Jun 28

Jun 28 The Lung Block

The Making of a Slum: The Lung Block & its Forgotten Italian Immigrant Community

www.lungblock.nyc

Co-Curator with Stefano Morello

NYC Department of Records and Information Services & The Grad Center, CUNY

New York, NY

2019

In 1933, a lively Italian immigrant enclave on the Lower East Side was wiped from the map. For over three decades, Italian immigrants from northern and southern regions, speaking divers dialects, settled between the Brooklyn & Manhattan bridges, on the block bounded by Cherry, Monroe, Market and Catherine Street. A range of cultural, social, and religious institutions grew up in and around the largely residential block, supporting the daily lives of thousands of families and individuals who called this place home.

Though this area was in many ways indistinguishable from the rest of the Lower East Side – a bustling, immigrant stronghold characterized by 5- and 6- story brick tenements and the occasional old house – since 1899, this particular block existed under the shadow of a sinister narrative: that death was embedded in the very walls of those buildings, and that this Lung Block—the generic term for a place where tuberculosis proliferated—represented a threat not just to the residents, but to the city at large.

The Lung Block story parallels present-day issues, as anti-immigrant sentiment has been brought to the fore on the political stage; the very real connection between health and housing continues to be explored; and affordable housing and gentrification remain among the most contentious topics in local debate.