Tenement Museum NYC

New York City is the melting pot of the world. The background of many immigrants who have come to the city to live their lives hoping to attain the American dream can be learned through the Tenement Museum.

Visitors are invited to explore two tenement buildings in Manhattan’s Lower East Side that housed more than 15, 000 immigrants between the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Coming from more than 20 different nations, the former residents of the apartments each had their own unique style that shaped the buildings’ composition throughout the years. The museum currently offers 10 different tours that include walking around the neighborhood, touring the buildings and meeting costumed actors portraying the residents who once inhabited the building.

The tours my family and I decided to take were the Under One Roof and Shop Life. Both tours cost $25 each and were approximately 90 minutes long. Under One Roof led us through one apartment split up by room by different families who lived there at one point or another. The rooms were decorated the way it would have been for that time period and specific family. Shop Life showed us how the lower level of the building wore many different hats through the centuries as a saloon, auction house, meat market and other types of shops. Each tour ends with an interactive oral and video history segment that engineers crafted specifically for the Tenement Museum.

I enjoyed this museum and would recommend it to anyone interested in history, home décor or cultural foods. The museum is located at 103 Orchard St., New York, New York.