I’d already known about the appalling living conditions for immigrants in the late nineteenth century, but Foner’s book reminded me. The one area in which we think of the previous generation’s immigrants as having suffered or been mistreated is housing—the squalor of the Lower East Side is a sort of archetypal image in New York City, with its own attendant institution (the Tenement museum) and chronicler (Jacob Riis). The sheer density was the most astounding. While I am aware Manhattan is crowded, and that it used to be more so, I had no idea that Manhattan was once crowded in a way that redefined what it meant to live, where not only space but air seemed to be a scarce commodity. This more than crime or employment was the bane of the old immigrant’s life, and escaping it allowed for upward mobility.

New York City developments, such as the consolidation of 1898 and the opening of the subway in 1904, finally allowed for people to move out of lower Manhattan, to settle uptown and further. There can be no doubt that this decentralization helped Italians and Jews to become more prosperous and comfortable, though homogenous neighborhoods and discrimination were still the norm.

The one thing that intrigues me about today’s immigration is the concept of ethnic succession; more specifically that new waves of immigration may have actually prevented New York from an endless fall into urban decay. As whites moved out of the city center, seeking larger homes and more segregated communities, immigrants moved in, ensuring that the city had the tax base needed to provide essential services. While immigrants also move to the suburbs, and increasingly move straight there, they are without a doubt concentrated in the five boroughs, meaning that we can thank them to some degree for the continuing viability of New York City’s infrastructure and services.