Most peddled goods when they first arrived, but by 1900, Washington Street boasted shops, factories, restaurants, four chapels, a school to teach adults English and children American history, and a half-dozen Arabic newspapers. Musicians and poets performed impromptu at weddings, baptisms, and social gatherings. Poetry was regularly published in local newspapers and by the early twentieth century, immigrant writers had begun publishing books and magazines in both Arabic and English.
Display of the east bench artwork in Elizabeth H. Berger Plaza
Al Qalam: Poets in the Park
The first Arabic-speaking community in the United States took root just steps away from this plaza. Between 1880 and 1945, immigrants, mostly from Lebanon and others from Syria and historic Palestine, settled on Washington Street between The Battery and Albany Street. The vibrant neighborhood, known as “Little Syria,” was home to about 1,200 immigrants. Their homes were crowded tenements that had been carved from single-family residences built in the early nineteenth century. Like their Irish, German, and Eastern European neighbors, they endured life with no indoor plumbing and no access to fresh air or light.
Among these writers whose work is reflected in this artwork are Elia Abu Madi, Kahlil Gibran, Mikhail Naimy, and Ameen Rihani from Lebanon, and Naseeb Arida and Nadra Haddad from Syria, who were instrumental in the formation of a writers’ association called al Rabitah al Qalamiyah (The Pen Bond). Also represented in this artwork are recognized writers who were not members of al Rabitah, including ‘Afifa Karam, Agabia Malouf, and Abbas Abu Shakra from Lebanon.
Formed first in 1916 and reconstituted in 1920, al Rabitah al Qalamiyah produced works of fiction, poetry, and visual art that imagined new ways of being Arab and American. Their most famous member was Kahlil Gibran, author of The Prophet, published in New York in 1923. Their writing played an important role in the literary renaissance in the Middle East—radically transforming the Arabic language, inspiring generations of later writers in the United States and the Middle East and creating innovative forms of Arabic literature.
The community was displaced by development in the financial district, which was claimed by eminent domain and razed to construct the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel in the 1940s.
Washington Street Historical Society commissioned Al Qalam: Poets in the Park in Elizabeth H. Berger Plaza to celebrate the literary legacy of New York’s first Arabic-speaking community. The Moroccan French artist Sara Ouhaddou was selected through a competition held by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. Ouhaddou designed a sculpture and mosaic panels that display excerpts from the works of these writers in her own abstract alphabet. Ouhaddou treats language like architecture and deconstructs lines of poetry into glass and mosaic for al Qalam. The resulting forms are intentionally illegible, allowing the works to be accessible to all without translation.
WSHS thanks Omar Offendum and Rita Elojail Zihenni for their voices used in the audio tour.
About the artist
Sara Ouhaddou (b. 1986) lives and works between France and Morocco. She explores the relationship between Arab craft traditions and contemporary art practice—contributing to a wider debate about the role of traditional art and craft in Arabic culture today.
Discover the poems
The West Bench
The East Bench
