On Sunday morning, it was freezing; I took subway to the LES and walked over to the tenement at 97 Orchard. When we were waiting outside, I saw there are many sweatshops near here. We took the tour with the guide, I went up into the building, which is perfectly preserved and paints a very accurate and visceral picture of life in a tenement. This museum is very different from the average museum because we are physically inside of the rooms being discussed rather than a reconstructed visual that most museums display.
The guide told us about the life of two different families that lived there and had some photos of them. One is Levine family. In 1890, Harris and Jennie Levine arrived on the Lower East Side from Poland. They set up shop in their home like many other immigrants. Harris and three workers transformed the apartment's front room into a small-scale factory. In the room, I saw the baster and sewing machine operator stitched and sewed dresses. I picked the iron up to see how heavy it was. I can imagine how hard Sara's work was in the novel "Bread Givers"". .
The other family is Rogarshevky's family, which had six children in tow. Unlike most families who lived in tenement apartments for less than 3 years, the Rogarshevskys still inhabited 97 Orchard 5 years later in 1915. According to the census, we know that Abraham supported the family by working as a presser in a garment shop. The kitchen was transformed into a bedroom for the girls, while a sofa in the front room became a makeshift bed for the boys. It is obvious that the Rogarshevky was much poorer than the Levine. It was interesting to get a good view of the rooms to put things in perspective.
The building itself is the highlight. Each apartment is 3 rooms, and a total of about 300 square feet. The layers of wallpaper -- 21 sheets deep, showing the building's age and revealed the different tastes of the residents. The windowless kitchen, five people sleeping in one bedroom, and picking up the heavy water bucket, it is hard to imagine how these poor immigrant women carried these up multiple flights daily.