"Fictitious" NY Addresses on Ellis Island Manifests [390 - 392 Grand St. NY]
Hi,
Here's some information that might be useful to many people who are researching family members who came to New York City through Ellis Island in the early 20th century.
While researching Ellis Island records for my father's family from Belarus (that is; WEINER from Shchedrin and Rechitsa, and EINBUND / AINBUND from Shchedrin and Parichi) I kept coming across the destination addresses: 390, 391 and 392 Grand St. in New York City. Sometimes these addresses included the note "c/o Oppenheim". I also found the same addresses, "c/o Oppenheim", listed for many people who had no connection with my family.
I Googled the addresses and "Oppenheim" and found a New York Times article dated January 4, 1903 in the Times Archive. The article's headline is "Societies To Plead For Immigrants; Public Protest Against Increase in Deportations Planned." According to the article it was common practice for new immigrants to list their destination using the addresses of various "small banking houses, numerous on the east side" of New York. "Henry Oppenheimer's banking house" at "392 Grand street" is specifically cited.
Evidently, new immigrants often rented mailboxes at these banking houses because mail that was addressed to them at tenement houses frequently went undelivered. (In the article it's stated that the delivery of mail in tenements was extremely unreliable. Tenement apartments were often
occupied by several immigrant families living piled together, and these families typically made frequentmoves.)
At the time the article was written immigration officials were increasing the number of deportation proceedings against the immigrants who listed these mailbox addresses as their US destination while being processed through Ellis Island. The officials cited these accommodation addresses
as "fictitious".
Here's the article's URL. You may need to register at the NY Times site (free) to see the PDF file.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A02E4DF1F3DEE32A25757C0A9679C946297D6CF&emc=eta1http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A02E4DF1F3DEE32A25757C0A9679C946297D6CF&emc=eta1