The Bialystoker Home for the Aged, a striking Art-Deco building on East Broadway and Clinton, was opened in 1931, a symbol of the Jewish community's dedication to providing care for the significant elderly population of the neighborhood. Between the 1860's and the beginning of the 20th century, the majority of the Jewish population of Bialystok, Poland, (yes you guessed it, the town to which the bialy owes its name) settled in the Lower East Side - numbering in the tens of thousands, they made up a significant portion of the Jewish population of the neighborhood. As the Jewish immigrant community on the LES swelled in the beginning of the 20th century, so too did the need for a community-centered system of elderly care increase, especially one which would cater to the large Orthodox community which made up a significant portion of the older Jews in the area. In an incredible effort, Yiddish mutual aid societies organized the poor and w...
This is an ongoing documentary project on the neighborhood I was born and raised in, with a particular focus on its current re-development and so-called "revitalization".