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Lower East Side Tenement Museum
Rating Details »
Category: Museums
Neighborhood: Lower East Side108 Orchard Street
(between Broome St & Delancey St)
New York, NY 10002
(212) 431-0233
- Nearest Transit:
-
Delancey-Essex Sts (F, J, M, Z)
Grand St (B, D)
2nd Ave-Houston St (F, V)
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
74 reviews for Lower East Side Tenement Museum
A sociology major with an emphasis in ethnic studies in college, I knew this place would be right up my alley when a colleague suggested I make it one of the stops on my trip to New York.
This is not a "museum" in its traditional sense, so if you go expecting a massive building full of hallways of century-old artifacts, you may be disappointed. However, if you're open to entering an actual preserved apartment where thousands of people lived crammed throughout the 1800s (a "tenement") and are prepared for an hour-long history lesson on the NYC immigrant experience, you'll really like this museum :)
Visiting here requires that you sign up for a guided tour/s, which you can do online ahead of time or upon arrival, as long as you are reasonably early. I came on a weekday hoping to make something like an 11:45 tour, but because I was there on the dot, all the spaces were taken for the one I wanted. Fortunately, they did have a space left for the next one just half an hour later, which may have been a lucky break. I'd suggest checking out the descriptions of the tours on the museum's website and calling ahead to verify the times in the day they have the tour you want.
I attended a tour called "Piecing it Together," which focused on European immigrants' manufacturing trade that was run out of people's homes. Our knowledgeable tourguide led us through a couple of units in the historical tenement, where we learned about the families that actually lived and did their business there. As you can imagine, the conditions back then in the tenement were quite gruesome... and it's pretty powerful to be standing in the same spot where so many people's ancestors once stepped foot to start a life in America.
A super cool and unique way to learn about the experiences of the people who established this historical neighborhood!
Myself, I'm fascinated with tenements and tenement life. Not that I want to live in one, but I'm always impressed with the bravery of people who left their entire life in another country to come here and . . . basically, live in poverty and squalor to, hopefully, make a better life for themselves and their children.
That aside, tenements are fascinating, and I was excited when I noticed this museum on a map of New York. What disappointed me was the $20 admission fee . . . since I am on a tenement budget, I couldn't swing it.
What I did do is spend a long time browsing in the excellent bookstore. A large number of books, no doubt hand picked by the staff, related to tenements and the immigrant experience.
Worth another visit, definitely, when I'm a bit more flush.
Every building in the LES used to be or is currently a tenement. If you deem it worthwhile to spend $18 for a 45-minute tour about one of these buildings and the families who used to live in them, then hooray! But I was lucky that I got in free with my corporate discount (check if your company has one with them) because I definitely would not pay to do this again.
They actually have multiple tours (five or so) that you can take at prescribed times. Each have a different focus but all allow you to get a taste of what the LES used to look like and the histories of the families who used to inhabit the buildings on the tour. I would definitely recommend doing this for people who want to take their out-of-town friends to a "museum" other than the usuals that everyone else goes to but other than that I'm not so sure.
The gift shop, and meeting place for where the tours leave, are actually pretty interesting and there are a lot of nice books and trinkets but at the end of the day I'm from NYC and I ain't no tourist. Suck it.
I had heard a lot about the Tenement Museum and was not disappointed, we took the tour about the Moore family from Ireland. We went to Ellis Island the next day, so this was a great intro. I would recommend buying tickets ahead of time for the tour you want, the schedule is on their website. The museum is located near Chinatown and Little Italy so plenty do in that area, The museum also has a wonderful gift shop.
This place is absolutely terrific-- plan early, buy your tickets for your desired tour online (there's no entrance to the museum without taking a tour, and you can choose from 4 or 5 tours). If you have your tickets ahead of time, you'll avoid that potentially long wait in the tenement museum bookstore. The tour itself is fantastic, well worth the $20. Our tour guide, Ruth, was an amazing storyteller, and skillfully moved between telling us about the inhabitants of the two apartments we saw and telling us about the turn of the century, federal immigration policy, etc. What I really loved about the museum, and about Ruth, was that the upshot wasn't "wow, people really lived in tight, cramped quarters back in the day." Instead, she painted an interesting picture of people's everyday lives- their pleasures and their pains- and it made for a rich and interesting tour.
