Two Bridges (Manhattan)

Two Bridges is a neighborhood in southeastern New York district of Manhattan.

Location

The Two Bridges neighborhood on the southern end of the Lower East Side includes the block near the shore of the Brooklyn Bridge in the west to the blocks east of the Manhattan Bridge, the so-called Two Bridges Urban Renewal, the in between the Manhattan Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge extends north. Since there are no officially defined boundaries for the district of New York City, this definition is somewhat imprecise. Nevertheless, the East River are considered southern border, East Broadway as northern boundary, the Montgomery Street as the eastern border and the St. James Place and the Brooklyn Bridge as the western border.

The neighboring districts are in the north, the Lower East Side, Chinatown and the West Civic Center, South Street Seaport and the Financial District.

History

When the area of Two Bridges still lay outside the city limits, it was Dutch farmland. Later here tenements were built, where settled immigrants. Here initially lived Irish, Italian, Greek and Jewish immigrants. Before the construction of multi-storey social housing projects in the 1950s jockeyed Irish, Italian, Greek and Jewish gangs to supremacy. Mostly, the Irish had the upper hand. A sort of Irish political aristocracy attended St. James Church and lived in the Oliver Street, where in the house No. 25 Governor Alfred E. Smith was born - a reform politician who fought for affordable housing and improved the financing of public education. A statue near his birthplace in a park of the district east of Madison Street reminded of him. The St. James' church in 1827 by a Cuban priest and freedom fighters as well as the Ancient Order of Hibernians - founded - an Irish Brotherhood. According to legend, the Church of Ireland was built boat builders and would swim if you would let them headfirst into the water.

After the Second World War attracted Latin Americans - many of Puerto Rico - in the new social housing. The churches, schools, and neighborhood organizations of the district helped them to gain a foothold in the new country. Recently, the same institutions can assist the new immigrants in the integration - often Chinese immigrants of the first and second generation. To this day, families live in this neighborhood primarily with small and middle income countries. The crime rate is, as in all of Manhattan, declined..

Every year in September, a free concert will take place at the waterfront at Pier 35 at the South Street between Clinton Street and Rutgers Slip in the late afternoon every year. .

Two Bridges Historic District

The Two Bridges Historic District was listed monument in September 2003 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It comprises nine blocks, which. Between East Broadway, Market Street, Cherry Street, Catherine Street, Madison Street and St. James Place

Here are the following monuments were registered in the State Historic Register and Historic Federal Register:

• First Cemetery of Congregation Shearith Israel
• Knickerbocker Village housing development
• Mariners Temple
• The Sea and Land Church
• St. James Church
• 51 Market Street
• 25 Oliver Street ( The house was born in the Governor Alfred E. Smith. )