Many of my earliest childhood memories were hearing tales of yesteryear and how our family made their life in the big city. Both sides of my family immigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. From various points in Europe, they sailed for days, making their way into New York harbor, wishing and waiting for a safer, more prosperous life ahead. After landing, they didn’t stray far. Much of my father’s family started out in Manhattan and then settled in Brooklyn, whereas my mother’s family spread out to Staten Island (then known as Richmond) and specifically to Middle Village, Queens. While I knew this much from stories, I wanted to dig deeper into the city that I, too, call my home. I still can’t believe I walk the same streets as my ancestors did not too long ago. Combining my love for this city, my passion for analytics and data visualization, and the fondness of my family history, I set out to uncover what I could about my family’s history in New York City and how we came to be New York Jews.
My Capstone project is not only a set of concurrent visualizations created in Tableau but also the creation of datasets powering them, which were painstakingly created drawing from previously unformatted population data and family information.
Excel Export of Jewish Immigration to United States between 1881 and 1945 can be found here.