The factories are connected to Little Italy and the Lower East Side by new streetcar lines, allowing Italian and Russian Jewish laborers to flock to work on Greene Street. Italian women bring with them a tradition of sewing and embroidery, and many Russian immigrants are also tailors or milliners.
The red (B) areas are Russian Jews, and the brown (C) areas are Italian. This “Ethnic Map” was commissioned by the Joint Legislative Committee Investigating Seditious Activities, and later used by State Senator Clayton Lusk to track suspected radicals.
Ethnic Map, 1919. New York State Archives. Found at New York Times.