"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

Sunday morning was beautiful but hot. H and her friend and I went to the 10:30 service at Redeemer. Redeemer meets at several places in the city, but we have always attended the services at Hunter College on East 69th Street near Lexington. Along the way you pass incredible real estate. This is one of the great brownstones along East 63rd Street.

After the service, H and her friend headed out to eat and to see a show, and I headed to Delancey and Essex streets where I would meet up with my Big Onion Walking Tour of the ethnic neighborhoods of the Lower East Side. What made this tour special was that it was also an eating tour. (I know this blog has become very food-centric. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I will let you know when I get home and get on the scales!)

The Big Onion company hires only graduate students as tour guides and ours was particularly knowledgeable and energetic. This was truly one of the most fun things I have done since I've been here.

While waiting at the Olympic Diner for the group to gather, I noticed this really awful building. I have no idea what it is, but it's really ugly...so ugly I had to take a picture.

Here's the Olympic Diner. I took a picture of it only because it has the worst bathroom in all of Manhattan. First, you have to climb two or three narrow flights of stairs to get to the unisex bathroom. Then, the door doesn't lock and the stall latch doesn't work. It was filthy (it had a urinal; need I say more?) and I was having to manage everything really fast AND try to hold the door closed. I was so glad when I was able to get out of there without incident and rejoin the group!

Here is a map of Manhattan and the Lower East Side. The black box on the map of Manhattan shows the area we toured. Manhattan settled from the tip of the island up. This particular area is very rich in culture because of all the immigrants who settled there over the years.

Our first stop was in front of this "churchogogue." It's very evident the English settled this part of the city first because of the street names. This building originally housed the Northfolke Baptist Church, but in time, the people moved out and Jews, seeking religious freedom and safety came in, settled, and made the building their synagogue. This area of Manhattan was really crowded in the mid-1800's. There were 1000 people per acre! Immigrants continue to move in and settle here. The Vietnamese are some of the latest. I found it very interesting that when the Vietnamese come, they typically learn Spanish before English because of the makeup of the community.

This is Essex Street. In the "old days" (early 1900's), this street had pickle vendor after pickle vendor. Today there is only one pickle vendor on the entire street, The Pickle Guys (it's the small green awning to the left of the corner, red awning.) We were able to walk in the shop and then, out on the sidewalk, we sampled the best, crispest big dill pickle I have ever eaten. I was hungry, so maybe that's why it was so good. T, you would have LOVED it! (Tee Hee!)

Still in the old Jewish neighborhood, we stopped in front of this building. The front reads S. Jarmulowsky's Bank Est 1873. This was a rags-to-riches-and-back story. Mr. Jarmulowsky opened this bank in the neighborhood and because the people knew him and trusted him, they (many for the first time) deposited their money in his bank. WWI came along and the depositors began pulling out their money and sending it back to Europe to family. Because Mr. Jarmulowsky's sons had made some investments in Harlem real estate, there was no money to give the folks. This was pre-FDIC days so most of the people lost all their money. Mr. Jarmulosky and his sons were run out of town, literally running from rooftop to rooftop. Many of the immigrants returned to either keeping their money on them or hiding it "under the mattress."

We tasted a Jewish/Mediterranean treat from The Sweet Life called halvah, a fudge-looking yellow square that was powdery when eaten. Often made from crushed nuts, this one was made from sesame. It was not my favorite, but then I come from the Land of Milk and Honey where sweets are concerned. (Side note: Before we started our tour, as a way of introduction, the guide had us name a food that is a family tradition, a food that recalls grandma and home. I said fried chicken but most everyone else had very sad recollections of chicken soup...yes, chicken soup. I pitied them!)

Moving on, our next neighborhood was Chinatown, which really isn't one little area anymore, but, in my opinion, the neighborhood was very much as I imagined it. It was Sunday, so the streets were crowded with people buying and selling fruits, green herbs which I didn't recognize, fish, and dried seafood.

This building, in Chinatown, is now a funeral home, but if you could read the top, you would see it once was the location of the Aid Society. Before there were government programs to help people, there were aid societies where people could come for help. The people here would help immigrants with jobs or problems relatives might be having on Ellis Island.

These neighborhoods were very crowded with most people living in large tenement buildings like the ones below. Tenements built before 1879 had windows on the front and back but no windows in the interior apartments. Of course, there was no air conditioning, so if you had an apartment in the interior of the building, you had no windows. The tenements built after 1879 were dumbbell shaped, allowing even the interior apartments to have windows. The picture below shows, on the left, part of a pre-1879 tenement and, on the right, a post-1879 tenement.

What are these? Anyone know? They were sold all along the street.

OK, the picture below is my FAVORITE! Look closely!

Isn't that the coolest thing? I'm not sure why, but there it is, a taste of home!

Our next neighborhood was Little Italy which is a little disappointing when you learn NO Italians even live here. The area is preserved for tourists only. There are tons of restaurants along Mulberry Street, and the fresh mozzarella, salami, and parmesan we tried from DiPalo's were as good as you'd expect. Another treat from Little Italy was cannoli from Cafe La Bella Ferrara, the sweetest way to conclude our tour.

Mulberry Street runs right into Canal, the cheap shopping mecca of all of Manhattan. I overheard a young woman on our tour say, "It's just like ending a tour at the gift shop!"

Along Canal I came across a vendor selling old comic books. It reminded me of H's purse making days. Several years ago we would have bought the old Archie comics.

After my tour, I wanted to cool off so I went to MoMA and saw a couple of exhibits. This one was interesting, if not annoying. The gallery is empty except for some white screens set up in two rows with small speakers attached. The artist had separately recorded 14 people saying the days of the week. These recordings played over and over, simultaneously. When you stood close to a screen, you could distinctly understand the recitation; otherwise, it just sounded a lot like white noise. I felt sorry for the museum guard who pulled duty in this gallery.

After the museum, I stopped for an early dinner at Bistro Milo which is on our street and has outdoor seating. H called a little later and said they would be passing the restaurant and would stop. They did and decided to have dinner. Three hours later we finally headed back to the apartment.