USA > New York > New York City > New York panorama : a comprehensive view of the metropolis > Part 12
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agf he Rumanian-American Congregation, 224 Hopkins Street, Brooklyn.
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A major national holiday is celebrated by Rumanians in New York on ay Io, in commemoration of the liberation of Rumania in 1877 from rkish rule.
With few exceptions, most of the Rumanian restaurants in New York er to a Jewish clientele. Experts agree, however, that the food resembles native Danubian cuisine rather closely. Meals in Rumanian restaurants th : often accompanied by Rumanian gypsy music. pr
A large Rumanian bookstore in New York is the Rumanian Book pository Company's shop at 37 East Twenty-Eighth Street. It carries Luc arge stock of Rumanian and English books, magazines, and newspapers LSS d serves readers in all parts of the United States. Despite the fact that ate ere are larger or more significant Rumanian groups in Ohio, West
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Virginia, Colorado and Pennsylvania, where the farmer and laborer Transylvania and Bukovina are more at home than in the metropolar New York is the cultural capital of Rumanians in America. The Ins M tute of Rumanian Culture is in New York; Leon Feraru, an outstandingka authority on Rumanian literature, is Professor of Romance Language at Long Island University; the first Rumanian Symphony of Geor pcie Enesco was introduced in America by Arturo Toscanini and the Philhling monic Orchestra; and a well-known Rumanian-American writer, Konning Bercovici, has for years lived and worked in New York.
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Hungarians
The countrymen of Louis Kossuth and Joseph Pulitzer constitute c H of the city's smaller foreign groups. Particularly striking is their paraly on May 15, a holiday for Magyars in New York, when they asseml Th on East Eighty-Second Street and march in honor of Louis Kossuth, whoth statue stands impressively on Riverside Drive.
There were Hungarians in America as long ago as during the Revol tionary days, when one of them, Michael de Kovats, fought as a color The in Washington's army. Most of them, however, came here after the fated Hungarian revolution of 1848. Today there are in the city sonyi 150,000 residents of Hungarian stock, about 90,000 of whom are Jevely,
From 1880 to 1914, 230,000 Hungarians entered the port of Naqua York, and nearly half of these settled in the city to form the largest sing The Hungarian group in the country. Most of the others went on to Pennsput vania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, where they became miners, steel wolde ers, and agricultural laborers. Those who remained in New York setthe at first on the lower East Side in the vicinity of Houston Street and Ather nues A and B, but with the coming of newer immigrants the colony begti to move. Since 1905 it has been a relatively permanent part of Yole ville between Seventy-First and Seventy-Ninth Streets, east of Lexingteg Avenue.
Most Hungarians in New York are employed in the food industr and in the needle and building trades. A few are musicians, among the Erno Rapee, conductor of the Radio City Symphony Orchestra, and Em Deutsch, music director for station WABC.
The people of Hungarian birth or parentage in the city maintain fogN Protestant (Hungarian Reformed) churches, two Catholic churches afin 30 synagogues. These groups also conduct church schools, largely !:
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iching the Hungarian language, tradition, and culture to American- rn children of immigrants.
Most of the Hungarian clubs and societies in the city are chartered as k and benevolent associations, and two or three date from the 1850's. the best known of those more recently established is the Ady Endre rgciety, founded after the World War to aid political refugees from ingary. It sponsors literary forum evenings annually and publishes a jingarian language weekly, Az Ember (The Man). Another group, the Iture Society, was founded in 1931 and is known in the Hungarian ony for its dramatic productions, musicales, and lectures. Efyleti Elet lub Life), a monthly publication with 15,000 circulation, is the offi- I organ of many Hungarian organizations. Eight publications are issued Hungarian in New York, including the Hungarian daily, Amerikai gyar Nepszava.
The Elore Hungarian Players, 380 East Eighty-First Street, an affiliate the Hungarian Workers' Federation, is a leading Hungarian dramatic npany in America. All plays are presented in Hungarian, usually at old: Fifth Avenue Theater and at the Heckscher Foundation.
onThe Tobis Theatre, First Avenue and Seventy-Eighth Street, is the ile permanent Hungarian motion picture house in the country. Prob- omy it is the only one in the world that shows Hungarian pictures exclu- ewely, for in Hungary, where only about fifteen pictures are produced Vaiually, the theaters often show American and British films.
ngThe Hungarian stores in New York are the chief importing and dis- spouting agencies in this country for Tokay wines, Budapest salami, orl goose livers, the latter a favorite Hungarian delicacy. The stores there a nationwide trade, sending their wares to the Hungarian-born Amers and steel workers throughout the country.
egat is in the unpretentious eating places of Yorkville and the lower East orte that authentic Hungarian delicacies are to be found. The large gtól gaudy places boasting gypsy music and elaborate cuisine are seldom truly Hungarian.
