Palaces for the People: Guastavino Tile at MCNY

The Guastavino family pioneered structurally strong vaulted tile spaces, making many of New York's amazing public spaces possible. Their work is all over the place, including Grand Central Terminal, Ellis Island, the old City Hall Train Station, and even up inside the Washington Square Arch. We were excited to see the exhibit celebrating their contributions to the architecture of the city at the Museum of the City of New York. Mikro even got to make a tile project of his own at the family workshop they were having.

Graffiti and Activism: 2 Exhibits at MCNY

From the City as Canvas exhibit on graffiti art and the Activist New York exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York:

I Love NY: Street Art, Window Shopping, Eye Candy...

Lower East Side Walking Tour and Tenement Museum

Our homeschool group's exploration of NYC's immigrant history continued with two great trips in one day. The first was a walking tour of the Lower East Side. meandering into Little Italy and Chinatown, where many immigrants settled in the past, and still do today. We had lunch at a knishery and then walked through neighborhoods that had been at once time or the other Jewish, Irish, Italian, German and Chinese, all in one small slice of the city, and learned about their history. We saw some older apartment buildings that were originally tenement buildings, the birthplace of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and the Eldridge Street Synagogue. Then we headed to the Tenement Museum for a special program, where you pretend to be a new immigrant family and are introduced to an actress portraying Victoria Confino, a former tenant at 97 Orchard Street, who tells you about the neighborhood, the building, work opportunities, etc. for your family.

National Archives NYC

Rounding out our unit on immigration, we had a group visit to the National Archives in NYC. During this wonderful program, the kids were introduced to how to read primary source documents when researching an immigrant. We got a peek at the research room, then got to work in the classroom. The kids had to decipher a ship's manifest, arrival certificate, declaration of intention and the like and then report on what they learned about their person. This was fun and very informative trip!