The Music of “Little Syria” and “Ottoman New York” Walking Tour

While hotels and office buildings like the World Trade Center now tower over the Lower West Side of Manhattan near Wall Street, starting in the late 19th century, this area was the core neighborhood for immigrants from the Middle East. A number of walking tours have stressed the economic and social history of “Little Syria,” or the “Syrian Quarter,” along Washington Street, yet no tour has ever delved into its fascinating and beautiful musical history.

Immigrants not only used music -- both live and on gramophone discs -- as a way to maintain ties to their culture, but also produced their own commercial records in America, sometimes creating uniquely hybridized Arab-American performances. The collision of New York City’s nascent recording industry in the 1910s and 20s and the city’s vibrant immigrant musicians gifted us with a lasting and powerful connection to turn-of-the-century Middle Eastern music and a window into immigrant life.

On September 21, a group of three scholars -- Ian Nagoski, Işıl Acehan, and Todd Fine -- will offer a special, one-time experience: a sonic walking tour through rare examples of Middle Eastern music recorded in New York City. These recordings offer us a unique view into under-documented musical traditions that blended with broader American culture.

We will walk the streets of Lower Manhattan playing carefully-restored recordings of Arabic- and Turkish-speaking musicians, often at the exact locations where they lived, worked, and even had record stores. Subjects will include Alexander Maloof, A.J. Macksoud, Naim Karakand, and Fred Alam of Alamphon Records.

Join us for this musical-geographical experience, the result of years of research and collaboration among historians. Ian Nagoski, a Baltimore-based reissue record producer and researcher of musics of the Ottoman diaspora, is making a special visit to New York City that weekend, so you should not miss this opportunity!