The meaning of the GSG wording

[sleekviper]

I think that it depends on original location. In the Midwest, Queensbridge is on par to Cabrini Green, as far as urban blight goes. Why many think Watts is the projects, but Jordan is the project within the area of Watts. Robert Taylor homes was actually the nightmare in Chicago, did not go within blocks unless you lived there. One of those things where if going to visit people, had to know where one could go, and could not go without someone accompanying at least part of the way.

[Michael W Richards]

Since specific wording is an issue I thought I would point out that I never said that the Wentworth Dwellings were built for Jews, I did acknowledge that I knowingly misrepresented the actual number of Jewish occupants in these model homes at the time of the murders,...and that to find buildings almost entirely occupied by Jews within that small area was not surprising at all. By 1914 it has been said that 90% of all the Jewish Immigrants in England lived within that small area of the city, and in 1900 its reported that approx 135,000 Immigrant Jews lived in the East End.

For all intent and purpose, its not misleading to suppose or suggest that those Model homes were predominantly, (insert whatever percentage you feel makes that point), Jewish.

Most certainly relevant when considering both the apron section and the writing.

Cheers

[RivkahChaya]

Riv, you don't call Queensbridge a housing project?

It's called "North Queensbridge," or "South Queensbridge." It's not called "the projects." It may have been called a "housing project" when it was built, in the 1950s, but that's pretty much a synonym for "slums" now. A new such project would be called a "Public housing development." Some day that'll probably become synonymous with "slum," and they'll change it again. People use "Housing project" only to refer to historical projects, like Watts, or Cabrini Green, or in Chicago, where "the projects" means a run-down neighborhood, with some old project buildings.

Queensbridge was home to one of the most notorious drug rings in Queens, by the way. I wasn't allowed to go there, and my parents pretty much gave me the run of things-- I could take the train into Manhattan on the weekend when I wanted when I was 12, and they didn't know where I was, just that I'd promised to be home by four, or call.

[sleekviper]

Riv, you don't call Queensbridge a housing project?

[Monty]

Good point Sleek.

Monty the problem is what you today call a council estate, we in the western hemisphere call a housing project. That's all. Mike just used an incorrect term, but he meant what you said in your article.

I'm not losing it after all.

Some of these threads are deja vu all over again. Like we've done this. Then a new person comes in with an eruv and its a wake-up call. Haven't come across an eruv in what I've read about the East End, Rivkah. Doesn't mean people didn't have them.

Roy

Yes Roy,

I suspect that is what Michael meant also.

However what was stated is misleading. As we have seen.

Monty

[RivkahChaya]

Then a new person comes in with an eruv and its a wake-up call. Haven't come across an eruv in what I've read about the East End, Rivkah. Doesn't mean people didn't have them.

Roy

You'd probably have to find some very specific source, like "The Jewish East End, 1860-1901," or an actual synagogue record. For any posters in London, the local synagogues might know, because the eruvs might not have been moved much, and there might be records of each time they were moved or repaired.

[RivkahChaya]

Hmm. I grew up in New York, and I think of "the projects" as a Chicago term. People there talk about living in "the projects" the way people in other places talk about living in "the ghetto," "the slums," or "the barrio." There have been housing projects in New York, but they were never called anything special; in New York, you live in a neighborhood, whether you live in a subsidized, or government-backed built or renovated housing. Anyway, "housing projects," inside Chicago and out were mostly built in the 50s and 60s, and many of the became notorious for being substandard, quickly decrepit, and also crime-ridden-- it was a vicious circle: police didn't like to patrol, so criminals conducted business out in the open, so they became even more difficult to patrol. Another problem was illegal occupancy-- the legal residents might be a family of four in a two bedroom apartment, but they might sublet a bedroom, or have relatives move in with them. Caused all sorts of plumbing, as well as weight-bearing problems, since the building capacity left no spare room.

I don't know much about "council houses," but I didn't think that they tended to be just a step above a roach-infested tenement, which is what "projects" in the US usually are.

When I read "Jewish housing project," I thought Michael was either mistaken, or that it might be a private project, since in the US, established immigrants sometimes did things to help out new immigrants.

I still don't know exactly what the building was, but "housing project," to me, isn't a neutral term. It's a sort of "too little, too late," effort, that usually fails. It's a big country, and things don't mean the same thing from state to state. Even if you like your iced tea with a little sugar, don't order "sweet tea" south of the Mason-Dixon line. It's syrup with a slight tea-flavor, and a sprig of mint. Order hot tea, a glass of ice, and do it with your Brooklyn-Queens accent.

