City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York, 3-volume box set

6 Jews at the Polls: The Rise of the Jewish Style in New York Politics

173 Even before the polls closed on Election Day 1914, people began to stream from all corners of the Lower East Side toward the building of the Yiddish-language Jewish Daily Forward towering over East Broadway. By nightfall, crowds filled Rutgers Square and Seward Park and flowed into the surrounding side streets. Those in the throng jostled for a better view of the screen hanging on the façade of the ten-story Forward Building, on which election results were to be projected. They were hoping for a Socialist victory in the heavily Jewish Twelfth Congressional District, a seat long held by Democrat Henry M. Goldfogle. The Socialist candidate, a popular labor lawyer named Meyer London, had run twice before. This time, it seemed he might win. But for hours there was no news. Only partial returns trickled in, and rumors spread that the Democratic machine was up to its old tricks, falsifying returns to swing the election to Goldfogle. At eleven o’clock, the conservative Yiddish daily Tageblat came out with an “extra” announcing Goldfogle’s victory . But still the crowd stayed, waiting for word from the Socialist Forward. Finally, at two o’clock in the morning, the official results were projected on the screen. Goldfogle conceded. London had won. The crowd erupted. People danced, sang, embraced, and kissed. At four o’clock, London was brought to the square, borne aloft on supporters’ shoulders. A spontaneous procession snaked through the Lower East Side, the marchers waving brooms to signify a political housecleaning. At dawn, veteran Socialist Michael Zametkin, speaking from a balcony of the Forward Building, exclaimed, “Look, the sun is rising in the sky! And the sun is also rising on the Jewish Quarter, on the East Side!”1 C H A P T E R 6 Jews at the Polls: The Rise of the Jewish Style in New York Politics 174 ■ e m e r g i n g m e t r o p o l i s The Forward Building, in competition with Jarmulowsky’s bank to be the tallest on the Lower East Side, assertively proclaimed the rise of the Socialist sun in the Jewish community. Indeed, etchings of suns ran in bands along the top of the building, as if to proclaim the Forward’s illumination even on cloudy days. Looking out on the open spaces of Rutgers Square and Seward Park, the The architecture of the Jewish Daily Forward’s building (1912) resembled that of the Evening Post’s building. But whereas the Post’s façade featured statues representing the spoken word, early written word, printed word, and modern editors, the Forward Building proclaimed its identity through busts of Socialist leaders and the name of the newspaper flanked by the Socialist Party’s raised torch emblem . (Forward Association) Jews at the Polls ■ 175 building visibly advertised the newspaper and its cause. The Forward’s name was emblazoned in large Yiddish and English letters on the top of the façade, along with the Socialist Party’s arm-and-torch emblem. Above the front doorway were four relief portraits of Socialist heroes: Marx, Engels, Lasalle, and perhaps (the identity of the fourth is disputed to this day) Liebknecht. As the builders had hoped, 175 East Broadway became the main address for the Jewish labor and Socialist movements upon its completion in 1912. In addition to editorial and business offices and the printing plant of the Forward, the building contained meeting rooms and a thousand-seat auditorium. The Jewish labor fraternal order the Workmen’s Circle was headquartered there, as were the United Hebrew Trades (a federation of predominantly Jewish trade unions) and the Jewish Socialist Federation. Union locals and radical landsmanshaftn used the meeting rooms.2 Not quite two miles to the north, at 141 East Fourteenth Street, stood Tammany Hall, headquarters of the controversial dominant faction of the Democratic Party in Manhattan. The three-story red-brick and marble edifice was actually owned by the Society of Saint Tammany, or the Columbian Order, a fraternal group that formed the political machine’s inner circle. The cornerstone of the order’s second “wigwam” had been laid with a great display of patriotic pomp in 1867, and when completed the following year, Tammany Hall also housed meeting rooms and a large auditorium, the scene of the 1868 Democratic National Convention. A pediment on the roof contained a largerthan -life statue of...