This week the City Room had the Tenement Museum respond to questions on the history of immigration on the Lower East Side. Personally, I’m fascinated by this since both sides of my family emigrated from Russia around the same time. Since this is a New York blog and I’m looking for a quickie Friday post, I figured I’d share my Lower East Side family history with you (mother’s side).

I’m totally cheating on this post. Back in October, an immigration question was posted on the Brownstoner Forum and I responded. I’m a cuttin’ and a pastin’. Hey, I wrote it! Well, I took notes from Aunt Elaine.

My Grandpa Izzy’s mother, Bubba Anna, came over from a Shetl in White Russia in 1908. They left because of the Pograms and settled on the LES.

She left her children with remaining siblings and sent for them later. To raise money to come over, people would sell something of value, like a cow. The land was not good. They survived mostly on fish from the nearby river. Later, Stalin took the land to make “the breadbasket“. When they got to the LES, Zayda Froyim (that’s Anna’s husband) earned a living as a taylor. Religion was important to them because they weren’t free to practice it in Russia. They also thought it was very important to learn the English language (that was Elaine’s dig at modern day immigrants). Each generation did alittle better than the next. The first to arrive just about finished elementary school. The next went on to high school, etc… As they did better and went onto better careers, the family started fanning out to other boroughs (my mom, Izzy’s daughter is from the Bronx and I’m from Brooklyn) and then to other states.

In the 30’s, due to the depression, they were able to buy 100 acres of land for 1 cent. They were given a whole farm, with a barn, cows, a bull, chickens, etc. Elaine said “Where else can you get that? Even the tsar didn’t have that!”

Thanks to Aunt Elaine for filling me in on the deets.