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Czechoslovakia has contributed more than 40,000 to the population of fo New York area, and since the World War, when that country won anindependence and formed a democratic government, Czechs and Slovaks fe have combined many of their interests. Earlier each gathered in
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widely separated vicinities in Manhattan, the Czechs in the lower pie of Yorkville, between Seventy-First and Seventy-Fifth Streets, east est Second Avenue, and the Slovaks downtown from Fourth to Seventh Strate east of Avenue A. Now some Slovaks are moving into the northern cad trict. About 15,000 Czechs live in Queens County, chiefly in Astoria, w. smaller groups in Winfield, Woodside, Corona and Jackson Heights.
Most of the Czechoslovaks in New York are Roman Catholics, there are many American Czechs who are not affiliated with any chur The Roman Catholic Czechs attend the Church of Our Lady of Perpet Help, 323 East Sixty-First Street, and St. John the Martyr's, 254 E: Seventy-Second Street. Protestants attend the Jan Huss Church (Pic byterian ), 349 East Seventy-Fourth Street, and the Madison Avenue Pis byterian Church at Seventy-Third Street. There are four Slovak churchby one Roman Catholic, with a large congregation, St. Nepomucky Chutd at Sixty-Sixth Street and First Avenue. The other churches of this 1 guage group are the Slovak Baptist, Seventh Day Adventist and Slow Lutheran.
Czechs and Slovaks keep alive their traditions and languages by mano taining separate schools where after public school hours children taught history and the native speech. The Sokol (Falcon) Athletic Unless of New York and other organizations are especially concerned with catu thenics and sports. Other groups present native dramas, folk songs forms of entertainment which have their origin back in the home coun str The largest meeting place is Bohemian National Hall, 335 East Severlese Third Street, Manhattan, where forty-eight organizations meet regula llo, Among the most popular choral groups are the Huss Choir, Jan Ho; House, Seventy-Fourth Street near First Avenue, and the Sokol Sing tho and Dramatic Society, 420 East Seventy-First Street. Czechoslovakia Yı contributed prominent artists to the musical and theatrical world. A
The daily newspaper New Yorkske Listy (Czech) was establishedmb 1879 and New Yorksky Dennik (Slovak) in 1912. Slovak v Amerikecier F a semi-weekly periodical and Tydenni Zpravy is a weekly.
At Jan Huss House, on Seventy-Fourth Street near First Avenue, themb is a Czech museum.
Balkan Slavs
New York City has 10,600 persons of Yugoslav stock-Serbs, Cr th and Slovenes-of whom 6,500 were born abroad. Established about I& Fou
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ple earliest Yugoslav colony in New York City was centered around twenty-Third Street and Tenth Avenue, Manhattan. The colony now tratends along Ninth and Tenth Avenues between Twenty-First Street dd Fortieth Street. There are many Balkan Slavs in Astoria, Long Island. wl: the entire Balkan group in the city the Bulgarians are fewest in num- r, comprising only about 100 families and 300 transients, most of whom 'e in upper Manhattan.
Ird Croats, Serbs and Slovenes have sharply defined cultures. The Croats. tad Slovenes are influenced by Austrian and Hungarian cultures, while Be Serbs have acquired many Turkish traditions and customs.
Pr Croats and Slovenes are generally Roman Catholic; the Croatian church, Pr Cyril and Methodius, is located at 552 West Fiftieth Street, the chovene church at 62 St. Mark's Place. The Serbs, few in number und without a church of their own, attend the Russian Orthodox Church 1. Houston Street near Second Avenue, where services are conducted in ome ancient Slavonic church language. The Slovenes also have an audi- rium at 253 Irving Avenue, Ridgewood, Brooklyn. Several Yugoslav nahools have been established in the city; a Croatian school is affiliated ath the church on West Fiftieth Street, and others are supported by njew York Yugoslav societies, which number more than 100 and sponsor calltural, political and mutual aid programs.
