Irish outsiders: Performing Irish heritage on the streets of New York

Scene ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 121-133
Author(s):  
Mary P. Caulfield
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Living History ◽  
Hard Times ◽  
Lower Manhattan ◽  
American Heritage ◽  
Immigrant Experience ◽  
Immigrant Experiences ◽  
Heritage Performance

This article analyses how the Tenement Museum at 97 Orchard Street in Lower Manhattan uses immersive techniques to provide visitors with an opportunity to engage with nineteenth- and early twentieth-century immigrant experiences. My specific focus is the apartment tour entitled, Irish Outsiders, a living history installation curated as part of the Museum’s Hard Times exhibit that recreates the cramped apartment of Joseph and Bridget Moore, real-life residents of 97 Orchard Street in 1869. The Moores left an Ireland traumatized by the Great Famine only to arrive at the challenges of New York City immigrant living. This immersive recreation of Joseph and Bridget Moore’s apartment staged for a Catholic wake links this specific Irish immigrant experience with that of loss, suffering, poverty and trauma. Drawing on Alison Landsberg’s concept of ‘prosthetic memory’ alongside frameworks of heritage performance, this article examines the Irish Outsiders as an immersive performance curated to reflect and shape the narrative tropes essential to the Irish immigrant experience implicit within an Irish-American heritage identity.

Case Studies

2019 ◽  
pp. 38-68
Author(s):  
Rebecca Yamin ◽  
Donna J. Seifert
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
York City ◽  
High Class ◽  
Lower Manhattan ◽  
The City

This chapter focuses on two case studies, reviewing in detail the findings of large urban projects that encountered brothel sites. The New York City project addresses the history and archaeology of a brothel in the Five Points neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. The discussion contrasts the reputation of the residents with the evidence revealed by the artifact assemblages. The discussion of Washington, D.C. parlor houses addresses the remarkable assemblage of high-class furnishings and possessions and expensive foods enjoyed in the houses in the heart of the city—houses that served the men of government and business in the nation’s capital.

The Borrower's Tale: A History of Poor Debtors inLochnerEra New York City

2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 1053-1098 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Fleming
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Interest Rate ◽  
York City ◽  
New York State ◽  
York State ◽  
Lower Manhattan ◽  
History Of ◽  
Office Manager

When asked why he did not read over the loan documents before signing them, John Doherty explained: “I was anxious to get the money, I didn't bother about it.” In February 1910, the twenty-three-year-old railroad clerk walked into the offices of the Chesterkirk Company, a loan-sharking operation with offices in lower Manhattan. He was looking to borrow some money. Repayment was guaranteed by the only security Doherty had to offer: his prospective wages and, in his words, his “reputation.” After a brief investigation of Doherty's creditworthiness, the loan was approved. The office manager placed a cross in lead pencil at the bottom of a lengthy form and Doherty signed where indicated. He received $34.85 in exchange for his promise to repay the loan principal plus $10.15 in combined fees and interest in three months. The interest charged was significantly greater than the 6 percent per year allowed in New York State. Doherty's effective annualized interest rate, including fees, was over 100 percent.

Real life zombie apocalypse in New York City

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (375) ◽  
pp. eaam6048
Author(s):  
J. Mark Brown
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Real Life

From Upper Canal to Lower Manhattan: Memorialization and the Politics of Loss

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 687-700 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Stow
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
York City ◽  
Initial Response ◽  
National Narratives ◽  
French Quarter ◽  
Lower Manhattan ◽  
Productive Potential ◽  
Ease Of Access

The New Orleans Katrina Memorial is located at the upper end of Canal Street, an inexpensive and relatively short trolley car ride from the city's tourist hub in the French Quarter. Despite its ease of access, and close proximity to the more famous cemeteries to which tourists regularly make pilgrimage, the memorial is little visited and largely unknown, even to many of the city's own residents. In this it stands in stark contrast to the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan, which drew its millionth visitor less than four months after its opening on September 12, 2011. Recent work in political theory on memory, mourning, and memorialization—as well as Ancient Greek concerns about the same—point to the ways in which the manner of remembrance, grieving, and commemoration employed by a democratic polity help to shape political outcomes. In what follows, I trace the history and design of the New York City and New Orleans memorials to suggest the ways in which they embody and perpetuate national strategies of remembrance and forgetting, in which injustices perpetratedagainstthe polity are prioritized over injustices perpetratedwithinit. Drawing on John Bodnar's distinction between national and vernacular commemoration, I nevertheless conclude with a counter-intuitive suggestion: that while on anationallevel the public's relative ignorance of the Katrina Memorial is indeed indicative of a polity more concerned with injustices perpetrated against it than within it; on alocallevel the erection and subsequent forgetting of the Katrina Memorial is a manifestation of a mode ofvernacularmemory, mourning and commemoration with far more democratically-productive potential than its counterpart in New York City. In particular, I argue that it cultivates, and historicallyhascultivated, a more forward-looking, progressive, and polyphonic response to loss than the type of dominant national narratives embodied by the 9/11 Memorial. Whereas the latter continually replays the loss in ways that rob the polity of its capacity to move beyond its initial response, the former acknowledges and incorporates the loss while steeling the community for the challenges ahead.

Ethics of homeless representation in costume design

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alyssa Ridder
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
English Language ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Costume Design ◽  
Short Article ◽  
The People ◽  
Reference Images ◽  
Primary Reference

Marisol, set in 1993 New York City, depicts the end of the world from the perspective of a twenty-something Puerto Rican white collar woman who loses her guardian angel. In approaching the costume design for this play I encountered a deeply concerning question: how can I design costumes for homeless characters without appropriating the physical appearance of people who experience homelessness in real life? Homeless characters are represented in many iconic plays in English language theatre, from Angels in America to Oliver!, and costume designers are frequently asked to address the ethics of representation with their design choices. In this short article I share my process in sourcing primary reference images for homeless characters without appropriating the exclusionary violence of the people who are considered ‘out of place’ in today’s New York City. I considered the ethics of different approaches to sourcing primary research that I have used in the past but ultimately chose to give up ‘authenticity’ for ethics. For the design I used reference images sourced from Japanese label N. Hoolywood’s Fall 2017 Menswear Collection, a fashion design that directly appropriates people who experience homelessness. My choice to frame homelessness through the lens of fashion served our production of Marisol only because of its design concept but leaves open the question of how to ethically design costumes for homeless characters in other plays.

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