Unless you've lived in tenement housing like this one, it's a pretty nice experience. This building was initially occupied by early Jewish and Eastern European immigrants that came to America.
Everything is like the Run Away Train, literally made out of wood. The stairs are kind of steep and small, so if you're not used to those type of steps, it's ok, forget the people behind you and take your time.
Anywho, being able to see it with your own eyes, the limited space that these families were restricted to, with limited lighting, and a shared public bathroom that probably had no door in front of it, is a pretty memorable experience.
So people who think they have it bad, take a walk to his place, it might actually make you feel better. And I think I'm talking about myself...just a teeny weeny bit.
I do not know the rate though, because I went there for an elementary school trip, like umph years ago.
But whatever I said about the place is historic so basically has not changed.
I think that this is a very worthwhile place to visit.
It is historical, cultural and very interesting.
The museum is essential a variety of hour long tours that walk the spectator through tenement apartments, telling the stories of actual people who lived there in the early part of the twentieth century.
If you are at all interested in history, social studies or immigration, this place is a must.
If you are not interested in those things, go anyway... you won't be sorry.
I've taken two tours, and both were great. Through lease records, they've been able to locate former inhabitants and the descendants of inhabitants of a number of tenements on the Lower East Side. More than just an overview of the immigrant experience, each tour lets you look at the real life of people who came to NYC for a new life. I loved the first-person stories.
I love New York history, so this is my kind of place. My most recent tour was a mix of tourists and locals, and having the locals add their own experience to the tour was cool. I can't imagine coming from a country estate in Europe to the such a densely packed city.
Advice: buy your tickets in advance. Tours sell out quickly.
This museum has left one of the most lasting impressions on me of any museum I've been to. It absolutely gives you a sense that you've gone back in time, and I was really able to get a feel for life in a crowded apartment building. The details of the rooms, the products from times gone by, the voices that play of different immigrants retelling their experiences---all set the scene. It has a very timeless message so that whenever I go to crowded areas of any city, I feel like I have a glimpse of what people's homes are like in these cramped but homey conditions.
The surrounding neighborhood is also interesting to walk around.
I've been meaning to come here for years and I'm glad I finally did!
You buy tickets in advance and often the weekend tours sell out, so you may have to wait an hour. No matter, their gift shop is to die for, if you're into New York history and the like. I'm probably going to go back soon and buy some gifts there, as they have truly unique stuff, books I have never seen before (Dorothy Parker's New York!!!), not to mention the lovely vintage postcard sets and more.
On with the tour! I went on the "Economic Hardships" tour the Friday before last (2/27). We had a very informative and vivacious tour guide whose name I am forgetting, unfortunately, but if they are all as good as this lady, then I want to take every tour!! The best thing about it was that she seemed genuinely interested in telling the stories of the people whose homes we got to see, even if she had told these stories hundreds of times before.
The tour begins by everyone introducing themselves, with where they are from. Next you cross the street to enter the tenement, but you get a little bit of the neighborhood's history, as well as the building's history, before entering. The building we were touring had been vacant from 1935 until the museum acquired it in 1988. The storefronts were operating (and had been since 1935), while the rest of the building was either used for storage or as home to lots of little critters (I can only imagine!!)
I just want to stop here and say, HOW COOL IS THAT?? I mean, I have a thing for abandoned places and just love the idea of this building being frozen in time for half a century! The awesome thing is, besides the two apartments you get to see restored to mid 19th century (German immigrants) and the 1930s (Italian immigrants), you get to see an apartment left JUST AS THEY FOUND IT in 1988.
The tour was an hour and I loved every minute of it. It seemed as though every question I had in my head was answered. They even told you about what happened to the families after they had left the apartments AND about their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren!!
The best part was when the guide played a tape of the woman who had grown up in the 1930s Italian immigrant home. She described all of these tiny details and I could just imagine every second of that afternoon, that life.
I can't wait to go back and take the other tours!
Early last August I had a chance to tour this museum with my mom. I thought that it was interesting to see where the immigrants lived and worked durung the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Two Thumbs Up indeed! :)
From a polish americam.
