Customer Reviews

97 Orchard Street, New York: Stories of Immigrant Life

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I wanted to love this book because I loved the museum but I barely liked it. There was no continuity, no thread linking one chapter and one family to the next. And the author didn't even explore or explain words that were used such as the Irish women calling the big pot a "biler." And WHY did they call it that? Because they BOILED food in it and with their pronounciation it came out BILER. But I only know that because of my Irish grandmother, the author sure didn't clue anyone in on it. There were other things like that but I didn't keep track, just kept getting annoyed by the lack of fact checking.

This is a great glimpse at early immigrant life in New York City. The pictures were amazing and the stories that went with them really gives the reader an idea of what it was like to live as a new arrival to America. I would have enjoyed it more if it were longer but the stories and pictures provided were great.

THis is a nice book, but it's really mostly photos with a bit of text...if that's what you want.

I devoured this over the course of two days; it reads like a series of short stories while providing all sorts of intereresting information for the non-food historian or anthropologist. It could be such an overwhelming subject but Ziegelman neatly picks out specific details that illuminate a more general social and cultural movement, such as her description of the pickle as almost a perceived tool of anarchy. Read it and find out.

Very interesting book, but a little tedious. The immigrant recipes are somewhat appealing. I am especially interested in the Russian Jewish migration and I would have liked having several more of these families' stories. Instead the stories are of Irish, English,Russian,German families. They all did live together at 97 Orchard and were there to help each other become part of the American culture.