The LOWER EAST SIDE MUSEUM, a glimpse of the past, here and now
Written: Dec 10 '03 (Updated Dec 10 '03)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Time needed for visit: |
 |
|
|
Pros: A eye opener showing crowed life without electricity, water, safe heat, inside toilets.
Cons: Can get booked early in the day.
The Bottom Line: This isn't a large museum. It is however very moving informative, and served as the roots to so many of us who now live in this country.
|
|
|
| popsrocks's Full Review: Lower East Side Tenement Museum |
Immigrants from Europe came over in waves from the 1850's till the 1930's only to settle, for a while at least into the tenement buildings of the lower east side.
One such building on 87 Orchard Street was boarded up. It was then opened years later. The remains of what were homes with extremely poor conditions has become a treasure of history for all of us to visit and envision what life was like for those who left everything and everyone they knew to try and make it here in the "New World".
My visit to this museum taught me history of which I was not aware and a touch into the past of what I a guy who is in his 50's, experienced as a child. More on that later.
The museum is founded on the words, "to promote tolerance and historical perspective through the presentation and interpretation of a variety of immigrant and migrant experiences on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a gateway to America”.
The building was constructed by a German man who saw the need for homes for the many immigrants that were coming to America.
At the time there were no building codes. These were four, five and six floor walk up apartments that had no electricity, no one did at the time, no gas for lamps, no water, and no toilets in the building.
Between the years 1863 when this was built and 1935 when the last tenants moved out over 7,000 people from 20 different nations lived in this one building alone.
Many people came into Manhattan first through the downtown Federal Building, Clinton Castle and then Ellis Island. They needed a place to live until they knew exactly where they were off to. Most families wanted to move in and move right out again. Some did get out, many lived in these poor conditions for many years.
TICKETS and TOURS
We first purchased our tickets at the Visitors Center, $9.00 Adults and $6.00 Seniors and students. Prices are a dollar more per person now. This is a separate building on the corner of Orchard and Broom Streets. The center has a store with books and memorabilia. They also show two different introductory films that are about ten minutes long. These are free.
Just a note. The NY Tenement Museum is now part of the NPS, National Parks Service. It now has national historic status. Unfortunately, though under the auspices of the park services, they do not recognize the Golden Eagle, Golden age or Golden Access passes. Everyone must pay.
The Visitors Center opens Mon 12-5 Tues-Sunday 11-5.
Tickets are purchased on a first come first served basis for tours given only to those with tickets and reservations. You must be there early, before 11:00AM to assure on a tour. On holiday weekends that may not be early enough. You can, by going to their web site, purchase tickets before hand. I strongly suggest doing this. www.ticketweb.com or call 1 800 9654827.
If you arrive at 11AM the same day you still may not have a tour until 4:00PM. It pays to get the tickets ahead.
All the tours leave from the Visitors center. There are a few tours to chose from. They even have special tours for some handicapped. Just a quick note wheel chairs and strollers cannot be brought into the buildings.
OUR EXPERIENCE
From the visitors center we are walked a half a block and across a street to the building. A brief talk is done outside the doors. As you looked up you could see the fire escapes where many of the people took refuge on hot Summer's nights and days.
Afterward we all stepped inside. The doors were closed behind us and we were left with just a bit of natural lights squeezing its way through small openings from the front door area. This gave us a feel as to what it might be like walking into the building with groceries ready to walk up six flights of stairs.
Though I don't remember it well, I do remember the five story walk up apartment my parents along with my brother and I lived in on 118th Street in Manhattan. My mom used to carry me and my brother up the stairs along with groceries.
This apartment building was constructed in 1864 and until it closed up in 1935 had over 7,000 people from 20 nations live in it for short terms or many years.
Our guide told us of all the different ethnic groups that lived in these apartments. How difficult life was and how in the very early 1900's reforms made landlords make improvements on the builds. Toilets were installed in the hallways that the different families shared.
This reminded me so much of my fathers family who lived up on 96th St. I remember as a kid going to my grandparent's apartment for Sunday visits and the Holidays. There was just one toilet out in the hall that they used and shared with a neighboring family. Though they did not all live in the apartment at the same time my father was the oldest of 17 brothers and sisters. I also remember that when we would arrive, there was never a lock on the door. We just turned the knob and walked in.
Our tour took us into two apartments. Through records, documents, and family accounts they have been able to get a real sense of the people whose homes the apartments once were.
The apartments were tiny, just three small rooms without closets or initially running water or electricity.
The tours take a maximum of 15 people. There just isn't any more room in these apartment for more. As it was we squeezed into rooms. This also helped us realize how tiny these places were.
The first family home we visited was that of Gumpertz family. They were German Jews who lived in the apartment in the 1870's. We were told how one day the husband went off to work and never returned home again. She then had to support the family on her own. This was the plight of many families whose husband's abandoned them.
Mrs Gumpertz earned a poor living as a dress maker in the apartment. We see her sewing station and wonder how she survived doing this in such cramped quarters with poor lighting.
