Things To Do

The Lower East Side Tenement Museum offers a range of things to do while you are visiting. From guided tours through the historic tenement apartment building, or walking tours throughout the Lower East Side neighborhood, you will be sure to come away from your experience feeling enlightened about the rich history of this area.

 

Neighborhood Walking Tours

Building on the Lower East Side - Neighborhood Walking Tour

Housing is New York’s enduring issue. Nowhere has this been more felt than the Lower East Side, at one point the most crowded place on the planet. Explore how architects, activists, civic agents, and everyday people have influenced the very landscape of the neighborhood and uncover the stories of the Lower East Side. Learn about some the earliest homes in the neighborhood, before they were replaced by the humble tenement, and gaze upon the modernist urban renewal efforts of the 1950s. This is an approximately 1.4 miles and 60 minute tour.

Outside the Home - Neighborhood Walking Tour

On this tour we’ll look at how Lower East Siders shaped and were shaped by their neighborhood over the 19th and early 20th Centuries. From stores to parks, movie theaters to schools, discover how these spaces became important centers for navigating identity, advocacy, and cultural exchange. This is an approximately 1 mile and 60 minute tour.

Reclaiming Black Spaces - Neighborhood Walking Tour

From the 1640s to the modern day, on this 90 minute walking tour we’ll highlight stories of how Black and African Americans shaped Lower Manhattan as they made homes, businesses, and communities there over the centuries. Discover what drew Black New Yorkers to Lower Manhattan, and how their experiences were shaped by that migration, how those communities created a sense of home, and how they resisted the racism they faced. This is an approximately 1.5 miles and 90 minute tour.

Tenement Apartment Tours

A Union of Hope:1869

Explore the story of Joseph and Rachel Moore, Black New Yorkers who made their home in Lower Manhattan’s tenements in the 1860s and 1870s. Joseph Moore moves from New Jersey to Manhattan in 1857, his wife Rachel from Kingston, New York in the same decade. They lived in a rear tenement in today’s SoHo neighborhood, in a building with both Irish and African American New Yorkers.

Years in the making, the Joseph and Rachel Moore exhibit traces Joseph’s history from his free Black community of Belvidere, New Jersey, through his family’s migration to New York City, and the community he and his wife Rachel built in their neighborhoods and workplaces. This is a 75 minute tour.

Under One Roof

Explore the stories of the Rogarshevskys and the Baldizzis, a Jewish family and an Italian family who became neighbors in 97 Orchard during a critical time in New York City history. In the early years of the 20th century, when the city and nation saw an unprecedented number of new arrivals, heated debates sprung up among both politicians and ordinary people about the government’s role in housing and workplaces in response to the conditions of tenement districts and factories.

Through stories of shared meals, neighborly help, and advice on immigration status, we’ll explore how families like the Baldizzis and Rogarshevskys respond to the conditions of immigration and the changing role of government in their lives. This is a 75 minute tour.

100 Years Apart

Explore how immigrant women coped with economic hardship through the stories of Natalie Gumpertz and Mrs. Wong. Hear how these two women, living a century apart, shared similar struggles, hopes, and survival strategies as they made new lives. Visit the recreated 1880s tenement apartment of the Gumpertz family, whose primary breadwinner disappeared during the Panic of 1873. Then visit an interactive 1980s Chinatown garment shop that connects you directly to the memories of Mrs. Wong, her children, and her co-workers. How did a 19^th century German-Jewish immigrant and a 20^th century Chinese immigrant rely on their communities during hard times? This is a 60 minute tour.

Finding Home

Visit the tenement homes of the Epstein and Saez Velez families in the 1950s and 1960s. The families shared a tenement building at 103 Orchard Street, and shared a changing Lower East Side, yet had very different experiences as Jewish Holocaust survivors and Puerto Rican migrants. What was it like to live in a neighborhood becoming more racially and culturally diverse and how did newly arrived families find a sense of belonging? Visitors will explore these questions through the memories of the families and the historical context of the mid-20^th Century while touring their recreated homes. This is a 60 minute tour.

Tenement Women: 1902

Enter the world of tenement families and explore the challenges and changes faced by Jewish immigrant mothers in 1902. Visit the Levine family’s tenement apartment, where Jennie Levine managed a household and oversaw family finances while her husband ran a garment factory in their front room. Then, explore a few stops nearby to learn where and how women organized the Kosher Meat Boycott of 1902, led by women like Jennie, which both divided and united Jewish Lower East Siders. This interactive tour invites you to explore how women asserted their rights before they had rights as citizens, and how they inspired future generations and movements. This is a 60 minute tour.

Meet Victoria

Visit our historic 97 Orchard Street tenement and journey back in time to 1916 for an immersive experience with an actor playing Victoria Confino, a real teenager who immigrated to the United States in 1913. You’ll meet Victoria in her family’s recreated tenement apartment and get to ask Victoria questions and hear stories about her home in Greece, her journey to the United States, and her experiences as an immigrant in the Lower East Side of 1916. Recommended for visitors of all ages! This is a 60 minute tour.

Family Owned

Amidst wars, depressions, and changing laws, family businesses served as the anchors of the community, but they had their costs. This tour spans the 75-year-old residential history of 97 Orchard, taking you to the 1870s century lager beer saloon and home of John and Caroline Schneider and the 1930s auction house of Max Marcus.

This immersive and interactive tour starts with a visit to Schneider’s Saloon, which served food, beer, and entertainment, but also acted as a living room for German immigrants and families to socialize and a meeting place for local clubs and political organizations. You will also visit the Schneider’s bedroom at the back of the saloon; as they moved into 97 Orchard in 1864, it is the oldest apartment featured at the Tenement Museum. Then, you’ll travel forward in time to the Great Depression, where you’ll learn how Max Marcus made a living in an interactive multimedia exhibit in the space that once held his auction house. This is a 60 minute tour.

After the Famine: 1869

Having fled famine conditions in Ireland in large numbers, the Irish helped make New York an immigrant-majority city and a metropolis. Joseph and Bridget Moore came to the rapidly growing, culturally diverse tenement neighborhoods in the years after the Civil War. In 1869, they left a more Irish neighborhood for 97 Orchard, a brand-new building. But while this tenement had new amenities, the majority of its residents were German.

How did Joseph and Bridget create an Irish American lifestyle for their family? Discover how music, politics, religion came together to form a complex Irish American identity. This is a 60 minute tour.