The Lung Block: A New York City Slum & Its Forgotten Italian Immigrant Community

The Lung Block: A New York City Slum & Its Forgotten Italian Immigrant Community exhibition was an exhibition co-curated by Stefano Morello and Kerri Culhane on view at the New York City Department of Records and Information Services building (31 Chambers Street) between April 26 and August, 2019, with a satellite show at The Graduate Center, CUNY (365 Fifth Avenue). This digital component of the exhibit was funded by a Connect New York Grant through the Early Research Initiative and GC Digital Initiatives at The Graduate Center, CUNY.

The exhibit draws upon recent scholarship on the subject: Stefano Morello’s yet unpublished dissertation “The Lung Block, a New York City Slum and Its Forgotten Italian-American Community.” Morello’s work analyzes the progressive narrative of the Lung Block as the slum-epicenter of disease, contrasting it with the lived experience of the majority Italian immigrant tenement dwellers living in the area, thus redressing a glaring omission in the historical record. The discourse surrounding the Lung Block illustrates a typical pattern of slum-making and gentrification, and in many ways typified the plight and perceived perils of the Lower East Side immigrant in the popular imagination.