142 YEARS AGO
May Day in New York hasn’t always been dancing girls and flower garlands and poles wrapped in ribbons. O.K., so there isn’t a lot of that now, either. Back in the 19th century, however, those traditional May Day celebrations were overshadowed by a less merry rite: It was Moving Day in the city, the day all leases expired. Rents went up. Tenants moved out. Hordes of them. All on May 1.
An article in The New York Times on April 30, 1873, traced the history of May Day around the world and lamented what it had become in the city.
“The house-wife of New-York today, who is not so fortunate as to possess a permanent domicil, wakes up to other thoughts than those of flowers and green boughs on May morning,” the article said. “To many it is a dream of torment, confusion, and expense, and landlords and real estate agents are the evil spirits that rule the day. When New-Yorkers celebrate the day, as they invariably do, it is, if not in sack-cloth and ashes, amid dust and piles of carpets and confused heaps of furniture.”
“It is certain,” the article went on, “whatever be the moving cause, that the annual spectacle of a whole drove of Gothamites struggling amid pots, and pans, and pictures, and rolls of carpet, to break away from the ties of place and friendship just as they are warming in their old nest, to find a new and cold home and cultivate fresh friendships, is not the kind of picture to gaze on with poetic rapture. But, then, they who move are not always the ones to censure. It is undeniable that for years the best investment and the surest means of acquiring sudden wealth — outside of corrupt political preferment — have been real estate speculations.”
But enough about today.
A happier May Day tradition in New York centered on parties and picnics in the parks. From an article in The Times in 1900:
“May Day as a popular festival in Manhattan was celebrated yesterday on a scale that would have horrified the Pilgrim fathers, who detested the observance as ‘heathenish.’ ”
The article continued: “The chief down-town celebration yesterday was held in Battery Park, and for the first time in history, it is said, the sacred grasses of the park were trod by the feet of women and children and of men other than policemen and lawn trimmers and what not. The herbage did not wilt visibly under the pressure of merry feet. The trees did not faint because of the music of a band and a hand organ.”
Uptown celebrated too. “Up in Central Park, the fact that Mrs. Maria Wynne, the matron at the police station, had had six lost children to take care of in as many hours,” the article said, “speaks volumes for the success and enthusiasm of the May Day celebrations there. Mrs. Wynne did not fail to call the attention of the reporter to the fact that all the lost children were boys, alleging her belief that this was strong proof of the greater intelligence of the girls.”
May Day is also traditionally celebrated by workers. An article in The Times reported on a parade of thousands converging on Union Square in 1894, noting particularly the female marchers: “The women, who were chiefly cigarmakers and shoemakers, were remarkable for their comeliness, neatness of attire, and modest bearing.”
The “comely,” “neat” and “modest” women were, as one of their banners proclaimed, parading for “equal rights and equal duties for male and female producers — none to parasites.”
Happy May Day.
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