Micro-Social Geography of Greenwich Village 1880 - 1920

Kurt Schlichting, Fairfield University

Previous research focused on the 1880 100% Census data for Greenwich Village. Logan et. al. found that racial segregation in the 1880s in major American cities was more pronounced as the spatial scale decreased: from Ward to ED to city block to the building level. In 1880 Irish and German immigrants in Greenwich Village were intensely segregated from each other and the native population at the building level. The closer the city block and tenements were to the Hudson River piers, the higher the spatial segregation of the Irish. As the port of New York expanded in the second half of the 19th Century along the Hudson River shoreline, wharfs and piers lined the Greenwich Village waterfront. Day laborers, the longshoremen, who did the dangerous, back braking work of loading and unloading ships, needed to live on the waterfront. Each day longshoremen faced the notorious “shapeup” on the streets in front of the piers to be picked for work. 100% Census data for 1900, 1910 and 1920 (from MPS) will analyzed at the city block and building level to study ethnic/ spatial segregation of the Irish and German immigrants and their children over time. The Greenwich Village streets along the waterfront became an Irish enclave which persisted for more than half a century as illustrated in the 1954 movie “On the Water Front.” Italian immigrants began to settle in Greenwich Village after 1900 where the men found work on the docks, competing with the Irish. The spatial segregation of the newly arriving Italian immigrants will be explored at the city block and building level.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 105. Emerging Methods: Historical Cartography