Lower East Side Tenement Museum

The Tenement Museum was founded in 1988 to preserve the stories of those who once called it home. Its façade has been reconstructed to show how it would have looked at the turn of the 20th century. 

When the building was built in 1863, installing a fire escape was one of the few building codes in place. Fire escapes were often covered in laundry, and provided coveted sleeping quarters during hot summer months. 

This was added in 1905, when the landlord replaced 2 first-floor apartments with stores and added display windows, wood-framed doors, and this wrought iron stoop to distinguish the commercial spaces. 

The word “tenement” comes from the Latin tenere (“to hold”), and indicates a building with more than 3 families. Technically, all apartment buildings are tenements, but the term has a bad reputation due to poor conditions in the late 19th century.  

Although gas lighting was available and common in New York when the building was constructed in the 1860s, it was not added to this hallway until 1905, when it was mandated by the Tenement House Law of 1901. 

The Confino's are Sephardic Jewish immigrants from Kastoria, in modern-day Greece, and have been in America for 3 years. Daily life is a balance of preserving home traditions, learning English, and learning to navigate their new city. 

This goat-hair rug makes Victoria’s bed on the kitchen floor. In Kastoria, each Confino child was given a goat so they could learn to care for animals. The mantas are some of the few items they could bring to America. 

On Friday evenings, Victoria’s mother lights 2 candles to mark the beginning of Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest. Though life is changing quickly for the Confinos, keeping Shabbat is a very important tradition for them. 

Back in Kastoria, the women would have cooked using a hearth, but in America, Victoria and her mother learn to use a coal stove. In winter, a family like the Confinos could use 300 pounds of coal per week.

When she first arrived in America, 11-year-old Victoria was placed in kindergarten to learn English. She loved school. Soon after, she had to stay home and help the family, taking care of young siblings and sewing at the factory. 

Victoria’s brother Joseph sleeps in the reclining armchair, David sleeps on the floor, Saul sleeps on 3 lined-up chairs, and Jacob sleeps on orange crates. Their cousins Albert and David sleep head-to-toe in the bed. 

Abraham Confino and Victoria work in a small apron factory. Victoria’s brother Joseph works as a tin can maker. Cousin Albert is a printer, and cousin David is a tailor. The younger boys probably sell newspapers or shine shoes.

This apartment looked this way when the museum discovered it in 1988. We can use it to learn about the building’s history. Twenty layers of wallpaper and 40 layers of paint reveal the stories of some of the families that called it home.

The layout is similar to all the apartments in the building, consisting of 3 rooms and about 325 square feet (30 square meters). The central room is the kitchen, flanked by a parlor and a small bedroom. 

These indoor windows were added in the 1890s. Nicknamed “tubercular windows,” they were designed to bring more direct sunlight into the apartment to help combat disease. The Tenement House Act of 1901 required interior windows in all tenement apartments.

We do not know how she managed it, but Rosaria and Adolpho lived in 97 Orchard Street with their children, Josephine and Johnny, between 1928 and 1935.

Once a week, Rosaria removed the countertop from the tub, heated up water to fill it, and bathed both her children. Josephine remembers how important cleanliness was to her mother. 

This room is set to moving day. Imagine Adolpho and Rosaria packing up their apartment after 97 Orchard was closed as a residence in 1935. Having lived in this apartment for 7 years, the Baldizzi family must now pack up their belongings, take down pictures from the walls, and find a new home.  

Family lore reports that Harris and Jennie Levine arrived in New York in 1890 on their honeymoon from Plonsk (now part of Poland). By 1892, Harris had opened a small dress-making factory in his apartment at 97 Orchard, employing 3 to 6 workers. In these same rooms, Harris and Jennie also raised their family. Home life and work life were closely connected here.

All the shop’s garments were ironed next to the coal stove in the unventilated kitchen. This job, reserved for men, was a senior position in the shop. Full of hot coals, the iron could weigh 18 pounds (8 kilograms).

At sundown each Friday, Jennie reclaimed her apartment and welcomed the Sabbath, closing the factory for the Jewish day of rest. These candlesticks then took a central position on the table. 

In 1897, the landlord didn’t provide running water or indoor toilets for the building’s 110 residents. This chamber pot was likely used by both family members and workers at the shop. 

Two-year-old Hyman, the Levine’s second child, slept in the crib in the kitchen next to the stove. With so much happening in the shop every day, Jennie likely struggled to keep him safe.

A new immigrant in the 1890s could start a business with as little as $50 to cover equipment. Harris likely took a small loan from his mutual aid society to help him get started. 

He operated the sewing machine in this room with 2 hired workers—likely teenage girls—who prepared garments for the sewing machine and put finishing touches on them by hand. The Levines’ dresses would eventually find their way into department stores across the country. 

Harris Levine was the father of this household, the boss of this shop, and also the sewing machine operator. His machine is positioned next to the window so that he can have as much natural light as possible for sewing. 

While the workers spent all day making dresses, none of them could afford such luxury themselves. This fashionable dress would have cost approximately $10 in department stores -- almost as much as monthly rent for this apartment. 

Welcome! In 1870, when this neighborhood was known as Little Germany, this was one of over 500 saloons located here. Its story began when John Schneider, aged 12, came to New York with his family in 1842. He then fought in the Civil War and married a Prussian immigrant named Caroline Deitman.

John and Caroline operated this business for 22 years, providing a “living room” for the community with food, entertainment, and advice on living in America. Children carried this takeout container to collect beer from the saloon. Bartenders customarily filled a growler of any size for the same price as one drink at the bar, making this a very economical way for families to procure beer. 

Though written in German, the Staats Zeitung was printed in New York City and marketed to local German speakers. It covered events in both the old country and New York. John Schneider advertised his saloon in this issue. 

A patron’s beer purchase entitled them to a free lunch—a staple of Kleindeutschland saloon culture. Caroline prepared some of the food, while the rest was purchased from German bakers and butchers around the neighborhood.