Exploring Queer Yiddish History
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Description
Mapping the intersections of Queer/Yiddish identity
1. Site of the STAR House (1970)
Founded in 1970, STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) House was the first LGBT youth shelter in the United States. The organization was established by Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, both of whom were drag queens who had been active in the early gay rights movement in New York City. STAR House offered a number of services and advocacy for homeless LGBT youth, all while both Johnson and Rivera were barely out of their teens and themselves living a precarious existence. Unfortunately, the group was evicted just months after moving into the building, which was later demolished. Another property currently occupies the site.
2. Former Residence of Labor Activist Clara Lemlich Shavelson
Clara Lemlich Shavelson emigrated to the United States from Ukraine with her family in 1904. Like many young immigrant women, she took a job as a garment worker and soon joined the Ladies’ Garment Worker Union and developed a reputation as a fearless activist for workers’ rights. In 1909, she was a leader of a massive strike of shirtwaist workers, known as the Uprising of the 20,000. After marrying and having children, she turned her activism to organizing women in her community in boycotts and rent strikes.
3. Eldridge Street Synagogue
The Eldridge Street Synagogue is a historic synagogue located in the Chinatown neighborhood of Manhattan. Built in 1887, it is one of the first Eastern European Jewish Synagogues built in the United States. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in March of 1980, designated as a New York City Landmark in July of 1980, and designated as a National Historic Landmark in June of 1996. After extensive renovations, the synagogue hosts the Museum at Eldridge Street, and the Kahal Adath Jeshurun congregation still meets in the synagogue for worship.
4. Katz's Delicatessen
One of the oldest and most famous of New York’s restaurants, Katz’s Deli has been serving the public since 1888. At the time, thousands of European immigrants were pouring into the city, with many of them settling on the Lower East Side. A large percentage of the city’s new arrivals were Jewish, and the Lower East Side became a thriving hub of Jewish culture, with Yiddish theater, in particular, flourishing. Because of its proximity to many of Yiddish theaters, Katz’s became a popular gathering place for entertainers. The deli is most well-known for its use as a backdrop in the film When Harry Met Sally.
5. 11th Street Public Baths
The neo-Italian Renaissance building at 538 East 11th Street was originally constructed in 1904-1905 as a public bath house for poor immigrants living in the East Village. In the 1990s and early 2000s, it was home to photographer Eddie Adams' Bathhouse Studios [1; 2].
6. Ukrainian Museum
The Ukrainian Museum is the largest museum in the U.S. committed to acquiring, preserving, exhibiting, and interpreting articles of artistic or historic significance to the rich cultural heritage of Ukrainians. In 2005, the Museum moved into a new, state-of-the-art facility in the heart of Manhattan's vibrant East Village. The building was designed by Ukrainian American architect George Sawicki of Sawicki Tarella.
