Hello friend! Thank you so much, I’m glad you enjoy it :). My apologies for the delayed reply – I recently moved across country and it’s been a time dealing with all the real life stuff.
So first off, yay for Stucky Big Bang and yay for interfaith Barnes family! That’s the way I write them myself, so I didn’t have to research much to answer this question. Yay for all the Yiddish! Do you speak it?? That is super cool, and I am all for multilingual fics. I hope you will send me the link to your story once posted! I would love to read it.
Families immigrating to New York during the relevant time period (you’re most likely talking about direct or first generation immigrant families, as New York City saw its largest wave of immigration between the 1870s through 1924) were likely to spend their first few years in Manhattan, and then make for their respective ethnic enclaves in the outer boroughs (Brooklyn and Queens, primarily, but many made questionable life decisions and moved to Long Island and New Jersey). Jewish families mostly made that trip from the Lower East Side out to Brooklyn neighborhoods like Crown Heights (what was known in the 1930s as Eastern Parkway), Flatbush, Brownsville (probably more lower class than middle), or Williamsburg (definitely more religiously orthodox than secular).
As far as what their homes might have looked like, you’re looking at brownstones in Crown Heights and Flatbush, and tenements in Brownsville and Williamsburg. You can find links to relevant images and descriptions here, and more generally in my master meta post.
Please allow me to point you to some more specific resources! 1940s New York is one of my favorite websites, because it gives a great breakdown for what neighborhoods were called at the time, what they looked like, and the demographic breakdown block by block. To give you some context about how far that median rent could stretch, please check out this excellent meta post.
I have some light reading for you regarding Jewish enclaves, and Brownsville specifically. If you’re looking for some more in depth resources, I recently purchased Jews of Brooklyn and Brownsville: the Jewish Years myself (I can’t vouch 100%, as I haven’t had time to read through them entirely, but they are highly rated). Jews of Brooklyn is somewhat available as an ebook?
Hopefully this is helpful! If you have more questions or are wondering anything specifically, please let me know. If you’d like me to answer something privately, please say so in a message.
Thank you to @dancinbutterfly for the opportunity to clarify: being raised Jewish is not limited to neighborhoods, but very much does include religious traditions. It’s not limited to neighborhoods, food, clothes, etc. The cultural history of Brooklyn is very much tied to Jewish culture, and I welcome anyone reading this to reblog or comment to add their own information, suggestions, resources, etc.
Hi, I’m Lena and I really love your blog. I have a meta question that I’m not sure where to start looking for the answer. I don’t know if you’ve researched this, but if Bucky’s family had been slightly well-off, maybe lower middle class, where in Brooklyn would they have lived? I’m working on my Stucky Big Bang and I’m writing that Bucky’s mother was Jewish and his father was Catholic, but that he was still raised Jewish. There’s so much Yiddish in my story! I’d really appreciate the help! Best.
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