reporter: on this weekend, we followed along as they focused on the historic neighborhood around eldridge street on manhattan's lower east side. in the late 1800s, this was a predominantly jewish neighborhood, where many eastern european immigrants worked in the garment industry and lived in crowded tenements. in the 1920s, new legal restrictions curtailed jewish immigration and the neighborhood slowly became a center for greek immigrants. then, new york's famous chinatown began spilling over and the street took on a distinctly asian character. today, latino families are moving in, as are muslims from asia and africa. >> people's faith paths come from all over the world and flow into eldridge street from the head of it and then go on down to the end and you have the history of world religions. right here. >> reporter: our first stop, a saturday morning service at the buddhist association of new york, where monks and nuns in the mahayana tradition are chanting the lotus sutra. many of the people here are fujinese-speaking chinese immigrants, but after talking with some of the leaders, carn

eldridge at 38 inches of snow. almost crazy to even say it. that was the first of two storms to roll through in a week. we got the second round in that one week. upwards of 50 inches. in one week three years ago. february 2010. many areas topped the 30 inch mark. these are some of the representative amount to around the area. officially at the airport it was 25 inches. it is clear out there. 38 at the inner harbor. b w i marshall is cooled off to 30. to the north you see that cold air that is developing. frost or get 22. on the lower eastern shore in southern delaware. some of the coldest spot could be close to 20 degrees as we head through the overnight toward tomorrow morning. around 30 in downtown baltimore. we will see cloudiness increasing tomorrow and thickening across the area. it is on our doorstep. in response to storms forming on the gulf coast and the upper midwest, they will combine off the mid-atlantic and push up into new england as a powerful nor'easter friday night into saturday. we will be on the southern fringe of that. you c

eldridge at 38 inches of snow. almost crazy to even say it. that was the first of two storms to roll through in a week. we got the second round in that one week. upwards of 50 inches. in one week three years ago. february 2010. many areas topped the 30 inch mark. these are some of the representative amount to around the area. officially at the airport it was 25 inches. it is clear out there. 38 at the inner harbor. b w i marshall is cooled off to 30. to the north you see that cold air that is developing. frost or get 22. on the lower eastern shore in southern delaware. some of the coldest spot could be close to 20 degrees as we head through the overnight toward tomorrow morning. around 30 in downtown baltimore. we will see cloudiness increasing tomorrow and thickening across the area. it is on our doorstep. in response to storms forming on the gulf coast and the upper midwest, they will combine off the mid-atlantic and push up into new england as a powerful nor'easter friday night into saturday. we will be on the southern fringe of that. you c

the gerrymandering decisions, which come from in the 18th century it's a combination of eldridge jerry, who was the governor of massachusetts that drew maps that looked like salamanders. peculiarly shaped. why does that happen? because one party controls the process. so after the 2010 mid-terms the republicans picked up so many state legislatures that they were able to essentially rig the 2012 election -- >> they saw an opportunity, they took it. >> democratic candidates got 1.1 million more votes for the house of representatives in 2012, and they lost the house by a substantial margin because the maps rigged the process. the only way to change that is to elect democratic state legislators so that those maps at the next census in 2020 -- >> so that money's going to have to be spent on a state level. i mean, this national money -- >> absolutely. remember, it doesn't get redrawn until 2020 and the new census. so between now and then it's going to -- it's an uphill fight for the democrats to get the house back. >> all right. jonathan alter, great to have you with us tonight. thank you. >>

the classic example being the 2010 race and a woman named rene eldridge. he had won easily in 2008.10 they knew it would be a bad year for democrats. cuomo was raising some money and he was going to have to show up a bit to raise reelection. but he was on nobody's watch list. not even on the likely democrat but watch. he was a safe seat in every one of the major rankings that undertakes them until one day he is walking outside the capitol building and some of these guns of journalists jumped him and started asking hard questions he did not like and he eventually lost his temper. these young students, he was trying to grab the camera and throw a punch, or something like that. it looks really bad. the liberal was probably becoming more conservative. what made the difference was that it was possible to get $500,000 into the campaign in independent expenditures allowed by citizens united and speech now almost overnight. whereas in the past after a huge fund-raising advantage, they would have just written that out. as it is, etherege spent far more than elmhurst. even when you include th