My thesis focuses on the second largest wave of immigration in America that lasted from 1880 to the First World War. The determinative immigrant groups were the Italians and the Jews. They came mainly from Southern, Central and Eastern Europe. The latter two ethnic groups are my target of examination. I start my study in chapter 2 with a brief introduction to New York City’s and immigration history collecting the most important events and periods arranged in a chronological order. In chapter 3 I try to shed light on living conditions of immigrants in the Lower East Side residential areas. Chapter 4 describes the occupational picture. I attempted to answer the following questions: what kind of jobs they obtained, from what sources did they make money, what was their attitude to work. In chapter 5 I will discuss what kind of challenges they had to cope with to adjust in New York, most importantly the issue of race. Finally, in chapter 6 – the conclusion − I sum up the findings of my thesis and explain why I have chosen Emma Lazarus's poem as a motto to my study.