The Lower East Side Tenement Museum is a museum and National Historic Site located at 97 and 103 Orchard Street on the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Historically, it w ...

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, United States. The museum's two historical

tenement A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access. They are common on the British Isles, particularly in Scotland. In the medieval Old Town, E ...

buildings were home to an estimated 15,000 people, from over 20 nations, between 1863 and 1935 (97 Orchard Street) and 1888 and 2015 (103 Orchard Street). The museum, which includes a visitors' center, promotes tolerance and historical perspective on the immigrant experience.

History

The building at 97 Orchard Street was contracted by

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

n-born immigrant Lukas Glockner in 1863 and was modified several times to conform with the New York State Tenement House Act. When first constructed, it contained 22 apartments and a basement level saloon. Over time, four stoop-level and two basement apartments were converted into commercial retail space, leaving 16 apartments in the building. Modifications over the years included the installation of indoor plumbing (cold running water, two toilets per floor), an air shaft, and gas followed by electricity. In 1935, rather than continuing to modify the building, the landlord evicted the residents, boarded the upper windows, and sealed the upper floors, leaving only the stoop-level and basement storefronts open for business. No further changes were made until the Lower East Side Tenement Museum became involved with the building in 1988. As such, the building stands as a kind of

time capsule A time capsule is a historic treasure trove, cache of goods or information, usually intended as a deliberate method of communication with future people, and to help future archaeologists, anthropologists, or historians. The preservation of holy ...

, reflecting 19th and early 20th century living conditions and the changing notions of what constitutes acceptable housing. Thanks to extensive restoration over many years (overseen in phases by

Perkins Eastman Perkins Eastman is an international architecture, urban design, planning, strategic consulting, and interior design firm. Headquartered in New York City, the firm is led by founding Principals Bradford Perkins (architect), Bradford Perkins and M ...

and Li/Saltzman Architects) visitors can explore two different buildings—97 and 103 Orchard Street—and view recreated apartments that represent eras across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Tenement Museum was founded in 1988 by Ruth J. Abram and Anita Jacobson. The museum's first key property, the tenement at 97 Orchard Street, was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...

on April 19, 1994. The National Historic Site was authorized on November 12, 1998. It is an affiliated area of the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

but is owned and administered by the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. The site received a Save America's Treasures matching grant for $250,000 in 2000 for preservation work. In 2001 the museum was awarded the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence silver medal. In 2005, the museum was among 406 New York City arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $20 million grant from the

Carnegie Corporation The Carnegie Corporation of New York is a philanthropic fund established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to support education programs across the United States, and later the world. Since its founding, the Carnegie Corporation has endowed or othe ...

, which was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor

Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman and politician. He is the majority owner and co-founder of Bloomberg L.P., and was its CEO from 1981 to 2001 and again from 2014 to 2023. He served as the 108th mayo ...

. The National Defense Authorization Act for the 2015 fiscal year expanded the National Historic Site designation to also include the tenement at 103 Orchard Street. The Tenement Museum attracted some negative press in 2007 related to its employees seeking union membership as well as for its planned acquisition of the building at 99 Orchard Street through

eminent domain Eminent domain, also known as land acquisition, compulsory purchase, resumption, resumption/compulsory acquisition, or expropriation, is the compulsory acquisition of private property for public use. It does not include the power to take and t ...

in 2002. The current president of the museum is Dr. Annie Polland, who took over the role from Dr. Morris Vogel in 2021.

Exhibits, collections, and programs

The museum's exhibits and programs include restored

period room A period room is a display that represents the interior design and decorative art of a particular historical social setting usually in a museum. Though it may incorporate elements of an individual real room that once existed somewhere, it is usual ...

apartments and shops open daily for public tours, depicting the lives of

immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...

who lived at 97 Orchard Street between 1869 and 1935 and 103 Orchard Street from the 1950s to the 1980s. The museum also provides a documentary film and offers tours with costumed interpreters for portraying the building's former residents, tastings of their communities' typical foods, and neighborhood walks. The museum's tours place the immigrants' lives in the broader context of

American history The history of the present-day United States began in roughly 15,000 BC with the arrival of Peopling of the Americas, the first people in the Americas. In the late 15th century, European colonization of the Americas, European colonization beg ...

. The museum also has an extensive collection of historical archives and provides a variety of educational programs. An exhibition titled "Under One Roof" opened in December 2017. Located at 103 Orchard Street, above the Visitor's Center, the exhibition explores the lives of a

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

refugee family, a Puerto Rican migrant family, and a Chinese immigrant family. In the spring of 2021, the Tenement Museum added "Reclaiming Black Spaces" to their list of available walking and virtual tours, educating visitors on Black experiences on the Lower East Side. This was inspired by a discovery in the museum's collection regarding two men named Joseph Moore. These men were both residents of NYC, were about the same age, and worked in the same profession. Their biggest difference was one was a white Irishman and lived in the museum's location at 97 Orchard Street, and the other was a Black man who lived in a nearby tenement house. The museum has recreated the kitchen of the Irish Joseph Moore, and they plan to open an apartment recreating the home of Joseph Moore and his family in 2022. This will be the first permanent apartment exhibit by the museum representing the Black experience.

Buildings

The buildings comprising the Tenement Museum were influenced by the New York State Tenement House Acts of

1867 There were only 354 days this year in the newly purchased territory of Alaska. When the territory transferred from the Russian Empire to the United States, the calendric transition from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar was made with only 1 ...

, 1879, and 1901. The building at 97 Orchard Street was built prior to the passage of the 1867 act, which required at least one toilet for every 20 tenants, a connection to the city's sewage system, and a fire escape. As such, 97 Orchard was split into 20 apartments, each with three rooms; there was originally no running water, sewage system, or garbage disposal system. The rear units did not have any natural light or access to air, as was required of tenements built under the 1879 act. To comply with the 1901 act (which required buildings to include running water, gas, light, and ventilation), some of the partition walls were retrofitted with windows, and toilets and air shafts were built.

In popular culture

Lower East Side Tenement Museum has been featured in several films, including '' Crossing Delancey'' (1988) and '' The Definition of Insanity'' (2004), where the museum was used as setting for the interior hospital sequences. It was spoofed in a 2017 ''

Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'') is an American Late night television in the United States, late-night live television, live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The ...

'' skit in which Louis C. K. and Kate McKinnon played Polish immigrants telling

ethnic joke An ethnic joke is a remark aiming at humor relating to an ethnic, racial or cultural group, often referring to an ethnic stereotype of the group in question for its punchline. Perceptions of ethnic jokes are ambivalent. Christie Davies gives ex ...

s about Italians. The museum also made a brief appearance in the Netflix original series '' Dash & Lily'' (2020), where it is the exterior backdrop while Lily skips down the street at the beginning of episode 2, season 1.

References

Notes Bibliography *

External links