Immigrant power

(Continued from page 4) of East Harlem website.

The Old Broadway Synagogue — located on Old Broadway, a small street in West Harlem — is a link to the neighborhood’s Eastern European Jewish immigrants. The Old Broadway building was built in 1923, and services are still held there today.

Immigrants from around the world settled in Harlem, survived and thrived. A major Jewish immigrant was renowned magician and entertainer Harry Houdini. The son of a rabbi, he was born was born Erik Weisz in Hungary and lived in Harlem for 22 years in the house at 278 W. 113th St., which he bought for $25,000 in 1904. It is currently valued at $4.7 million.

Comedian Milton Berle — born Mendel Berlinger to a Jewish family in 1908 and credited with being American television’s first major star — was also a Harlem native.

Billionaire John Catsimatidis — the son of Greek immigrants and the owner, president, chairman and CEO of Gristedes Foods, Manhattan’s largest grocery chain — grew up in West Harlem and as a teenager worked at a small supermarket on W. 137th St. owned by the father of a friend.

Spanish immigrants with a Harlem connection included Bill Gallo, the renowned sports cartoonist for the New York Daily News who was born in East Harlem and attended Benjamin Franklin High School on E. 108th St..

In an article, “I Remember Harlem,” Gallo noted that among his “apartment neighbors” was the Cansino family, also immigrants from Spain. He remembered there was a “beautiful daughter” in the Cansino family. That daughter, Margarita Carmen Cansino, later became Hollywood superstar Rita Hayworth.

Also in the apartment building was the Lancaster family from Ireland. This family also begat a famous actor — Hollywood star Burt Lancaster.

These are just some of the immigrants and children of immigrants with connections to what some call the village of Harlem, who contributed to making Harlem a historical neighborhood that attracts visitors from throughout the