Down "Jack the Ripper"

Look out for "Jack the Ripper: The German Suspect" on National Geographic channel.

For more than 120 years, the identity of the infamous Whitechapel murderer has remained unknown. Now, astonishing new evidence revealed by retired UK police detective Trevor Marriot claims to have finally discovered the killer's true identity - a German merchant sailor.

Teaming up with criminal psychologist Thomas Muller and a team of international experts, Marriott applies modern detective techniques to this century-old crime in an attempt to solve the apparently unsolvable case, and what he uncovers is truly remarkable. On a trail that takes him through Europe and into New York's Lower East Side, Marriott claims not only to have uncovered the identity of the Ripper but also the nature of his own grisly end. Read more from NATGEO.com

New book: "The Bowery: A History of Grit, Graft and Grandeur"

We are very proud to announce the release of The Bowery: A History of Grit, Graft and Grandeur, the latest title by LESHP director Eric Ferrara (with a foreword by Rob Hollander).

(From back cover): Originally part of a Lenape trail running the entire length of Manhattan Island, the Bowery has become one of the most notorious thoroughfares in America. Developed in stages by the Dutch, British and then Americans, this stretch of street has continually risen from its own ashes, interminably experiencing periods of popularity, poverty and prosperity.

It has been celebrated as a haven of counterculture, entertainment and theater and denigrated as New York's "Skid Row." Home to bums, bohemians, criminals, artists, performers and the rich and poor alike, the Bowery has attracted the most diverse population of any place in all of New York City's history. Travel down the Bowery with New York City author and researcher Eric Ferrara as he explores its rich, fascinating and at times troubling past.

On Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1609491785/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_til?tag=eastvillage09-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1609491785&adid=1A3JBPV55T6B2KC6R1Z2&

Eric Ferrara discusses Mafia bosses on WFUV radio

Listen to LESHP's Eric Ferrara discuss Mafia bosses on WFUV for a special segment on National Boss Day.

Listen Here

Listen to Rob Hollander on WNYC radio

Listen to LESHP's Rob Hollander on WYNC discussing the re-release of Lionel Rogosin's 1957 film, On The Bowery.

Rob Hollander, cofounder of the Lower East Side History Project, and Michel Rogosin son of Lionel Rogosin, the legendary filmmaker of “On the Bowery,” talk about the 1957 film about life on the streets in downtown Manhattan. It won Best Documentary at the Venice Film Festival and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. “On the Bowery,” is showing at Film Forum September 17-23.

Listen Here