The Syrian Quarter

Discover the journey

The Syrian tenement at 25-27 Washington Street, 1897.

Living

Walking up the east side of Washington Street from The Battery, a new immigrant found that many of the buildings were occupied by Syrians. The houses, formerly elegant single-family homes, had been converted to multi-roomed tenements in the middle of the nineteenth century. Each of the often windowless cubicles was occupied by a family or a half-dozen strangers; there was barely room for everyone to lie down. If you were very poor, you paid fifteen cents for the privilege of bedding down in the hallway. The tenants froze in winter and sweltered in summer. The basements, where many Syrians lived and had their shops, flooded every time the Hudson River rose. Babbitt's Soap Works spewed noxious fumes twenty-four hours a day. With no air or light (there was not yet electricity), no indoor plumbing, and no place to cook, the tenements were a breeding ground for disease.
Yet the Syrians survived and even thrived. They formed literary, welfare, and political societies, published newspapers, bought real estate, and set up businesses. Poets and composers flourished. By the turn of the twentieth century, a quarter of the residents had moved to Brooklyn, where the rents were cheaper, the air cleaner, and the conditions healthier, but new immigrants continued to settle first on Washington Street, until it was razed by the construction of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel in the 1940s.

1897 map of Washington Street with the Syrian neighborhood, New York Public Library.

Linda Jacobs explains the use of the term 'colony' when referring to the Syrian community on Washington Street. Excerpt from Afikra Conversations, "The Syrian Colony in NYC 1880-1900."

In 1904, the first skyscraper was built on Washington Street: the Whitehall Building. It heralded the gradual replacement of the tenements with commercial buildings, which slowly destroyed the residential character of the neighborhood. When the Whitehall opened its doors, a Syrian named Michael Kaydouh rented the commercial space on the corner of Washington Street and opened a candy and tobacco store, which greeted new immigrants as they disembarked. Not many of the Syrians had such fancy storefronts. They mostly lived and worked in the same space, living alongside their stock or one floor above it.

Halfway up the first block of Washington Street on the east side sat 25-27 Washington Street, the largest Syrian residence. A double-wide tenement with five floors, it housed almost 150 Syrians in 1900. Next to three street-level shops, three dark stairways gave access to the apartments above, where conditions were deplorable. The cubicles, into which these elegant homes had been divided, were windowless. They were perpetually dark and lit only by lanterns or candles. The outhouses were in the back stableyard, and some residents had to walk down five flights to reach them. Before indoor plumbing, all washing had to be done outdoors as well. Even though it was generally acknowledged that the Syrians kept their cubicles as clean as they could, the common areas were filthy and decrepit.

The Whitehall Building and Annex, ca. 1912.

Tuberculosis was rampant. A 1903 study showed that the Syrian quarter and Chinatown had the highest per capita TB rates in the city. Malnutrition played a role in many infant deaths.

As miserable as were their surroundings, they worked constantly to make their lives better. Not only did they reach for and often grasp financial success, they had aspirations beyond earning a living. They founded a half-dozen associations before the turn of the century, like the Syrian Society, founded in 1892, the Syrian Orthodox Benevolent Society, and the Syrian Maronite Benevolent Organization. Some were sectarian in nature, others political, but several were literary: men or women would get together, set themselves an issue and present arguments for or against. The fact that these debates were always accompanied by food and drink suggest that they enjoyed socializing as much as debating. Baptisms and weddings were celebrated heartily, with men orating or writing poetry for the occasion, and the deceased were seen off in oratorical style by their co-religionists.

Linda Jacobs explains the Syrians' move to Brooklyn. Excerpt from afikra Conversations, "The Syrian Colony in NYC 1880-1900."