Badgers in NYC

In partnership with The Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, the department traveled with fifteen undergraduates to experience African American and Jewish culture in Harlem, Brooklyn, and the Lower East Side through food, museums, and walking tours this April

1. The group kicked off their trip in Borough Park, a neighborhood in southwest Brooklyn. Borough Park is home to one of the largest Hasidic Jewish communities in the United States.

   

2. On the second day of their travels, Badgers visited the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Half of our students ventured on the “Union of Hope” tour to explore the story of Joseph and Rachel Moore, two Black New Yorkers living in the 1860s and 1870s. Despite having limited primary sources (books and a silver spoon that were donated to the museum from an African American woman who wrote to the museum imploring them not to forget experiences of Black New Yorkers), these items revealed a love story and generational tenacity.

   The other half of the group took the “Tenement Women: 1902” tour, which surveyed the lives of Jewish immigrant mothers and their households around the time of the Kosher Meat Boycott of 1902. The group learned of the Levine family, who ran a garment factory in their front room. In addition to stories of protest and resistance to anti-immigrant sentiments, the tour also theorized on the joys of living through found items under floorboards; a pink-red lipstick and bejeweled handbag caused some to speculate on why these items were hidden and who might have forgotten them.

   

   After touring the apartments, students were able to speak with Tenement Museum President and UW–Madison alumna Annie Polland to ask questions that arose during the tours, learn more about a career in museum management, and recap the most compelling aspects of their learning.

3. The group visited the Financial District of Lower Manhattan on the third day of travel. Students examined the Philipse Well on Pearl Street during a Slavery & the Underground Railroad Walking Tour. After lunch at Red Rooster, Badgers began their walking tour through Harlem, starting at the Swing Low: Harriet Tubman Memorial.

4. Students visited the African Burial Ground Memorial at 290 Broadway in Lower Manhattan. In 1991, intact skeletal human remains were found 30 feet below the city’s street level during the construction of a federal office building. Further survey work unearthed 15,000+ skeletal remains of enslaved and free Africans who had lived in New York. This burial ground is currently known as the nation’s largest.

5. On their final night in New York, students joined Dean Eric Wilcots and UW–Madison alumni for a group dinner at Melba’s, an iconic American Comfort restaurant on 114th Street in Harlem. Badgers had the opportunity to network with alumni who were decades into their careers and share highlights of the trip. Later in the evening, owner Melba Wilson joined the group to spread gratitude and share her own journey as a New Yorker.

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