Trotsky in New York Walking Tour

Socialists and Immigrants in the Lower East Side

Join Alex Steinberg and Daniel Lazare for a historical walking tour of Lower Manhattan as we explore some of the places where Leon Trotsky visited and worked during his nine week stay in New York in early 1917.

We will explore the culture of the radicalized immigrant communities of Yiddish-speaking Jews from Eastern Europe as well as German, Russian, Italian and Greek immigrants. These communities supported a thriving socialist movement in New York.  And in 1917, ferment and struggle increased dramatically as America entered World War I on April 6, 1917 and Russia’s revolutionary wave exploded a few months later.

After beginning at Cooper Union, we will walk to 77 St. Marks Place, which housed the offices of the Russian language newspaper Novy Mir and where Trotsky and other future Bolshevik leaders worked daily. From there, the tour will walk to the building of the Jewish Daily Forward in Seward Park, where we will learn of Trotsky’s dramatic confrontation with more conservative socialists. As we walk we will pass by a number of places that were important in understanding the history of the social struggles of immigrants in a New York very different than the city we know today.

Led by Alex Steinberg and Daniel Lazare. Alex is a frequent teacher of Marxist Education Project classes on the philosophy of Hegel and related topics. Daniel is is a journalist and author; his books include The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy.

Meet in front of the main entrance to The Great Hall of Cooper Union, behind the statue of Peter Cooper, East 7th Street between 3rd and 4th Avenues.