The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-10-06
NEW YORK'S BIG HEBREW
CITY---A REGION PEOPLE TALK
 ABOUT

But Seldom VIsft-OFientaI Sights That Indicate That One-fourth of Man-
 hattan's Population May We'll Be
 Hebrews-ThIrty-fou Miles of shops
 Keen Life of the "GhettO"-strange
 Figures in the Streets.
 New Workers have been surprised re-
 gently by figures that show, as the re-
 suit of careful calculation, that on
 Manhattan Island every fourth person
 is a Hebrew. This statement seemed 1 the more remarkable because, while
 much is said about the Ghetto" conn
 paratively few outsiders visit it.
 If New Workers generally did visit 1t,
 they would believe the figures. For in
 that wonderful region one may pass
 through forty miles of streets and see
 none but Jewish faces, with the excep-
 tton of policemen, street sweepers and
 other city employees. ~|
 The region could not have been To-
 cated better, geographically, to insure l seclusion. Of all New York territory | it is the one that does not contain at
 least one great thoroughfare, vital to
 the life of the city. The thoroughfares
 that traverse it, East Broadway, Grand street and Houston street, serve only a
 relatively small proportion of outside
 workers
 So, as the famous Ghetto of old Frankfort once was walled in with
 structures of masonry, loop-holed and
 guarded with towers, the Ghetto" of | modern New York is walled in with natural conditions that make it a land So unknown to the mass of the rest of the population that 1t might as we'll be | in Siberia
 Its limits are defined almost as l sharply as if, indeed, they were mark ed by walls. The visitor steps out of the German quarter or the Hungarian quarter or the Italian quarter at once into the city of the orthordox Jew. This is city truly, and no mere quar- | ter j., <. The tall flat fronts of the tenement | houses, from end to end of vistas, are guady with pinks and blues and yell lows from top to bottom, as if they were Oriental houses with gorgeous rugs flung from each opening. The | spattering of hues is from the rugs of | the East Side-the bedding that is hung out from every window to sun throughout the day.
 The atavism of the population has overwhelmed the hideous tenement | house designs. From the coloring of the fronts to the crowds on the streets, ] everywhere is the touch of the Orient
 In the ceaseless flowing to and fro of
 people there come and go true figures of the magical East. Here. presiding
 over stand with melons and pears, black bearded. hawk nosed, hawk eyed, straight and 1.-the, surely is son of
 Ishmael--such one as might be pie
 tured in flowing burnoose, riding
 white racing camel and waving fash ing weapons in a charge over Arabia's s yellow sand.
 l By the side of him, chaffering with wouldbe buyers of the cheap cottons
 and musins on his hand cart, stands I a veritable Egyptian sculpture come to earth, stalking out of twilight tombs on the Nile to stand on Essex street and barter stuffs made in Connecticut. There are the wide thighs, the sinewy shoulders, with the muscles laid on them as they laid on in those carved | figures.
 X Russian general could not look
 more imposing than does wonder He brew, with his close trimmed beard and his keen, strong, determined face. That he should be pushing 8 cart with sus- penders and hose on it seems as ridicu- lous as the topsy-turvy things seen in | dreams.
 Bent old men with white ringlets and majestic boards, noble models for pie lures of Cadis and Talmudists, sit be- 1 hind greasy show windows waiting for | customers to buy their unleavened I breads or groceries or kosher meats. Tall, thin German Hebrews, modern in every aspect, with the deep, angry eyes of men who talk O night of social ty- rannies, press through the crowds, l bearing unfinished trousers and waist coats to the sweat shops.
 Behind a tumbled, junk-like mass of shotstrlngs, tin spoons at the price of two for one cent, and two-cent whisk- i brooms, there looks man who bears