A handful of Ukrainian storefronts and signage are still hanging on along lower Second Avenue.
There’s Ukrainian soul food standby Veselka and the Ukrainian National Home, both off of East Ninth Street. Taras Shevchenko Place and St. George’s Church are around the corner on East Seventh.
But the East Village’s Ukrainian presence is a shadow of what it was in post–World War II New York, when Ukrainian immigrants poured in, reportedly topping 60,000 in the 1950s.
Here’s a piece of ephemera from that once-thriving community. Stephan Kowbasniuk was a well-known lawyer in Little Ukraine; in this ad he offers to handle passports, shipping, real estate transactions, and citizenship papers.
It’s tough to date the ad, but considering the vintage Algonquin phone exchange, it must be pre-1960s.
[Thanks to frequent Ephemeral commenter Mick Dementiuk for the Ukrainian translation]
Tags: Algonquin phone exchange, East Village ethnic neighborhood, Little Ukraine, Slavic New York City, Taras Shevchenko, Ukrainian East Village, Veselka, vintage phone exchanges
Ephemeral New York 
March 25, 2011 at 7:55 pm |
I remember attending many Ukranian funerals at St. Georges (a beautiful church btw) as a young professional pallbearer for Peter Jarema’s Funeral Home on 7th and Ave A.
March 25, 2011 at 10:01 pm |
Do you remember the first St George’s church that stood there in the 60s before they tore it down, in the early 70s? That was one monster of a church, no AC in the summer, no steam in the winter, but the parishioners flocked to standing room only on Sundays.
March 25, 2011 at 8:13 pm |
Peter Jarema’s Funeral Home is still there. I think the remains of a faded ad on a nearby brick building might still be legible….
November 11, 2019 at 4:28 am |
[…] Seventh Street is the heart of the East Village’s Little Ukraine, populated by Ukrainians who immigrated before the war as well as thousands who came after, […]