Beginning in the 1880s, Syrians had a complex relationship with New York City, as it hosted one of the first, if not the very first, Syrian communities outside their homeland: Little Syria of New York. Little Syria was formally the name of a neighborhood located in Manhattan, NYC, extending from Washington St. to Rector St. Most residents of this area originated from the Eastern Mediterranean region, which used to be referred to more often as Greater Syria, also known as the Levant. The area became NYC’s first Arab-speaking center, primarily Syrian and Lebanese. In Brooklyn, there were two other concentrations of migrants from then Ottoman Syria.

Migration began in the period after the short but devastating civil conflict and massacres of 1860 in Lebanon and Syria and the collapse of the economy in the region during the late Ottoman era. Most were Christians, along with a sizable Jewish minority and some Muslims. Little Syria played a leading role in the development of Arabic journalism and it was the first place where Syrians could type in Arabic, as Ottoman Turks were threatened by the development of Syrian political movements within literary circles.

Most Syrians encountered hostility from locals when they first arrived, and hateful sentiment spread about these migrants as thieves. Indigenous society dwarfed Syrian society which then left for other parts of New York and other states, and then by the 1940s, the society disappeared completely with the construction of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel in 1950. To this day, you can see parts of Little Syria with the ancient heritage that the Syrians of New York keep, which now spans over a century, and you can see the extent of their influence on their city and their relationship with the Levant.