[Roy Corduroy]

Good point Sleek.

Monty the problem is what you today call a council estate, we in the western hemisphere call a housing project. That's all. Mike just used an incorrect term, but he meant what you said in your article.

I'm not losing it after all.

Some of these threads are deja vu all over again. Like we've done this. Then a new person comes in with an eruv and its a wake-up call. Haven't come across an eruv in what I've read about the East End, Rivkah. Doesn't mean people didn't have them.

Roy

[RivkahChaya]

The bottom line is that the dwellings were not a Jewish Housing project. That suggests it was a Jewish building built specifically for Jews.

This is certainly what it sounded like Michael was saying. Other than shtetls, which were built for segregating Jews, I can't think of anything I would call a "Jewish housing project."

However, something worth mentioning, is that when a neighborhood is largely Orthodox, the residents will often string up an eruv, which is a wire, usually using existing utility poles in the US. In the past, the were sort of false wooden lintels that connected buildings, and they always include the nearest synagogue. The purpose is to create a fiction of a single dwelling. There is a rule about carrying things on Shabbes. You can carry from room to room, within a building, including up an downstairs, and across a courtyard, but not from building to building, because that constitutes "work." So by connecting the buildings, you can carry things from house to house, or to the synagogue. It's used mostly to allow people to carry food, but it lets people with small children carry diaper bags, and soforth.

Anyway, if this building was connected by an eruv to other building, or Goulston St. was within an eruv, that may have caused people to think of the building or area as somehow having been "claimed" by Jews. It means no such things, but sometimes it's misunderstood. When Jews put up an eruv, it isn't an indication that they don't want non-Jews living within the area, or that they are trying to reserve the area in any way, but but people do misunderstand, and there's really no way gentiles should be expected to understand without it being explained. If you have Jews moving into the area from E. Europe, who have lived only in segregated towns before, it might not occur to them that there would be misunderstandings, though.

It would be interesting to know whether, and if so, where, there were eruvs in the East End.

[sleekviper]

No, if others are not being denied entrance, then it is not exclusive. One can walk into a bar, and it can be 100% males there at the time, it does not make it an exclusively male establishment, it makes it entirely male at that instance.

[Monty]

I'm not 'ragging' Michael, Roy,

Michael stated the dwellings were an Exclusive Jewish housing project.

Firstly we have no evidence it was exclusively Jewish, however we do have evidence it was predominantly Jewish. A small difference granted yet still a difference.

Secondly it was not a Jewish housing project. It was built as a result of the Cross act. It was not built specifically for Jews.

I'm merely trying to instill a little fact here. However if the concensus is to misinform then be my guests.

Who am I to get in the way of juicy theorising? A Jewish building built by Jews for Jews and entirely inhabited by Jews. There, incorrect but hey, who cares?

Monty

[Roy Corduroy]

Monty, quoting the article here on Casebook (click to link) which in Part II under your name, Neil you wrote and I quote:

"The Wentworth Model Dwellings in Goulston Street were largely inhabited by Jews. Since they were in a Jewish neighbourhood, next to a Jewish market, this is hardly surprising."

So I don't understand why you're ragging Michael for what he said. I thought he had it right the first time.

Or ... am I losin' it

Roy

[Monty]

Hi Monty,

I believe demographic numbers were published in around 1900 that reported the number of Jewish Occupants of those dwellings was somewhere between 95 and 100% Jewish, at that time of its release of course.

Cheers

Hi Michael,

What demographic publication exactly?

And what is your definition of 'exclusive'?

The bottom line is that the dwellings were not a Jewish Housing project. That suggests it was a Jewish building built specifically for Jews.

The Dwellings were built for workers, for all of that class.

Monty

[Michael W Richards]

Nor should you be.

So its not exclusively.

And you base this 90% on?

Monty

Hi Monty,

I believe demographic numbers were published in around 1900 that reported the number of Jewish Occupants of those dwellings was somewhere between 95 and 100% Jewish, at that time of its release of course.

Cheers

[curious]

If he wrote, he had blood on his hands, so therefore blood would or should be on the wall.

Morning, Beowulf,
I'm with you about using whatever procedures are available while the property is still available. We never know when the chance will be gone forever -- not just in this instance but in any others that suggest themselves.

Of course, everything takes money . . .

I'm not positive that Eddowes' killer would still have blood on his hands at the time the apron and writing appeared. We don't really know how long the time was between the murder and the appearance of the apron and graffiti, but if the longest time is correct, then the killer had time to go somewhere, clean up and then leave the apron.

I don't have this figured out in my head, so I'm not sure what we're looking at here.

curious