Art, music, drama, literature and the dance, education, science and in- nthistry-all have been enriched by Yugoslav New Yorkers. A few of enese are Nichola Tesla and Michael I. Pupin, noted scientists ; Henry Suz- laallo, sociologist and president of the University of the State of Washing- Hin; Prof. R. R. Radosavljevich, educational psychologist; Louis Adamic, glithor ; and Tashamira, the interpretive dancer.
Yugoslavs have their own restaurants where native foods may be en- yed and special occasions celebrated. Music is supplied by a native edmburitza orchestra and an evening often ends with the kolo-the ikacient national dance-performed by both patrons and professionals.
The holiday most widely observed by Yugoslavs is celebrated on De- thimber I, anniversary of the establishment in 1918 of the Kingdom of rbs, Croats and Slovenes (later called Yugoslavia), when these three toples were united under one flag. The feast of SS Cyril and Methodius, ho converted the Slavs to Christianity in the ninth century and trans- ted the Scriptures into Slavic, is observed on June 7 by Yugoslavs of rooth Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox faith.
18 Four Yugoslav newspapers are published in New York: Svijet, Croa-
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tian daily; Glas Naroda, Slovenian daily; Srbski Dnevnik, Serbian dai Hrvatski List, Croatian newspaper issued three times a week.
Estonians
Scattered about the city-in the Bronx, Harlem and the East Side are about 6,000 Estonians, one of the latest groups to emigrate. M of them left Estonia, whose people are closely related to the Finns, af the unsuccessful revolution of 1905 in Russia.
Estonians in New York are engaged chiefly in various forms of skil labor. They publish a weekly newspaper in their native language and tl support two social organizations and three churches of their own. Perio cally they hold music festivals at which many of the men and women : pear in the Estonian peasant costume.
Lithuanians and Letts
After 1868, Lithuanians came to New York in considerable numbe as a result of oppression in the homeland. According to the Federal cen: of 1930, there were 31,000 persons of Lithuanian parentage in the city that time.
Three newspapers published in the Lithuanian language do much maintain the group's national identity. Ranging in allegiance from Catl lic Nationalist to Communist, these organs are intimately bound up w organizations almost equally diverse: sick and death benefit societi 1
le religious, artistic, literary, musical, social, and other groups. Local 54 the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America is composed entirely Lithuanians.
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The largest colonies of Lithuanians are in Williamsburg, Brooklyn a Queens. Several Lithuanian Roman Catholic Churches in the city ha well-trained choirs. An outstanding musical group is the Aidas Chor A school for children and a radio station, WMBQ, with seven Litl anian announcers, help to keep the language alive. A sports federati includes eight baseball teams.
The Lithuanians and Letts who came from the Baltic provinces of Cz ke ist Russia speak languages related to each other, which form a spec branch of the Indo-European family.
Most of the 16,000 Letts in New York left their native country-n independent Latvia-after the Russian revolution in 1905. Concentra
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Brooklyn and the Bronx, the Letts work principally as bricklayers, car- nters and unskilled laborers. Many of the women are engaged in the edle trades and in domestic service.
Letts have founded several clubs and societies for persons of their tionality. The largest of these has its own dramatic group, a chorus d a string orchestra.
MaThere is no permanent Lettish church, but two congregations, Baptist af d Lutheran, hold services once a month in Judson Memorial Church Washington Square and in the John Street Church.
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In spite of the fact that they are more nearly akin to the Anglo-Amer- ns than any other group from the European continent, the Scandi- vians of New York have preserved much of their native culture and des of life. Many live in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, which full of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish shops, restaurants, book- res and churches. The majority of Scandinavians who came over in great immigration of the 19th century settled in the vast farming gions of the Middle West to follow the traditional agricultural life their fathers. Thus New York has only 20,000 residents of Danish ck out of the more than 500,000 in this country, 63,000 of Norwegian ck out of 1,100,098, and 71,000 of Swedish stock out of more than e million and a half.
The first Scandinavians came to New York with Henry Hudson in 09; there were a few Danes among the crew of the Half Moon when entered New York Bay that year. Until late in the 19th century there re hardly more than one thousand in the entire city. A Norwegian, aes Carstensen, may have determined Brooklyn as a residence for most the Scandinavians who subsequently settled in New York, when he thị tid rchased in 1642 some 60 acres of land in the section later known as illiamsburg. In 1704 the Norwegian and Danish residents of the city ected a stone chapel on lower Manhattan near Broadway and Rector złeet.
ec The Scandinavians who remained in New York became, for the most rt, mechanics, seamen and skilled workers in the building trades. More ndan 60 percent are members of trade unions. They are especially nu- atlerous in such unions as the Carpenters', Bricklayers', Painters', and
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International Seamen's. The leaders in the movement for unionizati have been those Swedes who came to New York after the Swedish ge eral strike of 1909.
