Little Syria was once a thriving Arab American community in Lower Manhattan. But 50 years ago, the historic downtown enclave disappeared from its original location on Washington Street, just south of what is now the World Trade Center. Educator, historian and tour guide Asad Dandia tells the story of Little Syria on his recently launched walking tour of the former heart of Arab American culture.
As the Down Town Alliance explains, Dandia, a born and bred New Yorker, began his career as a community organizer before joining the Museum of the City of New York as a tour guide. After noticing a gap in the walking tour industry, Dandia decided to launch the Little Syria tour under his own company, New York Narratives.
“Little Syria stood out to me because here’s a community of Arabs who were racialized as white, but who lived in the heart of the financial district and the epicenter of the global economy,” he said. “The tour that I offer and the way that I offer it is new, because I draw from so many people, so many resources, including my own. It’s a new way of engaging with an old story.”
Little Syria dates back to the 1880s when immigrants began populating the area, making it the first Arabic-speaking community in the United States and the first community of Middle Eastern diaspora in North America. The enclave’s boundaries, as described by Dandia, were Carlisle Street to the north, Battery Place to the south, Greenwich Street to the east and the Hudson River (which then began at West Street) to the west.
Despite its name, Little Syria was home to immigrants of numerous Middle Eastern nationalities. “‘Syria’ is something of a misnomer, because back then, Syria referred to the entire Levant region,” Dandia said. “Today, that would be modern-day Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Palestine and maybe parts of Jordan.”
Little Syria’s immigrant population reached its peak in the mid 1920s. The neighborhood’s historical impact on Arab literature, journalism and technology extended far beyond Lower Manhattan. Dandia says that the neighborhood was the global birthplace of Arabic-language journalism.
“The Linotype machine, which printed out newspapers, did not adopt Arabic letters in Cairo or Damascus or Jerusalem, but in New York City,” Dandia said, noting that the first Arabic-language newspaper in the United States was printed in Little Syria. The area also has literary significance — per Dandia, Lebanese-American writer Khalil Gibran, author of “The Prophet,” used to spend a lot of time in Little Syria. The neighborhood was also home to Ameen Rihani, the author of the first Arab American novel, “The Book of Khalid.”
By the 1940s, much of Little Syria’s Arab community had relocated elsewhere, seeking economic opportunities and more free space. One area that saw a substantial influx of people and businesses from Little Syria was Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn Heights, which was connected directly to Little Syria by ferry. Many of these businesses, including Sahadi’s and Damascus Bakery, are still located on Atlantic Avenue. Another destination neighborhood was Bay Ridge, largely thanks to a direct subway route from Little Syria. Today, Bay Ridge is home to the largest Palestinian community in New York.
The construction of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and the 1940s and the subsequent World Trade Center development in the 1960s spelled the ultimate end for Little Syria. On his tour, Dandia shows copies of eviction notices sent to residents to make way for the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel portal and the locations of where their tenements once stood.
One of the few remnants of Little Syria is its last remaining tenement, which sits on Washington Street in the shadow of One World Trade Center. Dandia’s tour stops at the tenement, where guests are greeted by Friends of the Lower West Side member Esther Regelson, who is working to have the building landmarked. Another is a former Syrian church which, to many of Dandia’s tour guests, is an unexpected stop on the tour.
“I talk about the church because a lot of people assume that all of these Syrians were Muslim. In fact, most of them were not Muslim, they were Christian,” Dandia said, though he noted that there were a number of mosques in the neighborhood as well.
Other highlights of the tour include the former home of Anthony the Turk, the first free Muslim settler, and Fraunces Tavern, which played a little-known role in diplomacy between the Middle East and the United States during the late 18th century. The tour also includes Elizabeth H. Berger Plaza, which is slated to feature a monument to Little Syria, and a historic community house which is being converted into a homeless shelter, continuing its century-long role serving the poor.
Dandia says his Little Syria tour is a unique offering, and informed from his prior work in community organizing.
“My perspective is looking at [the neighborhood] through the angle of the communities that fought for their right to a place in Manhattan,” he said, adding that the Little Syria tour explores 400 years worth of Muslim and Arab existence in, and in contribution to, the city. “I think it sends a subtle message to my tour guests that American pluralism and American democracy is only made possible by these immigrant and minority communities.”
