When East 79th Street was “Little Hungary”

New York’s first Little Hungary centered around today’s East Village; Second Avenue was dubbed the “Hungarian Broadway.”

“It is to that part of Second Avenue between Houston and East 10th Streets that this title has been applied, for almost everybody who walks there hails from Hungary or Bohemia, and nearly every second house presents the sign ‘Hungarian Restaurant,’ proclaimed The New York Times in 1900.

But as with the huge German population in the East Village at the time, the Hungarians and Bohemians soon relocated to Yorkville. And 79th Street east of Lexington Avenue became the new Hungarian Broadway—also known as “Goulash Boulevard.”

It’s all pretty much all disappeared now. Oh, St. Stephen of Hungary School and Church as well as the Hungarian Reformed Church, both on 82nd Street, still have a presence.

And the original 1916 Hungarian Reform Church, at left, is a few blocks south on 69th Street.

A Hungarian cafe and Hungarian meat market also exist. Yet famed Austro-Hungarian restaurants such Hungarian Gardens, the Viennese Lantern, and Debrechen have long since closed up shop.

But then, the other main drags of Yorkville have also lost their ethnic edge. East 72nd Street, once “Bohemian Broadway” because of all the Czechs living in the vicinity, has dwindled.

And though some German food specialty stores still exist along East 86th Street, the “German Boulevard” is nothing like it was in its heyday.

Tags: Bohemian Broadway, Eastern European immigrants NYC, Goulash Boulevard, Hungarian Broadway, Hungarian Reformed Church, Little Bohemia 72nd Street, Little Germany 86th Street, Little Hungary 79th Street, St. Stephen of Hungary, Yorkville ethnic enclaves