The Lower East Side’s Kleindeutschland and the Upper East Side’s Yorkville at the Historic Sixth Street Community Synagogue

Tour of the Sixth Street Synagogue, with Dr. Elissa Sampson. The synagogue, founded in 1940, resides in what was originally the German-American St. Mark’s Church (1848).

Illustrated lectures on:
1) Kleindeutschland at the turn of the 20th Century, by genealogist Dr. Richard Haberstroh
2) Yorkville’s development into a German-American Community, by Elizabeth Fagan of the Friends of the Upper East Side

An informal reception with light kosher refreshments.

Tickets: $12 / $10 for LESPI and Synagogue members.
Click here to purchase tickets.

During the decades around the turn of the 20th century, waves of German-American residents left their homes in the East Village / Lower East Side’s Kleindeutschland and headed north to Yorkville. This migration started with the construction of the Second Avenue El train in 1874 and accelerated with the terrible General Slocum Steamship disaster on June 15, 1904, when over a thousand people died during an outing sponsored by St. Mark’s Church on East 6th Street. Although German-Americans have since dispersed from both neighborhoods, it’s still possible to see traces of this culture, such as at the German-American Shooting Society Clubhouse building (1889) on St. Mark’s Pl.; Ottendorfer Library (1884) on 2nd Ave. at St. Mark’s Pl.; St. Joseph’s Church on East 87th Street (1895); and the century-old Heidelberg Restaurant on 2nd Avenue near East 85th Street.