The history

Four or five successive neighbourhoods, occupying the same buildings, one after another.

Kleindeutschland

By the middle of the nineteenth century this area was Little Germany — Kleindeutschland — and it was one of the largest German-speaking settlements anywhere outside of Europe. German was the language of the shops, the newspapers, the churches, the beer halls and the theatres. Tompkins Square was its centre.

The built evidence is still visible if you know to look: German lettering carved into building pediments, former German-American institutions repurposed, and church buildings that have since served three or four different congregations.

The General Slocum

In June 1904, a steamship called the General Slocum caught fire in the East River during a church excursion. Over a thousand people died, the overwhelming majority of them women and children from Kleindeutschland. It was the deadliest disaster in New York's history until September 11th.

The neighbourhood did not recover. Families who lost members moved away, often uptown to Yorkville, and the German character of the area faded within a generation. A small memorial fountain in Tompkins Square Park commemorates it, and it is easy to walk past.

What followed

Eastern European and Jewish immigration filled the tenements next, followed by Ukrainian and Polish communities — a Ukrainian presence remains visible along Second Avenue, in churches, restaurants and cultural institutions.

After the Second World War, Puerto Rican migration reshaped the eastern blocks, and Alphabet City became Loisaida — a Nuyorican rendering of 'Lower East Side' that became the neighbourhood's own name for itself, and remains in use.

Disinvestment and after

Through the 1970s and 80s the neighbourhood suffered severe disinvestment, arson and abandonment. Whole blocks stood empty. That period is the direct cause of two things the neighbourhood is now known for: cheap space that attracted artists and musicians, and vacant lots that residents turned into the community gardens still there today.

The 1988 Tompkins Square Park riot, arising from a confrontation over a park curfew and the eviction of people living there, became the emblem of the conflict between long-standing residents and the money moving in.

The name

'East Village' was popularised in the 1960s by estate agents and the arriving countercultural population, both of whom had reasons to distinguish the area from the Lower East Side. Plenty of people who grew up here have never used the term.