9th Finglish trip October 2009 #3 At 15 W126th Street in Harlem in New York City stands a grey building, the Pilgrim Cathedral of Harlem. Before it was the Työn Temppeli - Labor Temple, it was built by Finnish American communists in the 1920s. In Harlem there was already the 5th Avenue Hall which was owned by the Finnish American socialist chapter - osasto. The communists, after the Second Schism of the Finnish American socialists, left the 5th Avenue Hall and started to buil

7th Finglish trip September 2008 #38 June Lahti’s father came from Kivijärvi to Michigan with his parents at the age of two. Her mother was born into a Finnish immigrant family in America. June went to work in a bank in New York City at the age of 18. Her young husband Heikki did not want to let her into the city alone and so the couple moved to the corner of 2nd Avenue and 123rd Street in Harlem. Many Finns lived there at the time. At the 5th Avenue Hall in Harlem, they were

7th Finglish trip September 2008 #37 Aino Backstrand was born in Harlem Finntown in 1921. Her mother was from Honkajoki and her father was from Alajoki. In her childhood she lived with her mother for 14 years in three different Finnish rooming houses around Harlem Finntown. Aino´s mother worked as a maid. Aino´s father had moved back to Finland. Aino married Elis Backstrand in 1943 in New York City. Elis was born in Finland, he came to the US at the age of 17. After working

7th Finglish trip September 2008 #35 Anna-Liisa was born in 1928 in Pori, Finland. Anna-Liisa lived with her aunts after her parents got divorced when she was six years old. During the Winter War in 1940 as a teenager Anna-Liisa was rescued by the Swedish Red Cross first to Sweden and eventually to Norway to live with her relatives. A day before Hitler occupied Norway in April 1940 Anna-Liisa moved to her aunt to New York City. She started to work as a maid in Brooklyn. Duri

7th Finglish trip August 2008 #22 Mauno and Anja Laurila met in the mid-1950s in Harlem in New York City. They now spend their summers in Voluntown, Connecticut and the winters in Florida. Originally from Lahti, South Finland, Anja came to America to work in domestic service. She was emplopyed by John D. Rockefeller Jr., the only son of John Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil. At the time, John D. Rockefeller Jr. was one of the richest men in the United States and the w

3rd Finglish trip March 2006 #2 The former reception terminal for European immigrants in the Port of New York has been converted into a museum. The last ship docked here in 1924. Other routes to North America included Halifax, Canada. The Ellis Island museum has collected a great deal of information on the immigrants that passed through the island. The names of some 700,000 people are found on its Wall of Honor. Only memories remain of the Finntown in New York’s Harlem, where