Negotiating Urban Environment and Economy in New York’s Little Syria,1880-1946

Abstract

Syrian immigrants populated New York’s Lower Manhattan, creating a neighborhood known as Little Syria. Sources employ “mother colony” and other evocative terms to highlight the unique importance of New York’s Arabic-speaking enclave to Syrian immigrant settlements throughout the United States. Yet no scholarly monograph on Little Syria, covering the entire period of its existence, from approximately 1880 to 1946, has been published. This article argues that early Syrian immigrants used their distinctive ethnicity to economic advantage within this urban enclave but exited its unhealthy environment as soon as they could. Like others, Syrians found unparalleled opportunities for mobility and financial success in New York. Manifesting an Arabic culture and an affinity for the middle class, they left Little Syria behind, and made no concerted attempt to preserve the old neighborhood. They embraced ethnicity as an economic virtue but distanced themselves from ethnicity as an environmental burden.