On the brisk morning of January 30, Class 2 students excitedly boarded a school bus and traveled down the FDR Drive and into the past. During a much-anticipated visit to the Tenement Museum, these students had the opportunity to experience what it was like to be an immigrant on New York’s Lower East Side more than 150 years ago.
After teachers Laura O’Reilly and Chelsea Sue divided their class in half, a museum educator led each section on an absorbing tour of the original apartments of two immigrant families. This writer accompanied Ms. O’Reilly’s group. (The other sections of Class 2 visited the museum earlier in the month.)
Stepping into 103 Orchard Street, the students followed their guide, an animated woman named Danielle, up two flights of stairs, past peeling wallpaper and cracked walls, into a small, three-room dwelling. She instructed the girls to sit on the floor in the parlor (which we’d call the living room), taking care not to touch anything.
“Look around the room,” Danielle requested. “What’s happening here?” The students turned their heads to observe. Piles of neatly folded clothing were stacked in the corners. An old-fashioned sewing machine rested on a table by the window. A floral dress was on display near the door.
Danielle explained that the Levine family – Harris, Jenny and their two children, with a third on the way – resided in this apartment in 1897. Jews from Poland, the Levines immigrated to America and settled on New York’s Lower East Side to work in the bourgeoning garment industry. Before factories became commonplace, she said, people toiled in their own homes.
“What kinds of sounds do you think were heard?” she asked. Children crying, the whirr of the sewing machine, the snip of scissors and people talking were among the students’ suggestions. “It would be hard to get work done in here, right?” said Danielle.
She asked the girls what they would use to entertain themselves, if they lived in this apartment in the 19th century. “I’d ask my parents if I could sew a doll,” one volunteered. Several students were intrigued by a child-sized chair with a hole in the middle. “That’s a potty seat,” Danielle exclaimed, adding that the older family members used outdoor toilets called “privies.”
Moving to the kitchen in the center of the apartment, the students noticed a clothesline with striped socks drying over the coal stove and a shelf with glass bottles, metal candlesticks and a gas lamp. A crib for the baby was tucked into a corner. The other children, they were told, slept in the Levines’ tiny bedroom. Danielle reminded the students that, because there was no electricity or running water, Jenny had to walk up and down the stairs several times a day for water, coal and other provisions.
“Now we’re going to leave 1897 and go to 1911,” announced the guide, directing the students upstairs to the next part of the tour.
The group learned that this second home was occupied by Abraham and Fanny Rogarshevsky and their children, who came from Lithuania to work in the garment industry in nearby factories. Like the Levines, they were Jewish and spoke mostly Yiddish. Danielle asked the students to point out the contrasts between the two apartments. Running water, electric lights, an oven and flush toilets in the hallway were among the major differences they discovered.
Danielle remarked that the Rogarshevsky’s six children – two teenage girls and four younger boys – endured close sleeping quarters. While the sisters’ shared a single twin bed in the kitchen, sleeping “nose to toes,” the brothers made do with a narrow sofa and chairs placed together to form a makeshift platform.
“If you were living in this apartment, what would you play with?” the guide asked the group. The girls surveyed their crowded surroundings. “Reading books?” one student wondered, indicating a stack of hardback volumes on top of a wooden dresser. The students also learned that the teenage sisters liked to dress up in the latest fashions –
likely replicated by their parents – to fit in with their American friends. One example, an elegant black hat with feathers, was passed around for the group to examine.
After spending the morning immersed in the engrossing stories of the Levine and Rogarshevsky families, Class 2 boarded the school bus back to Chapin, fortified with a deeper understanding of the Lower East Side immigrant experience, a vital part of New York’s fascinating history.
Browse photos from the field trip below: