Local before arrival
Transporting visitors to days of yesteryear, this museum tells the story of 97 Orchard Street, a tenement apartment building once home to nearly 7,000 blue-collar immigrants. Forging emotional connections between visitors and immigrants of past and present, the museum focuses on the personal stories of those who had shaped America’s iconic immigrant neighborhood, the Lower East Side. Guided tours of the building give glimpses into the lives of prior tenants from the 19th and 20th centuries, and walking tours of the neighborhood demonstrate how drastically the area has changed.
