The East Village's Beginnings

 

How Did the Hip Neighborhood Come to Be?

Now that I have established somewhat of an idea of this area's location we will now delve into its history and learn about how it evolved to what I know it to be today. The East Village was initially inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans when in 1626, Manhattan was purchased Peter Minuit of the Dutch West India Company. The East Village was originally a farm, or "bouwerie," as its called in Dutch, when the population of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam occupied. By the 18th Century, many of the farms were transformed into wealthy neighborhoods. During the early 19th century, the East Village contained many of the city's most luxurious estates, but later by the middle of the century, it grew to include a large immigrant population. As the wealthy population began to die down and they moved further uptown, the immigrant community increased including immigrants from modernday Ireland, Germany, and Austria.

"German Playground" or what
is now called Tompkins Square Park

Most of the new immigrants were German speakers which resulted in modern East Village becoming known as "Little Germany." The Village had the third largest urban population of Germans outside of Vienna and Berlin and soon became America's first foreign language neighborhood. With this migration many churches were built in the neighborhood as well as a library on Second Avenue. However, the german immigrant community started to decline after June 15, 1904, when the steamboat General Slocum caught fire in the East River with approximately 1,300 people on board, including many children. In the course of 20 minutes an estimated 1,021 people died.

 beer sign on the tenement at 317 East Fifth Street, “S. Cort Wines & Lager Beer” the faded outline reads on the left side of the store, over a large window supported by what appears to be a Corinthian-like column.

When the Germans left the East Village, they were replaced by immigrants of many new nationalities including Italians and Eastern European Jews, Greeks, Hungarians, Poles, Romanians, Russians, Slovaks and Ukrainians. One of the first groups to occupy what used to be "Little Germany" were Ashkenazi Jews. The Roman Catholic Poles as well as the Protestant Hungarians also had an impact, establishing houses of worship next to each other.

Soon after, a wave of Ukrainians, Poles and people from other countries found their way in the neighborhood. As the East Village community expanded the dwellers began to strike against the cruel working conditions, starvation and other injustices. These responses and acts of rebellion set the stage for what East Village would become in the following decades and what I know it to be today. The way the people began to fight for what they believed in started a wave of brave, independent and artistic minds. With time this way of life transformed the community and by the late 1960s, many artists, musicians, students and hippies began to move into the area, and the East Village was given its own identity.While the area remained a home of primarily immigrants until the mid-1900s, the gradual migration of Beatniks spawned the interest of artists, musicians, students and hippies. To move away from the image of poverty and struggle, the new residents gave the name, "East Village." As the community’s reputation transformed, many musicians, artists and writers were drawn to the neighborhood. According to popular newspapers and magazines from that time, East Village became the heart of the underground culture in New York. .In addition to art and literature, music was also influenced by the local vibe. Thank to its musical diversification, the neighborhood is considered the birthplace of punk-rock, hip-hop, anti-folk and many other musical genres.