I was here once on yet another school trip in elementary school. I don't even remember what grade I was in. Hence this review may not be too valid, since that was a decade or two ago.
So my only comment will be: I STILL remember this place very vividly. It was by far one of the most educational of the many frivolous school trips we had across many years, and clearly is an amazing opportunity to really learn in an engaging way (even to little kids!) about NYC history.
Insider's tips:
- The museum is a small, rickety building and only so many people can safely and semi-comfortably fit inside. You have to take a tour to visit. Tours are limited to 12 or 15 people, depending on the type of tour.
- There are two ways to buy tickets. Either you can buy them in advance over the phone or through http://tenement.org, or you can buy them on the day of your visit at the shop. Both ways, the tickets are first come, first serve. If advance tickets are sold out, there will definitely be day-of tickets, but you can assume that it's going to be a busy day and that you should buy them early.
- Read about the different tours and figure out which one you want to see. They're all good, honestly. But if you want a traditional guided tour and blindly pick the Confino tour without reading up about it first, you're not going to get the experience that you expected.
- If your tour doesn't start for another hour and a half or so, it's not the end of the world. you can do things like have lunch at Katz's, take a walk through Chinatown or Little Italy, visit the Essex market, go shopping. You can think of something!
-Adult tickets cost $20, and it's $15 for students and seniors. Children five and under can visit for free but they do need a ticket so that there is a space allotted for them on the tour.
- For your waiting pleasure, there is always a pretty interesting half-hour long movie playing in the back. You can watch this movie whether or not you are going on a tour.
- It is a really good museum.
I went tonight for the first time and I loved it. I'm a big history buff so I expected to enjoy it, but it totally exceeded my expectations. I was there for a special event, but we got one of the same tours that anyone can go and take and I highly, highly recommend it. Our tour guide (who was from New Zealand) was amazing. He was just a great storyteller that he made everything come alive. I really felt connected to the people who had lived in the apartments he showed us. I want to go back and go on the other tours and I'm sure I will at some point.
The gift shop is also great. They had some really fun little things and a wonderful selection of books. Plus it's a great neighborhood.
You might want to pre-purchase your tickets because it can sell out fast.
There is always somewhere to go anyway across Delancy in case it gets sold out until the next hour. Tours run every hour.
Great gift shop also.
i went to the lower east side tenament museum today. i have not been to the museum in about 2 years and figured it would be time to pay it another visit. this "museum" is just composed of guided tours through a restored tenement on a variety of topics. i did not book a tour in advance, so i attended the tour titled the moores: an irish family in america since the timing worked out the best for this tour.
this was the smallest tour i have been on; there was only one other family of four who happened to be from ireland. our guide was fantastic and very chatty. each tour is supposed to be 1 hour although our guide happily talked for about 1 1/2 hours.
i think the moores lived in the building the earliest of any of the tours that i have attended. they moved into the building around 1868. most of the other ones are around the end of the nineteenth century. this tour focused on the health, building and sanitation issues regarding this time period. it discussed some of the choices that a family during this time period would face like calling for a doctor when a child was ill or the expense associated with a proper burial.
overall, well worth another visit...which is seeing another part of the museum.
times visited: 3
time in museum: 1 1/2 hrs
overall: A-
http://museumhopper.bl.../
This is a really interesting museum, and great for out-of-towners.
I recommend buying tickets in advance, as the tours are small and fill up quickly.
We went on the "Piecing it Together" tour and really enjoyed our guide. He was very knowledgeable and offered great anecdotes. One of the tour members kept peppering him with difficult questions, and our guide had an answer for all of them. I was very impressed!
The tour itself is sad, but give you a great appreciation for how good our lives are now...
I can't wait to go on the other tours!
There are so many museums in castles and palaces, this is the only museum I know of that shows the home of normal people, living through a hard time.
Fascinating, beautiful and worthy.
