What Economically Depressed Cities CAN Learn From New York City's 1970s Immigrant Revitalization
Curator Lilly Tuttle in front of the Museum of the City of New York. Photo: Nina Roberts
Published in Forbes on April 18, 2017
New York City’s economy has been booming at such an extraordinary rate over several decades, it’s difficult for newcomers to imagine the city in its “bad old days,” as many longtime residents call the 1970s. The city was on the brink of bankruptcy, its population in decline, and very dangerous. There were three times the number of murders in 1975 than in 2015; the killer “Son of Sam” (David Berkowitz) terrorized the outer boroughs.
Pockets of the city were blighted, as a result of this cumulative downward spiral. Rows of boarded up storefronts interspersed with empty lots lay vacant. Some of the city’s parks were patches of burnt grass enclosed by rusted chain link fences, not the lush green spaces you see today. Public schools were overcrowded and underfunded; many families who had the means moved to the suburbs.
Yet something was brewing in New York City during the 1970s that has impacted the city’s economic growth throughout the following decades and continues today. New immigrants, a result of the 1965 Hart-Celler Act, also known as the 1965 Immigration Act, began to slowly repopulate and revitalize stagnant neighborhoods. Some opened businesses; these small mom and pop shops collectively offered employment, made the streets safer and neighborhoods livable. Of course not all was rosy, there were turf wars in certain areas, like Manhattan’s expanding Chinatown that encroached on established Little Italy.
From the 1920s until Hart-Celler, U.S. immigration quotas were primarily for immigrants from Western and Northern Europe. After Hart-Celler, the last major U.S. immigration overhaul, a significant number of immigrants from South and Central America, Asia and Africa were allowed into the country. New York City in the 1970s time was affordable. A modest one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan might cost $200 a month, $900 with adjusted inflation (unlike today’s actual rents that can average $2,500 - $3,000 a month) so freshly arrived immigrants could take entrepreneurial risks.
An ambitious group of curators at the Museum of the City of New York has captured this facet of New York City’s revitalization in a single cabinet, part of the sprawling “New York At Its Core” exhibit that opened November 16, 2016. This particular exhibition case is called “New Immigrant City,” it’s one of many that break down the city’s dynamic 400-year history into bite size pieces.
The New Immigrant City case at the Museum of the City of New York. Photo: Nina Roberts
The New Immigrant City cabinet was under the purview of Assistant Curator Lilly Tuttle. It highlights the lasting impact of immigrant-owned businesses through photographs, newspaper clippings and artifacts from renowned immigrant-owned business. A metal patty mold from the Jamaican Golden Krust Bakery is on display under a felt sauna hat from The Russian Baths of Brooklyn, near a guira, the Dominican metal instrument for salsa and merengue music made by Francisco Javier Durán Garcia, known as Pinto Guira. An interactive screen shows the ebbs and flows of immigrants by country over the past four decades; the number of immigrants from the Dominican Republic jumped from 51,231 in 1970 to 369,186 in 2000, meanwhile immigrants from Italy, Germany and Ireland declined significantly during the same years.
Associate Curator Tuttle is a native New Yorker and 20th Century U.S. History scholar; her Ph.D. dissertation from New York University focused on the redevelopment of lower Manhattan in the 1960s and 1970s. She sat down for a Q&A to explain her curatorial role and what this particular exhibition cabinet says about the relationship between immigrant-owned businesses and the city’s economy.
Nina Roberts: First, what is the gestalt of the whole New York at Its Core exhibit?
Lilly Tuttle: We wanted to answer the question “What makes New York, New York?” The answer: money, density, diversity and creativity. We prove it as you move through the galleries.
Roberts: How did this particular cabinet called “New Immigrant City,” which spans 1980 to 2001, evolve?
Tuttle: Prior to this exhibition case we tell the story of a downward slide, the city is really in crises and we hit the bottom in the 1970s. The population of the city drops and when immigrants start arriving in the 70s, it’s a sort of a process of replacement and then you see this great recovery. What we’re talking about is how New York comes back.
Roberts: Why did you choose these artifacts in particular?
Tuttle: We looked at the data and the four largest populations of immigrants from this time period were Russian, Jamaican, Dominican and Chinese, so that gave us a target.
Roberts: What were some of the reactions when you called or showed-up in person asking for artifacts from these immigrant-owned businesses?
Tuttle: I would say puzzled was often a response! Golden Krust is an established business with a press guy, that was straightforward and the Russian Bathhouse is used to plugging their business, but I think they were a little incredulous. What was harder was Jackson Heights, that didn’t go so well. But I met A J Gogia, the taxi teacher and we did an interactive on him.
Roberts: Can this period teach us anything about the current immigration debate, especially in relation to the economy? Or are today’s circumstances so completely different, this period of New York City’s history not relevant?
Tuttle: I would say it’s important to think about the history. What we’re really trying to do here is have a conversation, offer people insights into how history informs the present and the future.
Roberts: Could it be applicable to underpopulated cities like Detroit or “Rust Belt” areas?
Tuttle: New York is a great example of what an influx of immigrants can do—but I don’t want to limit it too much to the 1980s. This has been the story of New York since its founding.
If you look to New York City as a model, it’s inevitable that you’d come to the idea that a diverse city that welcomes people will have a strong economy. This nexus and interrelationship between money and diversity and creativity is an inherent part of how this city continues to grow and thrive.
Roberts: You are extremely knowledgeable in this area, but did you find any surprises during the research process?
Tuttle: There are always moments of surprise. I went out to Jackson Heights—I also watched In Jackson Heights, the three and half hour documentary by Frederick Wiseman; it’s still heavily South Asian but there’s a growing South American population.
When I spoke with A J Gogia, he told me that many Indian families from the neighborhood have moved out to Long Island, but keep their stores, they commute.
I thought that that was so interesting, this idea of ethnic succession in a neighborhood. You’re seeing in Jackson Heights, as a microcosm over the last 30 some odd years. In the same way the Italians—just as an example, not all Italians—eventually said, “And now we are going to go and live the American dream in a three bedroom ranch house somewhere in Nassau County.” This idea that the enclave is a fixed entity is somewhat malleable.
This Q&A has been edited and condensed for clarity.