90 Orchard Street @ Broome Street

Tenement houses in 19th century New York were usually wooden buildings of four to six stories with four rooms per floor. Windows provided minimal light and ventilation, indoor plumbing was rare, and three generations of families often lived in apartments that were designed for one or two residents. For many years, this was the depressing reality for immigrants in New York. The New York Tenement Museum, centered around a preserved tenement building, presents the experience of living in a tenement on the Lower East Side; it’s not a particularly pleasant part of New York’s past, but fascinating for anyone who wants to understand something of the human history that went into making New York what it is today.