You want your teen to have fun in NYC; but also to learn some history.Those huddled masses who crossed oceans, who toiled in sweatshops: it's all so dramatic, but to a teen...? How to bring history to life?
Take the subway down to the Lower East Side, and walk over to Orchard Street. For almost 200 years, immigrants from 20 different nations crowded into this street. 97 Orchard St. alone housed 7000 people from 1863 to 1935. (Landlords offered one month free rent, so penniless immigrants often shifted from place to place.) Nowadays, a guided tour takes visitors inside to see a slice of life from the past.
Tours depart from the Museum Shop / Visitors Center at 108 Orchard St (corner of Delancey). See the Lower East Side Tenement Museum site for all public tours; neighborhood walking tours are offered, too.
Also at the Museum Shop, you'll find an excellent bookshop, and a small theater that shows a film about immigrant experiences.
97 Orchard Street - Tours
97 Orchard Street was abandoned in 1935: tours show sections that have been unchanged since then, and also apartments restored to recreate a particular period. 27 apartments were squeezed into this building, which might have been a single-family dwelling in another part of town.
Tours are approximately an hour long. Recommended for families: the "Visit the Confino Family Apartment" tour features a costumed guide playing the role of Victoria Confino; she greets you as if you're a newly-arrived immigrant. You can even try on period clothes.
Our tour visited an apartment that had been a sweatshop: in three small rooms a family had raised kids and somehow cut out and sewn fancy ladies' dresses, ironing in a tiny kitchen that was hot and airless when we visited in mid-April; imagine August.
No matter which tour you take, you can expect:
- a small group, with opportunities to ask questions
- a dramatic sense of the hardships of the time
- an emphasis on the actual families who lived in the apartments, with many personal details
Be sure to visit the Museum web site:an education in itself, with virtual tours. A great resource for a school project!
Tip: the young adult novel "The Orphan of Ellis Island" is a good read for kids and nice source of background.
*photo courtesy of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.