Unlike all the major museum destinations in NYC this one doesn't have any cutting edge or grand spaces to wow you. This incredibly worthwhile endeavor is small operation. The museum is only viewed by one hour guided tours for the simple reason that the museum is a cramped tenement building but do not be put off by this, the tours are excellent and you would never get the appreciation by just looking alone. Arrive a decent half hour before your tour, we just turned up and booked, as there are films playing in the back of the shop where you book your ticket and they set the scene perfectly for your guided tour. Some of the building is restored to show the conditions and decor of families at cetain points in the buildings history and others parts are 'as found' when the building was purchased in 1988.
It is an amazing and touching experience. You get a feel for the past tenants, the history of New York's immigrants throughout the Lower East Sides history right up to today.
Brilliant and enlightening, another must see.
Since I am a history buff, this place really worked for me. They use an actual tenement building that was constructed in the 1800s. It was condemed in 1935, and opened as a museum sometime in the 80s. Some floors are exactly as they were found. Sobering to see this.
The museum personnel have semi-restored some of the apts. as they might appeared in the late 1800s and early 1900s. We did the "Piecing It Together" tour which followed two Jewish tailor families. You get a great history lesson from the guide, see photos of what it did look like, and see actual artifacts found at the site.
The stories are incredible to listen to and when you view the small space a family of 8 lived in and how they conducted their day to day living, one is really touched. Simple unbelievable living conditions in this country at that time for a large wave of immigrants. Irish, Italiain, Russian, French, German, eastern European countries were their origins.
A sense of awe and pride to be a decendent of one family that lived in this area.
A must see if you are really interested in New York's early history and growth through massive immigration.
i live in the area and have always wanted to visit...i am so glad i finally did it! it was just so interesting to see how people lived and to learn about the history of your neighborhood. our tour guide was not very good though :( hopefully we will have better luck next time.
ticket price was not bad, i had an old college id (yay! i still look 21!) so was able to get admission at a slightly lower price. totally worth going for a tour or two.
The first time I came here was back in May and I wanted something fun to do on a date.
Instead I found myself welling up with emotion about the then and now state of the schmata industry. It was great to see the immigrant struggle preserved in an anthropological manner. The guides were knowledgeable and the tour was very interesting.
I came back a month ago to try out one of the other tours, but ended up missing it. So my friend and I watched the free movie instead and came away with a more informed view of the evolution of the LES.
It's not just about bar-hoppin' and lip-poppin' people, there's history in these here city bones!
If you want to learn about the history of the Lower East Side and have a very interesting time doing so, then definitely visit the Tenement Museum.
We had a very knowledgeable and enthusiastic tour guide who made the tour even more interesting and exciting. It really takes you back to the late 1800's and early 1900's in a way that other museums don't. Although only a small glimpse of the history from that time, I really left with a sense of how people lived and felt a close relationship with the families that were living in this house back then. This is one of those off-the-beaten-path tours and is a definite must see!
This is a great place to teach spoiled brats about the struggles of their ancestors and for those interested in NYC immigration history. I almost kicked myself after the tour because I grew up 3 blocks away and I've never set foot in this museum. They have different interactive themed tours, and I went on the "getting by" which focus on tenement lifestyle during the economic downturn in the late 1800s and the Great Depression.
So the tours are in a refurbished real tenement building across the street from the gift shop. The museum is well known for their dialogue which includes story-telling, Q & A and visuals. You'll learn about the families that actually lived in the apts you are standing in and about their decendents.
Make sure you come early to buy tickets as each tour can only hold a limited amt of people.
I like the way they recreated the stories of the people who actually lived in the apartments. You can pick the tours that are most interesting to you (i.e. if you're italian, jewish etc you can take that one).
This is one the suggestions of things they must do while in NYC.
It took us a few years in New York before we made it to the tenement museum...I wish we'd gone sooner! But the great news is that now they offer several tours so you don't get bored, and you also get to see and almost experience what life was like for several diverse types of families that might have lived (and in some cases, did live) in the tenement apartments.
We loved our experience and came away with so much knowledge and a really true and intimate feel for what the family had gone through when living in the tenement. And don't get me started on the gift shop - DON'T miss it! We'll be back soon.
Whenever someone asks where they should go that isn't one of the major stops on the Tour-de-NYC, I point them to the LES Tenement Museum. There are a few different tour options to choose from. I've been on two, and hope to get in the rest at some point! Their gift shop has a tremendous book selection.
