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Move On - 1903

Submitted by TigerRocket on Tue, 03/10/2009 - 00:58
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Photographed October 22, 1903. Thomas A. Edison, Inc.
Camera: Alfred C. Abadie

Lower East Side food cart street vendors are told to move along by the law. The elevated train nearby places this scene somewhere in or near the Bowery and Second Avenue.

Text from a contemporary Edison film company catalog:
MOVE ON. In certain sections of New York City large numbers of Jewish and Italian push-cart vendors congregate so closely along the sidewalks that they interfere with traffic. Policemen keep them moving. The picture shows how the frightened peddlers hurry away when a bluecoat appears. Some of the carts are piled high with fruits of all kinds, and it is interesting and amusing to see the expressions of combined fear and anxiety on the faces of the men as they hurry away; the fear of being arrested if they stand, and of losing some of their wares if the carts strike an obstruction in the street.

The United States in 1903: January 2nd President Theodore Roosevelt shuts down post office in Indianola Miss., for refusing to accept its appointed postmistress because she was black / Jan. 9th Two New Yorkers buy the Baltimore baseball franchise for $18,000 and moved it to NY / Aug. 1st, first coast-to-coast automobile trip (SF-NY) completed / Aug. 17th, Joseph Pulitzer donates $1 million to Columbia University and begins Pulitzer Prizes / Dec. 1st, "The Great Train Robbery," the first Western film is released / Dec. 13th, New Jersey resident Italo Marcioni patents the ice cream cone

Recommended reading:
New York City Cartmen, 1667-1850
- Graham Russell Hodges
Recollections of An Old Cartman
- Isaac S. Lyon (1872)

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New York City ''Ghetto'' Fish Market - 1903

Submitted by TigerRocket on Tue, 03/10/2009 - 00:50
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Photographed May 1, 1903. Thomas A. Edison, Inc.
Camera: James Blair Smith

This is the Lower East Side, believed to be either on or near Hester Street. At the turn of the century, this area was the center of commerce for New York's Jewish ghetto. The large ghetto population lived in overcrowded conditions south of Houston Street and east of the Bowery. It was predominantly Russian at this time, but also included immigrants from Austria, Germany, Rumania and Turkey.
According to a description in a 1901 newspaper, an estimated 1,500 pushcart peddlers were licensed to sell wares (primarily fish) in the vicinity of Hester Street. At one point the camera seems to follow three official looking men (one in a uniform) as they walk among the crowd. They may be New York City health inspectors, who apparently monitored the fish vendors closely.

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Today, both Hester Street and the surrounding neighborhood still cater to bargain retail, though the vending is primarily conducted out of small store fronts.

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Emigrants i.e. immigrants Landing on Ellis Island - 1903

Submitted by TigerRocket on Tue, 03/10/2009 - 00:40
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Photographed July 24, 1903. Thomas A. Edison, Inc.
Camera: Alfred C. Abadie

"No fewer than 12,668 immigrants arrived in this port yesterday, the largest number in one day recorded in the history, of the immigration service." - New York Times, Friday, April 10, 1903.
By 1910, immigrant settlers made up 40% of New York City's permanent population. 40% of the current U.S. population can trace their roots to arrivals at Ellis Island.
The Federal government opened the island in 1892 for immigration services and it remained in operation until its abandonment in 1954.

New York City in 1903: Baltimore Orioles relocate to New York. The club was officially known as the "Greater New York" baseball club. Dubbed the Highlanders by the press they would eventually come to be called the Yankees / The last steam train ran over the Sixth Avenue Elevated on April 3rd, replaced by electric transportation / Frederick Thompson and & Elmer ''Skip'' Dundy buy Sea Lion Park in Coney Island from Captain Paul Boynton and transform it into Luna Park / Nov. 23rd, Enrico Caruso debuts at the Metropolitan Opera in 'Rigoletto' / Dec. 19th, The Williamsburgh Bridge opens (see video)

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