The people: New York

The people

Ethnic and religious diversity

In a city that embraces change as its primary tradition, the shifting population base of New York remains its most dramatic story. At the end of the 20th century, representatives of some 200 national groups were counted among its people. While people of European ancestry still make up one-third of the population, Hispanics account for nearly one-third, and African Americans about one-fourth. The fastest-growing component of the population is Asian, soaring from a tiny proportion in 1970 to more than one-tenth in the late 1990s. Dominicans were the most numerous immigrants during the last decade of the 20th century, but they were closely followed by Russians and Chinese, people yearning to “make it.” The Statue of Liberty, more than a century after its dedication in the harbour (1886), continues to be the most powerful symbol of New York, as it welcomes newcomers into the city’s “golden door.”

People from each ethnic group have climbed the ladder of acculturation, achieved their goals to a greater or lesser extent, and then, in turn, found fault with the masses that followed them to the promised city. As early as 1643, Father (later Saint) Isaac Jogues catalogued 18 languages that were being used on the streets of New Amsterdam, and that cosmopolitan atmosphere was retained when Dutch control ended and Britain assumed power. Jews, Roman Catholics, and numerous ethnic groups lived in Manhattan before the end of the 17th century, but political control remained in the hands of the established merchant elite. When the American Revolution began, more prominent Dutch families—the Van Cortlandts, De Peysters, and Schuylers—supported the cause than did their English counterparts. One unanticipated result of the fighting was that many slaves, perhaps one-fifth of the city population in 1776, won freedom. One of the first “history” books of New York was a satiric look at the merchant elite and the city’s Dutch past written in 1809 by Diedrich Knickerbocker (Washington Irving). Spoken Dutch was heard on city streets until the late 19th century, when such families as the Roosevelts and the Vanderbilts were important members of Manhattan’s elite.

The dedication of the first St. Patrick’s Cathedral between Mott and Mulberry streets in 1815 signaled the rising prominence of the Irish. By 1844, 15 parishes served more than 80,000 Irish Roman Catholics, and it was clear even before the Great Famine immigration of 1845–49 that New York was becoming predominantly Irish. More than 24,000 Germans also lived in Manhattan, a number that vastly increased following the failed revolutions of the 1840s. Irish workers had to contend with signs warning “No Irish need apply,” and their poor circumstances soon created one of New York’s most notorious slums, the Five Points District. Germans, who were largely Protestant or Jewish, were more middle-class and perhaps had a slightly easier acclimation; they created the Kleindeutschland (“Little Germany”) neighbourhood east of the Bowery. So great was the pressure of immigration that Castle Garden, near the Battery, was converted into a reception centre, a role it fulfilled from 1855 to 1890. By the time of the American Civil War, Irish, Germans, and several other ethnic groups made the city’s population more than half foreign-born.


The arrival of “new” immigrants from eastern and southern Europe after 1880 again changed Manhattan. The Irish and Germans, who by then held a vast proportion of political and economic power, deeply resented the Italians, Greeks, Russians, Hungarians, and Poles crowding into their city. Ellis Island, a new immigrant reception station, was built in 1892 to deal with the unprecedented numbers of newcomers, and by 1900 the Lower East Side recorded one of the greatest population densities in world history. Ellis Island processed about 12,000 people per day, and in 1907 some 1.2 million entered the United States through the port. The austere New York Times wrote that “cleanliness is an unknown quality to these people. They cannot be lifted to a higher plane because they do not want to be.” Tuberculosis became the “Jewish” disease, and New York’s police commissioner played the demagogue in 1909 when he asserted that half of all city crime was committed by Russian Jews. Nevertheless, Jews were to transform labour and education in the city, while Italians would become the largest ethnic group. Yet so varied was the city that every large group remained only a minority, and toleration of “the other” became a New York virtue.