Located on 97 Orchard Street in the Lower East Side is the Tenement Museum. This museum contains exhibits depicting the life that immigrants lived and the environment they lived in.  Usually, a family of 8-10 people live in 325 square feet of space.  Unfortunately, visitors cannot roam around freely through this museum.  Instead, there are guided tours for each floor.

The tour I went on was Getting By.  This tour included two completely different rooms.  The first room we visited was occupied by Nathalia Gumpertz, Julius Gumpertz, and their four children. 

The family experienced a very interesting story. One day, Julius Gumpertz left for work, and from that day on, he never returned.  It was not until THIS year when they found out that he had moved to some sort of retirement home, and had died single.  Theory has it that he was embarrassed that he could not support his family, so he had to abandon them.  Natalia thus transformed one of her rooms to a dress tailoring room, and sold dresses for $2 each.  The rent per month was $10, but Natalia received $8 a month from a pension plan Julius had invested in.  Her life can be considered fortunate, because eventually, she moves out to the Upper West Side after receiving a vast amount of $600.

The next apartment that we visited was occupied by the Baldizzi family, during the Great Depression.  They had first come to the United States illegally, so they crossed the border into Canada, and later reemerged in the Lower East Side.  The father was a carpenter, and made cabinets, but since it was during the Great Depression, not many people even considered buying cabinets.  He later turned to going door to door trying to find some labor.  At the end of this room, we actually got to hear the daugther of the family who lived in this tenement.  Her description of the tenement just made the exhibit that much more worthwhile.

If you go inside the museum, you can see the contrast between the two rooms.  The first room has essentially two windows for all three rooms, with the kitchen having no window and the bedroom having no window.  The second apartment had two windows per room.  This is because after the 1900’s, it was decided that houses without windows was a hazard to people, and that it was a right for people to have accessibility to air and light.  In addition, since time had passed, the second apartment even had a sink, a bathtub, and lights since the time period was much more technologically advanced.  The first room only used candles and oil lamps.

Finally, the guide took us to the third apartment, which revealed the tenements before restoration.  This was what the other two rooms looked like before restoration took place.

As you can see, since these tenements wre blocked off for a certain period of time, the walls and floor started to crack due to water damages and other chemicals.  In addition, in the second picture, you can see the sign that says “Pants- 1.50”.  When the tenement owners stopped renting the tenements to immigrants because it was too expensive to fix up the place, they decided to make the upstairs a warehouse for products that would be sold downstairs.

The tenement museum captures the life that people lived as immigrants or illegal immigrants.  It was definitely not luxurious, but it was the only option people had.  To see other exhibits, visit the museum at 108 Orchard Street, New York, NY, 10002.  The times it is open is: