mong the first wave of Bengali speakers who made their way to New York—many of them ex-seamen who settled on the Lower East Side and in East Harlem, as told by Vivek Bald in Bengali Harlem—were many who also spoke Sylheti, the related language variety from Sylhet in what is now northeastern Bangladesh. A distinct Sylheti community remains in those neighborhoods today, exemplified by the East Village's Madina Masjid and the small restaurant row on East 6th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues, which began in the 1970s. Other small Sylheti communities continue in Harlem and parts of Brooklyn, and in general Sylhetis constitute a significant portion of the sizeable Bangladeshi community in the New York metro area, with communities apparently existing in most areas with other Bengali speakers.