St. George's Syrian Catholic Church

June 5, 2019

Preservationists call for landmarking of Little Syria vestiges in Lower Manhattan

Three structures on Lower Manhattan's Washington Street--St. George's Syrian Catholic Church at 103 Washington Street, The Downtown Community House at 105-107 Washington Street, and the block's sole surviving tenement at 109 Washington Street--are the last standing architectural vestiges of the once-thriving community of Little Syria. The area served as home to immigrants from Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Greece, Turkey, Armenia, Moravia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Ukraine, Germany and Ireland that flourished on the Lower West Side in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries. Before that surviving history is lost, local preservationists are calling for the structures to become part of a mini historic district, citing a "landmarks emergency."
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