Remember the time I came down with a case of Museum Mania? And I said that there was one place I really had to go and see ’cause everyone was raving about it? Well, yesterday was the day. I went to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum yesterday and loved, loved, loved it.

The building went up in 1863 and was shut down in 1935. Between then, over 7000 lived there and the museum has done a remarkable job of tracking down the information on those people, connecting with their descendents and recreating some of the spaces within (some with the help of memories from people who lived there as children). There are moments of shock (They lived in this space with HOW many people?) a revelation in others (That’s not wall paper, that’s varnished sacking!) and occasionally brings you up short (Um, excuse me - should I be able to see through to the lower floor?)

The visitors’ center was a strange mix of gift shop, info booth and cinema but the whole operation is incredibly well organized. Groups are small - I suspect because:

1. only so many people can fit in each apartment at a time and
2. I’m not sure how many people should stand on one section of floor at a time. Iffy looking at places

At first I was a bit “bleah” about having to go on guided tours - I’m much more a self-guided type of gal but it was immediately clear WHY you can only go with guides. Not only do you need the apartments put in context for you - but it’s most likely a safety regulation. Half the building is still in the state they found it (which in turn is roughly the same state it was when the building was abandoned as a residence in 1935) and guests getting injured would be bad.

We - myself and my companion in adventure, Shell-o-Rama - did two tours yesterday. We did the “Getting By” tour which focused on two immigrant families who’d lived in the building at different times - one, Gumpertz family lived there in the 1870s and the Baldizzi family who were there in the 1930s. The latter was partially narrated by a woman who’d lived in the apartment as a child. Then we did the “Piecing It Together” tour which focused on the Levine and Rogarshevsky family apartments. Both families worked in the garment industries at different times. One when “in home” garment factories were more common and one after the factories had moved out of the homes.

It’s a good thing they - the foundation - got a hold of that building when they did though because if they tried now, all signs indicate that they’d have been priced out. “The signs” meaning in this case The Blue Condominium (which sticks out like a giant royal blue sore thumb) and the new Starbucks (depressing in the same way a McDonalds at the Pantheon is depressing) indicate that most of the people down there now will be unable to afford being there 10 years from now. Property prices have been going nuts down there for some time now but the outward signs are becoming much more evident these days.