Part of the reason I recommend this place is the location. Get lunch at Kat's beforehand, then afterwards stop by Gus' Pickles(As seen in Crossing Delancey!). I believe the LES Tenement Museum gives out a map of places to eat. You could go on an eating tour of the LES with this map. Actually, you could plan multiple trips. It's great.
Absolutely fabulous. A really unique museum in a city that is full of them. It is incredible to see how people really lived when they were settling this city. I live here and will certainly include this museum when people come to visit me. The guides were fantastic, very knowledgeable and enthusiastic.
My only complaint (and this is not big enough to warrant any less than 5 stars) is that I went one day and it was sold out for the entire day. I came back the next day and managed to snag a spot on a tour that was leaving 5 minutes later. Try going on a weekday if it is possible.
Don't miss this tour!
The most educational and fun museum in the city. I have gone on every tour and deeply enjoyed each one. The small groups make this a very personal experience.
If you're in Chinatown for dim sum and shopping for knock-offs, take a minute and stop by this museum. The historic decor and period artifacts of daily life intimately illustrate the lives of the families who inhabited this building years ago. I was struck by the audio recordings recounting different immigrant stories in each apartment-- reconstructing lives of struggle, but imbued with tradition, family and community.
This is a great experience. The staff is very knowledgeable, and though the stories they use to frame the history may be a bit cheesy- the history is very accessible and engaging because of the personal element. If you're the kind who demands proof, they have the proof too, and they pass it around while telling their story. Yes, I'm critical of the story because it may be a cheesy way to frame the museum, but it's 100% true.
Anyway, the building itself is incredible. How on earth could a building lie untouched in New York City for over half a century? This place has, and it's incredible. While the restoration is top notch and accurate, I think the real excitement lies in the apartments that they've left untouched. 25 layers of wallpaper cracking off the wall, the handwriting of a 12 year old girl who wrote her name in pencil in the kitchen. It's little things like this that make this an impressive museum well worth your time.
So so very incredibly interesting! I love American immigration history so I had stop by.
There are several tours and I took the "Getting By" tour. The museum recreated two apartments - one from the 1880s and one from the 1930s. With each apartment came a story of true immigrants who once lived in the Tenement apartments. It is so interesting to see a model of the iron they used, the pictures that hung on their walls, the small amount of furniture they could fit in the small space, etc. This is worth the visit!
Tip: You have to sign up for tours in their bookstore across the street OR purchase advance tickets online. I forget the exact price (I didn't pay for it) but it must have been between 10-20 bucks. Again, completely worth it!
I should honestly just get a membership here. i've been twice now, so that's $26 versus a $35 yearly membership. Hrm.
I love this place. The tours are very interesting, mostly because the guides are very well informed. I've been on the Piecing it Together tour and the Getting By tour. I liked both equally. I want to go on the others eventually, maybe once it's cooler outside. The heat makes you feel just how miserable these poor people were, but it also makes me want to pass out once I'm inside.
The museum is great, but the best part is THE STORE. GO INTO THE STORE. I have bought so much stuff at that store, and everything I buy from that store, I always get complimented on. So maybe don't go to that store and make me seem like more of a unique fashionista.
A "must see" while in NYC. I've been twice now, and taken all of my kids. In today's society of bigger, better, faster, more...this is a great reminder of what our grandparents endured for us to lead the "good life". This experience makes us appreciate what we have.
4.5 stars and remember to buy tickets in advance. The Tenement Museum is great because you can pick from a variety of tours to hear about different immigrant experiences. I took the "Getting By" tour about the German-Jewish and Italian Catholic families from the late 1800s into the Great Depression. I'd forgotten how much violence there was in the neighborhood between different immigrant groups. Very compelling stuff. And the gift shop is fantastic. There is everything you ever wanted to know about NY history and more.
An absolute must-visit for history buffs.
Wife and I made a stop here before Thanksgiving for the "Stitching it together" tour. I am a history teacher and was really geeked up about this place.
It did not disappoint.
My only issue(s) was that I could touch anything! They have some amazing artifacts inside but we could only look. I wanted to pick everything up and look closer. We also couldn't take pictures. Other than that, it was a seriously cool visit.
