Tenement Museum

Tenement Museum We welcome you into the historically recreated homes of immigrants, migrants, and refugees. Visit us on the Lower East Side!
(1928)

We share their stories to inspire connections between the past and present and to build a more inclusive and expansive American society. We are open every day of the week for building and walking tours. Get your tickets now at tenement.org! If you're interested in promoting your project via our social media network, please email [email protected]. Our community agreement: Be respectful of the memories the Museum preserves.

06/19/2026

NYC teacher? Education student? Someone in the field of education? I want to give you food, drinks, and PD hours at The Tenement Museum on July 7! Join me and spread the word!! And thanks Ancestry Classroom for helping me bring this event to life!

In honor of Juneteenth, we want to highlight the legacy of activism, culture, and community by tracing the historical fi...
06/19/2026

In honor of Juneteenth, we want to highlight the legacy of activism, culture, and community by tracing the historical fights for freedom and equality that shape our neighborhood and city.

Our specialty combination tours explore New York's Black tenement communities. From Black farmers of New Amsterdam and founders of the Second African Burial Ground to 19th-century Black tenement families and 1960s Civil Rights activists in Lower Manhattan, these New Yorkers helped shape American democracy.

This legacy of resilience continues across the city throughout the month.

👣 Join our S1 tour to explore how everyday people move history forward and how we draw on their legacy to find hope today. book tickets today: https://bit.ly/4vPwqzr

📸 "Colored School -- Object Teaching," Harper's Weekly, 1870.

While living at 103 Orchard Street, Mrs. Wong continued to hold on to many Chinese traditions. For the Dragon Boat Festi...
06/18/2026

While living at 103 Orchard Street, Mrs. Wong continued to hold on to many Chinese traditions. For the Dragon Boat Festival, usually in mid or late June, Yat Ping remembers her mom would make a lot of zongzi, a traditional Chinese rice dish made of glutinous rice stuffed with a range of fillings and wrapped in bamboo leaves. It took Mrs. Wong all day to “soak and clean leaves, make the filling, and wrap them in pyramid or flat format.” She would make savory ones with Chinese sausage or salted pork and salted egg yolk, and sweets ones with syrup on, which Yat Ping prefers.

Zongzi, the iconic food for the festival, originates from Chinese people’s commemoration of Qu Yuan, a famous poet of ancient China. Today in the Lower East Side, you can find various kinds of zongzi developed from diverse regional food cultures of East Asia.

👣 Join us on Tour 1A to discover more about the Wongs.

📷 1) Zongzi in Manhattan's Chinatown, 2026. 2) Mrs. Wong and Yat Ping in Hong Kong, 1965.

in 1885, the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor. Shipped in 214 crates, “Liberty Enlightening the World” w...
06/17/2026

in 1885, the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor.

Shipped in 214 crates, “Liberty Enlightening the World” was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of America, commemorating the American Revolution, the abolition of slavery, and a century of Franco-American solidarity. Designed by sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi with assistance from engineer Gustave Eiffel, the statue was intended to honor democracy but came to symbolize so much more.

For generations of immigrants, the statue was the first to greet them, torch aloft, offering hope at the edge of a new beginning. In 1903, Emma Lazarus’ words were etched onto the statue’s pedestal: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Originally written in 1883 to help raise funds for the statue’s pedestal, her poem transformed Lady Liberty into the Mother of Exiles, a beacon for those in search of safety, freedom, and opportunity.

Today, her torch still burns brightly over a city shaped by the dreams and labor of people from every corner of the world. The rich diversity of cultures, languages, and histories that built and continue to sustain a global city like New York is a living testament to the Statue of Liberty’s promise.

📷 1) Liberty Enlightening the World, Inauguration of the Bartholdi Statue, Harbor of New York, 1886. Library of Congress 2) Statue of Liberty, c. 1905, Library of Congress. 2) Scene on the steerage deck from a sketch by a staff artist. Library of Congress.

One of the deadliest disasters in NYC history took place on June 15, 1904, when the General Slocum steamboat set course ...
06/15/2026

One of the deadliest disasters in NYC history took place on June 15, 1904, when the General Slocum steamboat set course for a summer excursion with members of St. Mark’s German Lutheran Church.

The boat caught fire while on the East River and more than 1,000 people died within minutes. Of the 1300 passengers on board, most were women and children. Many could not swim, the lifeboats were inaccessible, and the lifejackets contained rotted cork that weighed people down.

Funerals were held for more than a week. The community in Kleindeutschland or “Little Germany” was devastated. Many of the Lower East Side’s German immigrants moved away to Brooklyn or the Upper East Side, while others returned to Germany.

The General Slocum disaster took place eight years before the sinking of the Titanic but is not as widely known. The last survivor of the disaster, Adella Liebenow Wotherspoon (1903-2004), once said, “The Titanic had a great many famous people on it. This was just a family picnic.”

Historian Edward T. O'Donnell tells the powerful story of this forgotten tragedy in his book “Ship Ablaze,” uncovering how the disaster reshaped New York City.
Learn more here: https://shop.tenement.org/product/ship-ablaze/

📷 1) General Slocum sinking, Wikimedia. 2) Angelo Agostini, The great catastophe of the passenger steamboat General Slocum, 1904. Wikimedia. 3) Burial of the ‘unidentified’ ‘Gen. Slocum’ disaster, Corner Ave. A & 6th St, 1904. NYPL. 4) “Ship Ablaze” by Edward T. O'Donnell.