Most of the apartments have a window in the interior rooms. The windows are not to the outside but to the adjacent room that has outside access. This is how some natural light was brought into interior rooms, This was only done after the reforms were made.
We then went into the Sicilian-Catholic Baldizzi family apartment(1930s). There we saw the room set up very much as it was almost 75 years ago. The interesting part of this apartment is that one of the children who lived there is still alive and helped show what things were like. She also had input on how the room was shown. It was at first thought the rooms would be shown as a family packing up in trunks and suit cases all their belongings. The daughter would not allow it stating her mother would never let visitors into her home if it was not presentable.
Being the Baldizzi family lived in the apartment in the 1930's they had electricity and running water. The kitchen held the only running water of the apartment. There is a small tub in the kitchen too. Beside a source of water and for washing dishes the tub was used for washing clothes and for personal hygiene.
Once again, I recalled my grandmother's home with all my aunts and uncles still living there. They too had just one sink in the whole apartment. It was just like the one I saw in the Baldizzi's kitchen. Can you imagine the traffic around the one source of water, in the kitchen, on a holiday when everybody is getting dressed and the big dinner is being cooked. Outside in the hall was a toilet and toilet only, not even a little sink to wash your hands in.
In each apartment our guide pointed out little points of interest that were eye opening. We even would look at the countless layers of paints and wall papers that were changed just about every time a new family moved into an apartment.
Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and interesting. She kept us all together, fielded questions well and was easily heard. We ended the tour by going out a back way that was built to accommodate people leaving through the rear of the building. This is where you see the courtyard behind the building where everybody, from every family, in the original days of the building, had to walk down to to use the "privie" and to get water from a pump.
MORE TOURS
The tour we took is just one of a few they now offer. There is a walking tour that takes you through the neighborhood. It is then you realize that all the buildings are very much the same and there are still families living in the walk up apartments. Yes they now have central heat, running water, and electricity. These homes and the neighborhood all supported the immigration movement to this country. There is so much history in each building. As we see lower Manhattan's Chinatown spread out over this area we see that there are still new people coming into this nation.
Another apartment has been set up as a more hands on place that was set up as a good tour for families with young kids. Here's the museum's description.
The Confino Family Apartment
Length: 45 min
This "living history" apartment is based on the Sephardic-Jewish Confino family from Kastoria, (once part of the Ottoman Empire, now in Greece). A costumed interpreter plays teenage Victoria Confino c. 1916. She welcomes visitors as though they were newly arrived immigrants, teaching them how to adapt to America. The Confino apartment is a hands-on experience: visitors can touch any items in the apartment, try on period clothing and fox trot to music played on an authentic wind-up Victrola.
I have recently read as a piece of news that the NY Tenement Museum is planning another permanent apartment. This will be of the Moore Family. This was an Irish family that also lived in the same apartment building. The new exhibition will explain the Irish immigration movement to the US.
OTHER PLACES to SEE
This museum is a perfect match with the Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty experience. Also closely connected is Clinton Castle that is in Battery Park. Before Ellis Island was completed this was where immigrants came in. The Federal Building just a very short walk from Battery park was the customs center for a few years in the 1850's. Also very close by these places is the Jewish Heritage Museum. These places are all downtown further than the Tenement museum. A few trains go to both.
GETTING THERE
You can get to the museum by car. This is in the downtown part of Manhattan, not far from the Williamsburg Bridge and cross town from Greenwich Village. There is a free parking area for those who visit the museum. It's open 8AM to 10PM everyday. It's between Norfolk and Suffolk Streets just a block and a half from the museum. Trains and buses take you within a short walking distance to the museum.
If you are willing to walk a bit you can also get into the heart of Chinatown where it is always interesting and the few streets of 'Little Italy' are ten minute walk. We have had dinner there after doing the museum.
IN CLOSING
I found this museum very enlightening and at times a place that brought back memories and the realization that the immigration movement into this country was not really all that long ago.
The people in this museum are meticulous in the information they are gathering and how they show the past. They are working hard to make this museum more available to all people regardless of handicap or language barriers. They now have a tour at an established time in Spanish every day. Other languages can be accommodated by getting in touch with the museums a couple of weeks ahead of time.
Other lower Manhattan Destinations by popsrocks
Ellis Island
Statue of Liberty
Castle Clinton National Memorial
Battery Park Home of the temporary 9/11 memorial.
SOUTH STREET SEAPORT
NY WATERWAY Tour NYC by boat.
Federal Hall National Historic SiteDowntown across from Wall Street, our first Capitol Building was there.
Jewish Heritage Museum
St Paul's ChapelA living Memorial to 9/11
Greenwich VillageIt's Hip and Happening
Millenium Hilton., directly across from ground zero. They have reopened!A great location to all that is downtown
Fraunce's Tavern George Washington ate here. You can too! Downtown NYC
Recommended:
Yes
Best time to go: Anytime
Recommended for: Anybody
Review Topic: Overview
|
|
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.