Please provide info on NYC Tenement Museum
 

While in NYC, I'd like to tour the Tenement Museum. I've taken a look at the website, and have some questions.

There seems to be a variety of guided tours. Is there one general tour of the museum? Or should I choose one of the listed specialized tours. If you took a tour, did you enjoy the one you took? Recommendations for tours?

Can you tour the museum on your own? Recommended?

Any other info you can provide will be appreciated. TY

You can only visit by taking one of the guided tours. Space is VERY limited because rooms and hallways are very small--perhaps 12 people people per tour.

The museum is about the stories--the interiors would be meaningless without someone to talk about it. Also, the areas are small and it would be challenging to let people wander.

It doesn't matter which you take--perhaps choose based on your ancestry?

Well worth seeing/doing.

Thanks. Someone did recommend to me the "Hard Times" tour. I think that's the only one they took. It was the only one they took, but they did like it.

Absolutely loved the Tenement Museum - and agree as above poster said - there is nothing to see aside from the tours themselves, they ARE the museum. I have been to NYC many times, and this is a standout memory. You see a part of the city that most tourists don't see, and witness history in a way that typical museums just don't capture (at least for me). Good stuff .

Hard Times is probably the most popular tour. If I were to go back, I would try to do the tasting tour.

We did Sweatshop tour as my grandfather was a garment worked and lived in the area when they first came to US in 1915.

There is a new option starting Fall 2017...
http://www.tenement.org/exhibit.php

103 Orchard St and it seems to have a bit of everything included in tour.

On our trip last summer we took the Sweatshop tour and the walking tour and I would recommend both. It is a great museum.

there is a film on immigrants at the visitor center but really the point of going is to see inside the building which you can only do on a museum tour. you could do a self-guided walking tour of the neighborhood if you could find an itinerary in a book or on line.

The museum has a list of good places to go for lunch but it is not displayed prominently. We went to Yonah Schimmel's.

Thanks, all.

Depending on when you'll be in NYC, and how heat-tolerant you are, it may be helpful to know that there's no air conditioning in the Tenement Museum and it can get quite stuffy. I've done the walking tour which i highly recommend.

Thanks. Good to know, but my visit will be later in the year.

I've been going since there was only one tour. They had opened the time capsule that is the tenement museum and it's simply an amazing experince to walk into a building that had been entombed and unchanged for decades. Then they got a second apartment ready for tours and they added a second tour. Repeat and repeat and now there are more apartments open and more tours offered, including off-property walking tours. I've taken several, and the name really doesn't matter. Pick the one that fits your schedule and/or your interest. I love them. One time my leg was really giving me fits so I sat on the floor during one of the talks. A man offered his hand to help me up. When we returned to the ticket office/gift shop across the street, the cashiers were all atwitter because Nick Nolte was on a tour. My first thought was "How cool!". My delayed second thought was, "No WONDER that guy looked familiar!" ;)

Highly recommend. Also wander the neighborhood. Watch "Crossing Delancy" if at all interested and walk south...of Delancy. (I looked for Bubbie all afternoon.) Go find one of the pickle guy stores. Go to Economy Candy. You're welcome in advance.

If you can find the 1975 movie Hester Street, that is also worth watching.

I took the Hard Times tour and was moved, fascinated, and informed. It was interesting to me that my traveling companion, who didn't have immigrant ancestors, was pleased with the Tenement Museum. She said she couldn't relate to any of it.

I don't remember which tour I took, but I remember thoroughly enjoying the tenement museum.

We loved it; we did one on Irish Outsiders since I have Irish history in my family. We walked up the stairs to see where they lived, how they cooked, what they ate, what their schooling was like, and they had some little artifacts like toothbrushes, report cards, etc. It was very interesting. Also discussed discrimination and how hard it was for them to get jobs. I'd really recommend it.

Just reporting back. We took the Hard Times tour. Loved it.
We had a terrific guide who provided great and info and promoted questions and discussions among the group.

A funny aside: One woman in our group, who apparently had no idea about the immigrant experience, asked, "Why would people come all this way just to live under these conditions?"

Because it was better than what they came from?

I was there last month and took the Sweatshop tour, which I enjoyed. I think the Hard Times one was longer?

That woman's comments are very odd as it means she has never heard of poor immigrants in any country at any time. Which is almost impossible to believe, even if she is well-off and ignorant of NY city's specific history, I don't know how you could exist and never have heard of poor immigrants. I wonder if she has ever heard of Syria.

Once I was on some historical tour of a museum or place, I can't recall exactly where, in the US and it touched on the topic of slavery and that history in the US, maybe even Civil War. I remember there was an Indian tourist in this group (young man) who asked me where the blacks came from in the US, he had no idea that slavery existed, apparently. Which again, was kind of hard for me to believe as that is a part of world history and not just the US, but the Caribbean, Brazil, etc. I don't know how you could graduate from high school anywhere and not know about slavery.

My family and I visited the Tenement Museum on starrs' advice and did the Irish Outsiders tour. We were so disappointed that we had time for only one tour that day. The next time I go to NYC, I will make it a point to do ALL of them.

There were a few comments like that on the tour I took, vincenzo. I was amazed not only by the hardships, determination and resiliency of the immigrants, but also by the oblivion displayed by some of the people on the tour.

I live in the East Village not far from this museum. The area was renamed the East Village to make it sound better for real estate--it was originally part of the Lower East Side. Most of the buildings in the area are just like the museum in many ways.

I've visited this museum a few times with visiting friends. I always get a surprised reaction from others on the tour when they start commenting about the size of the rooms, lack of windows, tub in kitchen... and I reply, "I know plenty of people who still live in apartments just like these--even with a tub in the kitchen."

My ancestors came through New York and first lived not far from where I live now. Their home industry was rolling cigars. They eventually moved on to to better work and nicer homes to give their children and grandchildren better lives. Two generations later I returned to the area they were trying to escape--though with a much better life.

ellenem, I hope you don't mind my saying this, but I adore your kitchen! I like mine but it's a recreated vintage kitchen. Your's is the real McCoy! I simply adore it.