Probably not a good place for young kids or those not able to negotiate tight spaces/stairs, nor those who don't like tight spaces but very much the place for people who want to see real history and how your great-grandparents might have lived on the Lowe East Side.
Ok, hate to be the spoilsport here, but I wasn't bowled over by this museum. Maybe it was the tour I took, maybe it was an off day, but I had some issues.
the bad:
-- as others note, there is no "museum" to visit, per se; you buy tickets for a tour, of which there are 4 or 5, each showcasing a different family. I would prefer a more traditional museum experience -- think rooms of displays with wall notes, artifacts, graphs, facts, pictures, etc, with optional tours of the 97 Orchard Street building (where they have their well-preserved original tenements).
-- tickets are not cheap (which makes sense, given the manpower-intensive tour system), and even if you do the deal for two, at $25, that's a pretty expensive museum visit. Doing all of the tours in order to get the complete experience?; now that might break the bank.
-- my tour (the Confino tour) was really primarily geared towards children (it involved a lot of role play), and I think the website should have been more up front about that; in our tour, our guide chose two little kids to be the mom and dad of our family, and everyone else (10 or 12 of us) were the kids. While the woman playing the role of the immigrant Ms. Confino, whom we visited in her apartment at 97 Orchard, was incredibly believable, accent and all, I would have preferred a more straightforward tour/lecture to having to role-play in order to find out information (maybe I'm just not in touch enough with my inner child).
the good:
-- as mentioned, the actress playing Ms. Confino was great, and I think kids would really get a kick out of the Confino tour. It's the only tour I've taken but I hope the other ones aren't as kid-centric.
-- organization: the museum was mobbed, but the staff seemed to be adept at handling the crowds and making sure everyone was in the right place at the right time.
-- the gift shop is cute and has some funky stuff (but I wouldn't make the trip just for the gift shop).
As another reviewer mentioned, this is the kind of place that makes a nosy person happy. I am such a person. It's amazing to see the kind of conditions people lived in in other times and how they made-do with less possessions and space. It was not an easy life, but, on the other hand, less encumbered by "stuff".
How strange that these tenements were just sealed off in the 1930s. It seems so recent, but also from another planet and bizarre that even in such a densely packed space as Manhattan living space was purposely unavailable for that long (about 50 yrs). This couldn't have been the only place like that, either.
The thing that blew my mind the most was the statistic that *thousands* of people probably lived in this *one* tenement over the years in was in use, which wasn't all that long (maybe 60-70 years?). Wow! That really brings into perspective how critical NYC was in the chain of immigration.
We went on a cold winter's day and only had to book about 1.5hrs in advance, though I can see how at peak times booking early is necessary. Who knows when I will next visit NYC, but I'd like to take another tour sometime!
Museums are sooo boring. Not this one. I take visitors there all the time.
And if you don't go keep going there, the owners will take advantage of LES real estate prices and turn the buidling into 24 luxury condos going for $2.5 million each.
So make it your duty: visit the Tenement Museum, one of the most interesting museums in the city.
As an urban planner, I felt this stop was an absolute necessity on my visit to NYC. It should be for anyone!
The Lower East Side is really unique in the world. Truly, it was one of THE most congested places on the planet in the late 1800's. This museum does a good job of not only capturing it, but helping you EXPERIENCE it.
I'm knocking off a half star for our tour guide, who kind of rubbed me the wrong way... his enthusiasm seemed fake to me. I also didn't realize the "Piecing it Together" tour was going to focus around the garment industry specifically. What I REALLY wanted was to understand how bad things were in these places, how crowded they really were, and how these tenements changed the way we live today. Through the lens of the garment industry, though, I did get to see what I wanted; I just hadn't anticipated it.
I was truly excited at seeing these buildings I have heard so much about, which influenced an entire planning movement and has shaped the way we live (not just zoning, people, building codes, too!).
If you're a nerd like me, you'll take particular note of the lack of air and light in the units, which were of huge concern for the city administrators, as well as the really crowded, unsanitary conditions.
This place is likely one of the most unique museums in the world, simply by location, condition, and history. I'd highly recommend a visit!
