Remembering Little Syria: The First Arab Americans

If you walk through Washington Street in Manhattan’s Financial District today, you would never know that once upon a time, the area was home to the first Arabic-speaking community in the United States. Once known as the “Syrian Quarter” in the late-19th century, this area became the Mother Colony from which the Arab American diaspora sprung.

It was here that the first Arab immigrants to the United States settled in the late-1800s and cultivated a vibrant cultural hub of businesses, houses of worship, restaurants, and communal life, where one could imbibe the fragrances of Levantine pastries and cuisines wafting through the air as one walked its narrow streets.

It was here that Kawkab America, the first Arabic language newspaper in the US, was printed in 1892. It was here that the Linotype machine first began to use Arabic characters, revolutionizing Arabic language journalism all over the world. And it was here where Kahlil Gibran and Ameen Rihani founded the Pen League, a collective of prominent Arab writers and intellectuals.

Today, only three buildings from the era remain, but this tour brings the stories of this neighborhood to life once more.

Before the tour, we invite you to take a digital tour of the area developed by our partners, the Washington Street Historical Society: https://alqalamjourney.org/en.

Accessibility: This tour does involve going up and down some steps on a pedestrian crossing. For private bookings, the tour can be customized to avoid this route.

Note: For private bookings, this tour can be combined with our From Mecca to Manhattan, The Forgotten Immigrant “Lower West Side”, and Ottoman New York: An Empire in the Empire State tours.