Lower East Side Tenement Museum
Good for: Immigrants, children of immigrants, history buffs, History Lovers
Not good for: handicapped people, Non-English speakers, no-one!
- Address
- 108 Orchard St near Delancey St
- Transport
- Website
- Phone
- 212-431-0233
- Price
- adult $20, student, child & senior $15, discounts available for combo-tour tickets
- Hours
- visitor center 10:30am-5pm, museum tours every 40min from 1pm & 1:20pm until 4:30pm & 4:45pm Tue-Fri (reservations suggested)
Lonely Planet review for Lower East Side Tenement Museum
This museum puts the neighborhood’s heartbreaking but inspiring heritage on full display in three recreations of turn-of-the-20th-century tenements, including the late-19th-century home and garment shop of the Levine family from Poland, and two immigrant dwellings from the Great Depressions of 1873 and 1929. The visitor center shows a video detailing the difficult life endured by the people who once lived in the surrounding buildings, which more often than not had no running water or electricity. Museum visits are available only as part of scheduled tours (the price of which is included in the admission), which typically operate daily. But call ahead or check the website for the schedules, as they change frequently. The museum also leads various other tours, from one that explores various Lower East Side sites and their role in the neighborhood’s immigration history to another that visits the restored home of Irish immigrants who dealt with the death of a child in the 1800s.
Traveller reviews for Lower East Side Tenement Museum (4)
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Worth it, but pricey
MChin recommends this,
It was a great experience, but I found it expensive. For the $20 admission. you can only take one tour (about 1 hour). To see other floors of the tenement, you need to pay separately for each tour, meaning that you could easily drop $60-80 to see all floors of the building. I would have liked to see more, but not at that price.
The guide mentioned material in foreign languages, but they did not have anything in French (for my husband).
Good for: Immigrants, children of immigrants
Not good for: handicapped people, Non-English speakers
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Forget "The Gangs of New York", see this museum instead.
remelila recommends this,
Maybe it's because my grandparents and great-aunt emigrated from Poland in the 1910s and lived in the crowded tenements of the Lower East Side, but I found the Tenement Museum absolutely fascinating. I don't think you need to have a personal connection for it to resonate it with you, either – it's a glimpse into the real lives of several immigrant families who left the Old World in an attempt to find the American Dream. It's certainly like few other museums I've ever seen. If you're interested in NYC history at all, don't miss this one.
Good for: history buffs
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NYC history preserved in amber...
janinemareee recommends this,
It's actually not a museum, but a former tenement building that was reclaimed, and then a few of the apartments restored to reflect life during different periods in NY's history. And it's such an interesting history, at the receiving end of various diasporas and pivotal in key moments of the 19th and 20th centuries. You're shown into the restored rooms by a professional guide (via a soot-blackened pressed-tin hallway) and told the personal story of the families who lived there. Standing in their old homes and hearing about what happened to them is one of the most vivid history lessons you could ever hope to have.
Good for: History Lovers
Not good for: no-one!
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