Lower East Side residents two-thirds nonwhite lived separately from white ethnics

Evidence

The neighborhood was roughly divided. The Puerto Ricans and Blacks who constituted some two-thirds of the population were largely concentrated in the worst slums east of Avenue B; the older white ethnics (Ukrainian, Polish, and Italian) were mostly west of Avenue A. Poets and artists were interspersed throughout. The influx of so-called hippies that began in 1966 and was estimated as high as 6,000 represented a new, potentially volatile element. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1068

Categorization

• XREF: Links to the reader’s core interest: the demographic terrain that made cheap artist rents possible — connects to gentrification-origin literature like Zukin’s Loft Living. — connects to: Irish immigrants initially lived intimately alongside Black Americans in shared districts — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 146