Did you know that on the Lower East Side, Tenement dwellers often participated in basketball through the settlement hous...
06/12/2026

Did you know that on the Lower East Side, Tenement dwellers often participated in basketball through the settlement houses? These organizations were established to improve the health, education, housing, and living and working conditions of poor and working class Americans in the late 1800s. They served (and in some cases, still serve) as neighborhood centers where new immigrants learned American politics, language, and customs.

The Outdoor Recreation League, an advocacy group created by Charles B. Stover and Lillian Wald, founders of University Settlement Society of New York and Henry Street Settlement, respectively, opened Seward Park in 1899 at Canal and Essex Street. When Seward Park was redesigned in 1941, it reopened with basketball courts, horseshoe pitching, shuffleboard and a paved area for roller-skating and ice skating.

In 1946, the New York Knickerbockers became a charter member of the newly-formed Basketball Association of America, which later became the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Knicks won their debut game against the Toronto Huskies on November 1, 1946 and a city-wide love affair with the team was born.

New Yorkers emulated their team through pick-up games and tournaments on public courts like Rucker Park in Harlem (where stars like Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Irving, and Kareem Abdul-Jabar got started) to The Cage in the West Village and throughout public parks like Seward Park, which is a stop on our "W1: Outside the Home" walking tour.

The Lower East Side has remained passionate about basketball and parks. Since its inception in 1891, basketball has evolved quite a bit, as has our neighborhood. Visit our museum to learn more about how the neighborhood has changed through the decades.

📸 1) Aerial view of Puerto Rican people playing basketball in a courtyard near buildings on the Lower East Side, 1959. The Municipal Archives, City of New York. 2) A Lower East Side basketball game, photo by Allen Silverman, Tenement Museum Collection. 3) Seward Park playground, 2026

In the 1960s and 70s, as the Civil Rights and Black Liberation Movements gained momentum across the U.S., the Black Arts...
06/09/2026

In the 1960s and 70s, as the Civil Rights and Black Liberation Movements gained momentum across the U.S., the Black Arts Movement emerged alongside them. Described by poet Larry Neal as the “aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power Movement,” artists in the movement—poets, musicians, and playwrights—created work that spoke directly to Black audiences and communities. They experimented with language, drew on Black musical forms like jazz, and embedded African cultural references into their work.

Many of the movement’s artists lived in Harlem, while others made their home in the Lower East Side, where a powerful artistic scene was also unfolding. At Studio We, which was located at 193 Eldridge Street, Black and Afro-Puerto Rican poets and musicians gathered to perform, exchange ideas, and imagine new futures. As writer Sarah Wright recalled: “We managed to make a Harlem Renaissance downtown, reverberating to the rising struggles of the Civil Rights and Black Liberation Movements around the country.”

👣 Take our “Reclaiming Black Spaces” walking tour and learn more about the spaces and places you walk by every day but might not know the stories behind them.

📸 1) A performance at Studio We, courtesy of Michael Heller, “Loft Jazz: Improvising New York In the 1970s”
2) A band in front of Studio We, Thierry Trombert.

The Pinkster holiday began as a Christian feast of Pentecost celebrated by Dutch colonists but was later reclaimed and r...
06/05/2026

The Pinkster holiday began as a Christian feast of Pentecost celebrated by Dutch colonists but was later reclaimed and redefined by enslaved and free Black communities in New York. Pinkster became a time for Black New Yorkers to gather, dance, drum, share stories, and celebrate their heritage, usually taking place in late May or early June.

Pinkster held deep personal meaning for the famed abolitionist Sojourner Truth, who chose Pinkster Day in 1843 to change her name from Isabel Baumfree. In her biography, she reflected on the festivities: “everything looked so pleasant there, as she saw retrospectively all her former companions enjoying their freedom for at least a little space, as well as their wonted convivialities, and in her heart she longed to be with them.”

Even as laws and cultural shifts sought to suppress it, Pinkster represented a symbol of community, celebration, resistance, and the enduring legacy of Afro-Dutch traditions in New York.

📷 1) Sojourner Truth seated with photograph of her grandson, James Caldwell of Co. H, 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, on her lap. Library of Congress. 2) Pinkster in Spectator (July 2, 1803)

In 1890, a young medical student named Charles Nesbitt accepted an invitation that would leave a lasting impression. Jus...
06/03/2026

In 1890, a young medical student named Charles Nesbitt accepted an invitation that would leave a lasting impression. Just steps from where the Tenement Museum now stands, at Walhalla Hall on Orchard Street, he encountered a sight that defied the strict norms of his time. Inside the gaslit ballroom, Nesbitt saw hundreds of same-sex couples dancing—masculine-presenting women in tuxedos, men waltzing together, and a warm, dignified atmosphere. He later described it as “a formal evening ballroom among respectable people.”  
 
Located at 48-52 Orchard Street, Walhalla Hall often hosted German singing societies and labor meetings. But on this night, it became a rare safe space for New York’s Q***r community—backed by a city-issued masquerade license that signaled both resistance and a bid for legitimacy.
 
📷 1) 48-52 Orchard Street, 2026 2) Former address of Walhalla Hall at 48-52 Orchard Street (center), now demolished, ca. 1940s. NYC Municipal Archives.
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Address

103 Orchard Street
New York, NY
10002

Opening Hours

Monday 10am - 6pm
Tuesday 10am - 6pm
Wednesday 10am - 6pm
Thursday 10am - 6pm
Friday 10am - 6pm
Saturday 10am - 5:30am
Sunday 10am - 6pm

Telephone

(212) 982-8420

Website

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