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Trio Seeks to Preserve Buildings, and a Past Most New Yorkers know that the Lower East Side was one of this country’s major immigration portals. Waves of immigrants, mostly Eastern European Jews, settled in its tenements in the late 19th and early 20th century. But the Lower West Side also drew immigrants by the thousands in the mid- to late-9th century. They came from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Greece, Ireland, Lebanon and Syria. They, too, lived in cramped tenements and worked long hours to survive.
Three preservationists are hoping to change that. Barbara and Martin Rizek, and Joseph Svehlak, a city tour guide, have banded together to raise awareness—and even save—the little that is left of an area once known as “Little Syria.” (The neighborhood was also the first significant Arabic settlement in the city.) The Rizeks, authors of “The Financial District’s Lost Neighborhood: 1900-1970,” grew up in the neighborhood, which was loosely bound by Battery Place, West Street, Liberty, and Broadway. They lived there until 1969, long enough to see it vanish almost entirely. “What really prompted me to write the book,” said Barbara, 65, “was one evening I was watching TV when Battery Park City was being built, and they were interviewing one of the new residents. And she said, ‘Can you imagine us living down here in the Financial District where nobody’s ever lived?’ I sat up and said, ‘What are you talking about!’” She and her husband Martin, 74, are both descendants of Eastern European immigrants. Two acts of eminent domain, one in the 1940s for the construction of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and one in the 1960s for the construction of the World Trade Center, effectively leveled the community. “It wasn’t like what happens in some historic neighborhoods, which just fall into decay,” says Barbara. “It wasn’t little by little. It just stopped.” A few neighborhood buildings somehow survived both major upheavals, however, as well as the current wave of luxury development. Three of the most significant are 103, 105-107, and 109 Washington Street, between Rector and Carlisle Streets. The first, now Moran’s bar, was formerly St. George’s Syrian Church. It is the most striking of the three, with a colorful terra cotta depiction of St. George slaying the dragon over the front door. The middle building, now vacant, was once a settlement house. It served the neighborhood in a variety of ways, including as a health clinic, library, classroom, and a free milk dispensary. The last building was a typical tenement, and still has tenants.
Just a block away, at 98-100 Greenwich St, developer Sam Chang will soon begin construction on a luxury hotel. Chang also plans to demolish the 18th-century Federal building at 96 Greenwich St., if it is not landmarked. The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is deliberating the matter. The preservationists say each of the Washington Street buildings is worth saving in its own right, but the fact that they are all in a row makes them even more special. “There is nowhere else in the city representing an immigrant neighborhood where you have a church, a settlement house, and a tenement side by side still existing,” Svehlak said last month in a presentation before Community Board 1’s Landmarks Committee, where he was seeking support. “This could be a mini historic district.” CB1 unanimously passed a resolution requesting that the LPC grant the buildings a hearing. But according to LPC spokeswoman Lise Debourbon, 103 Washington, the Syrian church was actually “calendared,” in 2004, which means the LPC is formally considering it for landmark status. A hearing date has still not been set, however, and there has been no LPC action on the other two buildings. While the LPC generally grants landmark status on the basis of architectural, rather than cultural, merits, there are exceptions. According to Debourbon, several buildings, including the home of jazz great Charlie Parker, have been landmarked for cultural reasons. If they are successful in saving these three buildings, it will mean something quite personal for the preservationists. Svehlak’s mother, an immigrant from Moravia, grew up at 109 Washington St. “She would talk about sleeping on roll-down mats in the kitchen, because they rented to boarders for a few extra dollars to pay rent,” he says. “My grandmother worked two jobs in the Financial District, scrubbing floors on her hands and knees and cleaning spittoons.” For the Rizeks, the buildings are even closer to home. They grew up in dark railroad apartments much like the tenement at 109 Washington Street. They attended weddings and funerals at St. George’s. And the settlement house was a social center of sorts. “We used to watch ‘Laurel and Hardy’ silent films there,” says Martin, whose parents emigrated from Slovakia, “and there were dances there, too.” More than anything, Svehlak and the Rizeks hope to preserve the buildings as visible reminders of a vibrant neighborhood that was nearly lost to history. “It means something for our families that they know there’s a place they can look at that represents the life that happened here,” says Svehlak. To read more of Barbara and Martin Rizek's memories of the neighborhood, click here.
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