Manhattan, NY – The Last Jews of Orchard St., Hanging on by a Thread
- October 22, 2009 - ד' חשון תש"ע
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Manhattan, NY – It was a street of dreams to many of the more than 2 million Jews who, from the 1880s to World War II, arrived in New York City, fleeing persecution, poverty and whatever else motivates a desperate people to pack their bags and willingly become strangers in a strange land.
Many of these new immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe expected to find streets paved with gold. What they found, instead, were low-paying jobs in factories and sweatshops and life in the dismal tenements of the Lower East Side where sometimes seven members of a family were crammed into small, dimly lit apartments sharing one bathroom in the hallway.
But despite such hardships, many of these mostly Orthodox Jews who clustered around Orchard and Delancey Sts. gradually began to create the American dream. After years of hard work, they were able to scrape together enough money to open small neighborhood shops, turning Orchard St. into a hugely successful bargain mecca that attracted throngs of New Yorkers from all across the city and a comfortable livelihood for themselves.
Even as late as the 1960s, the eight city blocks between East Houston St. and Division St. that make up Orchard St. had a primarily Jewish flavor, with most of the businesses owned by Yiddish-speaking, bearded, and yarmulke-wearing Jews who closed shop each Saturday for the Sabbath and reopened their doors Sunday morning.
In their pidgin English, they peddled everything from fabrics and underwear to luggage and leather, with more than a dozen fabric shops once lining this street.
Today, however, most of these fabric merchants, along with ethnic food vendors, tailors, shoemakers and other Jewish-owned businesses have faded into history. Posh has replaced the past, and where there were once rows of homey stores like Steinberg’s Fabrics, Weiss’ Lingerie, Hamp’s skullcaps and A. Jassin & Sons Butcher Shop, at 156 Orchard St. Orchard St. is now host to sleek bistros, chic boutiques and shiny new condos.
And while some of the more old-fashioned luggage, leather and clothing stores remain, today their wears are being peddled by merchants with Pakistani and Bangladeshi accents rather than Yiddish ones.
Still clinging to the street like some stubborn old vines, however, are less than a dozen Jewish merchants, some Orthodox and some not so religious. Despite the radically changed complexion of the street and a business environment most describe as not so favorable, they are linked to the past — and still dream of a return of the good old days when Orchard St. reeked of Jewish-accented prosperity.
They are the last Jews of Orchard St.
One of these dreamers is Sam Gluck, 56, owner of Global International, a “Famous Designer Menswear” shop at 62 Orchard St., located on street level just below the Lower East Side Dance Academy. A white-bearded, energetic Orthodox Jew with a black skullcap perched on top of his head, Gluck is connected to the past through the store, which he says his father, Isaac, first opened for business more than 50 years ago.
“He came from Romania in 1945 during the war,” Gluck recalled in his Yiddish-accented English. He came with $2 in his pocket. He lost all his family over there because the Nazis killed them, so he was alone.”
Gluck said his father’s first job in America was working in a factory that made ties.
“He made about 15 cents an hour and then started making a few dollars. Then he began to go out and buy ties and shirts, and he peddled them door to door. After doing this, he saved enough money to open a few small stores and then decided to open this one on Orchard St. because religious Jews worked here.”
Gluck remembered that as a kid working in the store, “every inch of Orchard St. was packed with people shopping. Everybody made money. Now it’s changed. First the artists came in, and then all the trendy shops.”
The businessman is not a fan of trendiness and laments that Orchard St. will never be like it was way back when.
“I really, really miss the old days with all the Jewish stores,” he said. “I’d like to have it back. I’m hoping it will come back, but it doesn’t really matter because I think that in four more years I’ll be out of here.”
One Jewish merchant who predicts that the last Jews of Orchard St. will soon be gone is Howard Markowitz, 65, a former stockbroker who, for 35 years, has owned Howard Sportswear, Inc., at 69 Orchard St., a retail and wholesale store that specializes in men’s and women’s hosiery, underwear and lingerie.
What saddens him the most is that many of the children who took over their parents’ shops have lost interest in the businesses.
“They don’t want this — even my children don’t want this. This is going to be the last of the business and, I think, it’s going to be the same for the others, too.”
While the last Jews of Orchard St. may eventually disappear, there is something that will not, and that is the memory of how things once were along this street of dreams — and other streets, as well — for Jewish and other immigrants to America, according to Kate Stober, a spokesperson for the Tenement Museum, at 108 Orchard St. This memory-keeping, she added, is one of the primary missions of the museum.
“Interestingly enough, a lot of Orthodox Jewish families are moving back into the neighborhood,” Stober said. “I don’t know if they’re the great-great-grandchildren of immigrants or not, but I know it won’t be the same, because they’re of a different generation.”
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