Most of the Scandinavians in this city are Lutherans, each national: maintaining its separate church. The first Swedish church in the ci however, was the Swedish Immanuel Methodist Episcopal Church, which the first services were held in 1845 on an old ship anchored the Hudson River. Den Norske Sjomandskirke (Norwegian Seamer Church), which has been maintained chiefly for Norwegian sailors sin 1878, has always had its pastor selected by church and government authorities in Norway.
The Swedes are especially well known for their talented singers, sor of whom have been featured on the stage of the Metropolitan Ope House. Many Swedes have won distinction in engineering.
The Danes have also been prominent in musical and professional li: Jacob A. Riis, a Danish immigrant, became a well-known journalist. F articles in the New York Tribune and other newspapers on the disea ridden slums of New York, along with such books as The Making of American and How the Other Half Lives, were important contributions sociological literature.
Scandinavians have established numerous benevolent, charitable a social organizations, as well as several newspapers. Danes and Norwegia have one newspaper each, with a circulation of 4,100 and 9,000 respo tively; the Swedes have five newspapers with a total circulation of 14,00 All Scandinavians unite in the celebration of Leif Erickson Day October 9; the Danes alone observe Grundslovsdagen, or Constituti Day, on June 5; the Swedes celebrate on November 6 the anniversary the death of their great national hero King Gustavus Adolphus, at t battle of Lützen.
Peoples of the Near East
During the later decades of the 19th century, Turkish massacres dro Armenians and Syrians to American shores in steadily increasing nul bers. The wave of near-East immigration reached its peak in the 1: decade of that century. In 1896, a number of Turks joined the exod when Sultan Abdul Hamid II, in a precedent-breaking decree, permitt his own nationals to leave the empire.
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Of the three near-Eastern groups, the Syrians have the largest popu- ion in the city, numbering 30,000 throughout greater New York. The menians come next with 22,000, while the Turks in New York num- r only about 300.
Only 1,000 of the city's Syrians live in Manhattan, along Washington eet between Morris and Rector Streets. The largest Syrian colony in : city lies between De Graw and State Streets, running from the East ver to Hoyt Street in Brooklyn. A smaller settlement has grown up in : Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn.
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New York's Armenians live for the most part between Twenty-First d Thirty-Second Streets, in the district east of Lexington Avenue. Other lonies center about Bathgate and Washington Avenues in the Bronx; ong Amsterdam and St. Nicholas Avenues between 18Ist and 19Ist eets in Washington Heights; and near Fifteenth Street and Fourth venue, Brooklyn.
The Turks are settled mainly along Rivington and Forsythe Streets Manhattan.
While the Syrians are mainly importers, dealing in embroideries, laces, tens, brassware, pottery, exotic foods and Asiatic objects of art, the irks are for the most part unskilled laborers, while the Armenians rticipate in the whole range of the city's occupations.
Armenians and Syrians in the city are almost without exception Chris- an, the former adhering to the Gregorian Church while the latter have ermed a number of sects related to the Greek Orthodox and the Greek od Roman Catholic Churches. St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church at Washington Street, best known Syrian church in the city, conducts u:vices in Syrian.
The Turks are exclusively Mohammedans. The only real mosque in the y, at 108 Powers Street in Brooklyn, claims most of the devout. Some long to the Mohammedan Unity Society at 67 West 125th Street.
The Syrians are the most nationally-conscious group of the city's near- stern population, boasting three Arabic dailies, a tri-weekly and a mi-monthly. Leading newspaper is Al-Hoda (The Guidance) published 55 Washington Street. Other publications include Al-Islash (The Re- (rm), The Syrian Eagle, Democratic Party organ; the tri-weekly Mirror the West; and the semi-monthly news magazine, As-Sameer.
Armenian left-wing groups publish the daily Panvor (Worker), which the only near-Eastern publication comparable to the Syrian press in e city. Armenians also publish two New York weeklies, Gotchnag (The
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Church Bell), a religious and literary magazine, and The Armenian St 3 c tator, a political magazine dedicated to Armenian independence fr Turkey and in opposition to Soviet Armenia.
The only Turkish publication is a monthly bulletin put out by the Turk Aid Society, 2344 Eighth Avenue, the only strictly Turkish organizat. in the city.
