Tenement Museum
Jun. 12th, 2011 05:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficOn Friday I went to the Tenement Museum, on the Lower East Side. As suspected, it is not air conditioned, but they do lend you little fans that say, "I am a fan of the Tenement Museum."
The museum is a tenement building built in 1874 and shut down in the 1930s. The museum acquired the building in the eighties (the apartments had been empty for fifty years, but the shops on the first floor stayed open, which is I guess why the owner could keep the rest of the building). They restored the apartments to represent different time periods. You can only go into the museum on a tour. Each tour is about an hour, and you have to book in advance since they can't take many people and they sell out. On each tour, you hear about specific families that lived there. The museum has done a lot of research through public records and contacting descendants of tenants to be as accurate as possible.
The Tenement Museum is also very interested in the immigrant experience up to the present, and offers ESL classes (though the LES is no longer an immigrant mecca--too expensive). They also encourage people on the tour to talk about their own or their families' experiences.
- Though this is the Tenement Museum, the apartments I saw, one from the 1870s, one from the 1930s, were of solidly working class people. The rent in 1870 was $10 a month, so these aren't the lodgings of the worst off people in society. This tenement was not housing for factory workers, but for tradesmen, carpenters and cobblers and such.
- I suspect my impression of the apartments would have been very different before I moved to New York. Each unit is about 325 square feet, with a bedroom, kitchen, and front parlor. Having seen the apartments some of my married friends live in, this one was not that cramped. I mean, yes, family of six lived here, obviously it was cramped. But having seen New York real estate, I could see how this would be nice for the time. I mean, they have a parlor! And there's a water pump right behind the building, next to the three privies. That's...something.
- I would have enjoyed this tour a lot more had my tourguide not started two weeks ago. She knew the script. That was it. I don't know loads of New York history, but I know bits and pieces. So my interaction with the tourguide was this:
Tourguide: This is an actual iron from the time. Feel how heavy it is.
Me: Is it made of iron?
TG: *blank stare*
Me: Is this building in the Five Points?
TG: *blank stare*
(I don't think it is, but I'm still a little unclear as to where the Five Points is in modern Manhattan.)
TG: *asks question about politics in the 1870s*
Me: Well, that's Tammany Hall.
TG: ...no. Tammany Hall was later.
(No it wasn't. 1870s would have been the height of Tammany Hall. That was the Boss Tweed era.)
TG: We are in Kleindeutschland.
Me: Oh, is the General Slocum Memorial near here?
TG: *has never heard of the General Slocum, despite it being the most lethal fire in New York City history before 9/11 and being a major blow to the community of Kleindeutschland*
So that did not go so well. I would like to go back and take some of the other tours, but hopefully with someone who knows what the hell they are talking about.
For New Yorkers/visitors to New York, I would definitely recommend the Tenement Museum, as a way to get a tangible look into the lives of working class immigrants. It's all too easy to only get an impression of New York's past by looking at the houses of families like the Roosevelts or Morgans. This gives a window into what life was like for everybody else.
Also, in one of the apartments, they had a recording of a woman who had grown up in that apartment in the Great Depression, and they recreated it exactly as she recalled. She even donated some of her mother's belongings to the museum. You could really see what life was like in the space. She also recalled it with a great deal of affection, despite how hard life then was, which left the tour on a very hopeful note.
The museum is a tenement building built in 1874 and shut down in the 1930s. The museum acquired the building in the eighties (the apartments had been empty for fifty years, but the shops on the first floor stayed open, which is I guess why the owner could keep the rest of the building). They restored the apartments to represent different time periods. You can only go into the museum on a tour. Each tour is about an hour, and you have to book in advance since they can't take many people and they sell out. On each tour, you hear about specific families that lived there. The museum has done a lot of research through public records and contacting descendants of tenants to be as accurate as possible.
The Tenement Museum is also very interested in the immigrant experience up to the present, and offers ESL classes (though the LES is no longer an immigrant mecca--too expensive). They also encourage people on the tour to talk about their own or their families' experiences.
- Though this is the Tenement Museum, the apartments I saw, one from the 1870s, one from the 1930s, were of solidly working class people. The rent in 1870 was $10 a month, so these aren't the lodgings of the worst off people in society. This tenement was not housing for factory workers, but for tradesmen, carpenters and cobblers and such.
- I suspect my impression of the apartments would have been very different before I moved to New York. Each unit is about 325 square feet, with a bedroom, kitchen, and front parlor. Having seen the apartments some of my married friends live in, this one was not that cramped. I mean, yes, family of six lived here, obviously it was cramped. But having seen New York real estate, I could see how this would be nice for the time. I mean, they have a parlor! And there's a water pump right behind the building, next to the three privies. That's...something.
- I would have enjoyed this tour a lot more had my tourguide not started two weeks ago. She knew the script. That was it. I don't know loads of New York history, but I know bits and pieces. So my interaction with the tourguide was this:
Tourguide: This is an actual iron from the time. Feel how heavy it is.
Me: Is it made of iron?
TG: *blank stare*
Me: Is this building in the Five Points?
TG: *blank stare*
(I don't think it is, but I'm still a little unclear as to where the Five Points is in modern Manhattan.)
TG: *asks question about politics in the 1870s*
Me: Well, that's Tammany Hall.
TG: ...no. Tammany Hall was later.
(No it wasn't. 1870s would have been the height of Tammany Hall. That was the Boss Tweed era.)
TG: We are in Kleindeutschland.
Me: Oh, is the General Slocum Memorial near here?
TG: *has never heard of the General Slocum, despite it being the most lethal fire in New York City history before 9/11 and being a major blow to the community of Kleindeutschland*
So that did not go so well. I would like to go back and take some of the other tours, but hopefully with someone who knows what the hell they are talking about.
For New Yorkers/visitors to New York, I would definitely recommend the Tenement Museum, as a way to get a tangible look into the lives of working class immigrants. It's all too easy to only get an impression of New York's past by looking at the houses of families like the Roosevelts or Morgans. This gives a window into what life was like for everybody else.
Also, in one of the apartments, they had a recording of a woman who had grown up in that apartment in the Great Depression, and they recreated it exactly as she recalled. She even donated some of her mother's belongings to the museum. You could really see what life was like in the space. She also recalled it with a great deal of affection, despite how hard life then was, which left the tour on a very hopeful note.
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Date: 2011-06-13 04:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-13 04:26 pm (UTC)What worked for me on the tour was that it was not "people" lived like this, it was this specific family, let me show you photos also recordings. But I was hoping to fit it in to my knowledge of the city, and I seriously don't think this tourguide knew even as much history as is in Gangs of New York.