Book I
Book I explores the origins, development, and decline of the German American and Hungarian American enclaves once prominent in Yorkville, a formerly working-class neighborhood on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. This historical interpretation also tracks the emergence and persistence of a hegemonic narrative, constructed principally by New York’s print press, that influences social memories of Yorkville’s ethnic past. This imagined past reinforces nationalizing myths such as the melting pot metaphor, a largely racialized distortion that depicts Euro-Americans as the “good” immigrants by which all subsequent newcomers must be judged.
Book II
Book II critically examines contemporary heritage practices arising from these enclaves. Its four case studies – Kathryn Jolowicz, an amateur historian dedicated to preserving memories of German Yorkville; the German-American Steuben Parade that marches up Fifth Avenue each September; the Magyar Ház, Gotham’s Hungarian cultural headquarters; and Hungarian Yorkville’s Christian faith communities – emphasize the complex relationship between ethnic identity and place attachment.
