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.