SUPER INTERESTING Day. We toured a tenement building in the lower east side. Historically this is where immigrants first lived upon arrival in US.
When the landlord of 97 Orchard Street died in the late 1980's, the five unused stories of the buildings above the storefronts he controlled were opened for the first time in 50 years. Inside this time capsule were twenty tenement apartments, left exactly as they were when the landlord closed up the residenitial part of the building. (he didn't have the $$ to pay for fireproofing to make the building "meet code"--so he simply boarded the apartments up). The museum has used oral histories (interviews from children who lived there), city records (such as photos from police arrests), and research to restore the tenement to look as it did during various periods in time. We couldn't take photos inside. The inside was dark, narrow. But it also had tin roof panels and decorative paintings on the wall -not what you expected. The building we went in had 22 apts - each was about 3 rooms in 300 sf - BR, Kitchen, and Living area, with typically 4-6 people living in each. No bathrooms in the building in 1860's--outhouses on back. Later, in the 20's the city mandated 1 toilet for every 2 apartments, and toiletss were added. The tour was a naration of 2 families that lived in the building. Over the course of the years, they figure 7000 people have lived in the building. Around 1900 they said 2000 people lived in this single square block in lower east side--the highest density of people in the world.
Of interest:
One family was of German descent. At the time they lived there, this was 4th largest city of German speaking people. So that means this area had a concentration of more German speaking people than many cities in Germany. At the point the family earned enough money to move to a better area, they moved to upper west side where there was a large German community--just a higher class.
The goal of the museum is to make history come alive but also for us to see that we are ALL immigrants and need to see people as individuals.
