Deutschland in the US, Part IV: New York Germans today
Written by Sabrina Axster
Joseph “Pepi” Morscher opened Morscher’s in 1957. He brought his family recipes and traditions from Gottschee, a German county in Slovenia, to America. Photo by Tobias Everke.
This is the fourth and final installment of our History of German Immigrants series. Read the first, second and third installments.
Today, there are only 18,657 German-born residents in NYC, according to a 2013 report on foreign-born populations in NYC published by the Department of City Planning. The report tracks the number of foreign-born residents in NYC since the 1970s. These numbers are remarkably low in comparison to previous numbers and given that the overall population of NYC has increased.
While there is no dedicated German neighborhood in NYC today, reminders of the bygone era still exist.
New York International lists a number of German cultural houses, food markets, and restaurants, and this article by Boston University provides a list of books about German-Jewish immigration to the US. And a piece by New York History Walks takes readers on a tour through the East Village and the Lower East Side, pointing them to many buildings that were erected by Germans during the era of mass immigration to the US. For example, the Puck Building on the corner of Houston and Lafayette was home to the J. Ottman Lithographing Company, an illustration company, as well as Puck Magazine, the first American political humor magazine published in both German and English. It was published from 1879 to 1918, when anti-German sentiment during the First World War caused a decline in readership.
Tours organized by the Tenement Museum also include visits to a German saloon and an introduction to the life of a German-Jewish family. For those of you who speak German, this series by Zeit Magazin offers insight into the lives of Germans in the city today.
As with most other immigration histories, that of German immigrants follows the same script — it’s just less visible than the more recent trends of migrant groups. Migrants arriving as part of a larger movement from a single country are often vilified because of their language, customs, culture, or religion. We also see how, over time, these migrant communities can immerse themselves into American culture while also shaping it with their food and customs, not to mention politically and economically.