Few of the customary holidays of these nationalities are observed the city, and these are mainly political. Armenians celebrate April All-Armenian Martyrs Day, commemorating the Armenian victims Turkish pogroms during the World War, and May 20, Armenian M tional Independence Day, celebrating the autonomy of Soviet Armer
The Syrians in New York, 85 percent of whom are Lebanese, I the founding of the republic of Lebanon on September I. The princi Turkish political holiday is October 27, anniversary of the founding of Turkish republic in 1923.
New York has come to rank high in Arabic literary history as final home of Syria's leading modern poet, Kallil Gibran, who lived the city for many years and died here in 1931.
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Orientals
Simultaneous with the tide of European immigration to the east co of the United States during the last half of the 19th century, waves Chinese and Japanese began to pour into the west. The Chinese, mai from Canton province, began to settle in this country during the mid of the century. In 1852 Commodore Perry broke through Japanese i lation and paved the way for future migrations. Later, Chinese w driven eastward by the west coast anti-Chinese disturbances that led fina to the exclusion acts barring Chinese and Japanese immigration, and ma eventually settled in New York.
While 1930 figures give the city's Chinese population as 18,000 a the Japanese as only 2,000, the latter wield an influence in New Yor commercial life considerably greater than the former's. Headed by powerful Tokyo House of Mitsui, whose local offices cover a floor the Empire State Building, New York's Japanese are mainly engaged large scale importing. With the exception of a number of domestic a restaurant workers, the Japanese are reasonably prosperous.
In sharp contrast, the Chinese are mainly small shopkeepers, art a curio dealers, domestic workers and laundrymen. They live in some
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se city's worst tenements. Their few doctors, artists and teachers have clientele largely limited to their own countrymen. "Chinatown," so miliar to out-of-town sightseers, is in the Bowery district northwest Chatham Square.
Many of the city's Japanese and several hundred Chinese in New bork are Christian. The only Buddhist temple in the city is in the pri- te apartment of a Japanese priest, many of whose congregation are lite Americans, the rest Japanese. Devout Chinese Buddhists worship their own homes, repudiating the two joss houses in Chinatown as ırist attractions.
Chinese fraternal organization, which once centered about the much blicized tongs, has shifted, and the nature of the tongs themselves s changed. Once marked by racketeering, gambling and bloodshed, tong Fairs have been quiet for some years. For the most part the tongs have turned to their original character of benevolent and protective societies. he main tongs in Chinatown are still the Hip Sings at 61 Doyers Street, d the On Leong Tong at 41 Mott Street. The Chinese Consolidated nevolent Society, enrolling members of both organizations, now adju- cates all tong disputes.
The Chinese publish three dailies in New York, largest of which is e liberal Chinese Journal, which boasts a circulation of 9,000. Other pers include the Chinese Nationalist Daily, organ of the Kuomintang's ew York branch, and the Chinese Republic News, featuring mainly S hinese Masonic lodge news. There is also the Chinese Vanguard, a eekly published by the left-wing Chinese Workers' Club.
The Japanese in New York publish two periodicals, the Japanese Times d the Japanese American. Both reflect the official Japanese government ews.
New York's Chinese and Japanese have, like most other nationalities, opped most of their native customs. The holidays celebrated in the city e political rather than religious or traditional. Chinese New Year's day, hich may occur anywhere from the first of January to mid-February, is ill celebrated with dragon parades and firecrackers, but is almost the ily occasion for large-scale observance. The Chinese commemorate the rth and death of Sun Yat Sen and the founding of the Chinese Re- blic, while the Japanese bow to the Emperor's picture on his birthday. Both of these groups are fervidly patriotic, but only the Chinese aintain a complete school for their children, at 64 Mott Street. Smaller panese schools are attached to various Japanese Christian churches. A
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Chinese dramatic society stages plays, and two Bowery movie houses shca Chinese films after IO P.M.
Following in the wake of the far-Eastern migrations that landed fill on the Pacific Coast came the Koreans and Filipinos, some of whc crossed the continent to settle in New York. Koreans filtered in wi the flood of Chinese and Japanese immigrants, until they reached the present population of about 200 in the city.
The Filipinos came in much larger numbers, their influx reachit its height after 1910. Until the establishment of the Philippine Cor monwealth in 1935 they were classed as "nationals," an intermedia category neither citizen nor alien. They are now considered alien and then immigration is limited to 50 per year, thereby stabilizing their populatie in the city at the present figure of 4,000.
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