Tenement Museum

In the stories we tell about immigration, we often gloss over the difficulties --- including horrendous living conditions and forced prostitution --- immigrants faced once they arrived in the U.S. The Tenement Museum makes sure we don't rush to mythologize by showing life as it was lived at various points in one particular building on the Lower East Side.


During its time as a tenement, from 1863 to 1935, approximately 7,000 people lived at 97 Orchard Street. Our tour featured two apartments next door to one another, one the home of Prussian Jews in the 1870s; the other home to an Italian family in the 1930s. Each is full of key period details, like bedding, cigarette butts, board games, and a coin-fed gas machine. In both cases, the curators traced the descendants, incorporating their photographs and voices into the overview of their families' experiences. These re-creations rivet far more than any story could.