Lower East Side Tenement Museum

81 Delancey Street | also 77 Delancey Street, 103 Orchard Street, 79 Delancey Street | Lower East Side | built 1910

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Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

1. 1888

   Residents begin living at 103 Orchard Street, a tenement that will house people until 2015

   The tenement at 103 Orchard Street housed residents from 1888 until 2015. Together with its neighbor at 97 Orchard Street, which was occupied from 1863 to 1935, roughly 15,000 people, from more than 20 nations, are estimated to have lived in the two buildings together.

   Source: Wikipedia

2. 1916

   Three Orchard Street tenements are joined into one building

   The three tenements at 103, 105 and 107 Orchard Street were put up in 1888, as large numbers of Eastern European immigrants, mostly Jewish and many working in the garment industry, arrived on the Lower East Side. An 1890 police census recorded 247 people in 54 households there. In 1916 the three buildings are remodeled into a single corner building, which the museum later makes its visitor center.

   Source: tenement-museum.blogspot.com

3. 1955

   The Epsteins, Polish Jewish Holocaust survivors, move into 103 Orchard Street

   The Epstein family, Polish Jewish refugees who had survived the Holocaust, lived in the building from 1955 to 1961. Their story is one of three postwar households the museum later presented in its exhibit on the building.

   “…the Epsteins, Polish Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors who lived there from 1955 to 1961…”

   Source: Wikipedia

4. 1960

   Puerto Rican and Chinese families follow into 103 Orchard in the 1960s and 1970s

   The Saez-Velez family moved in during the 1960s, headed by a mother who had come from Puerto Rico and worked as a seamstress. The Wong family arrived in the 1970s, and its mother raised the children while working in Chinatown garment shops. Both households were later reconstructed, often with their own furniture, for the museum.

   Source: The Bowery Boys

5. 2015

   Congress adds 103 Orchard Street to the Tenement Museum's National Historic Site

   The museum's first building, 97 Orchard Street, became a National Historic Landmark in 1994 and the site a National Historic Site in 1998, run by the museum as an affiliate of the National Park Service. The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2015 widened that designation to take in the tenement at 103 Orchard.

   “The National Defense Authorization Act for the 2015 fiscal year expanded the National Historic Site designation to also include the tenement at 103 Orchard Street.”

   Source: Wikipedia

6. 2017

   December

   The museum opens 'Under One Roof,' reconstructing three postwar families' homes

   Curator Annie Polland leads the opening of an exhibit at 103 Orchard Street with reconstructed apartments of three families who lived there after World War II. The Epsteins were Holocaust survivors who moved in during the 1950s. The Saez-Velez family, led by a mother from Puerto Rico who worked as a seamstress, arrived in the 1960s, and the Wong family, whose mother worked in Chinatown garment shops, in the 1970s.

   Source: The Bowery Boys

Further reading

• Lower East Side Tenement MuseumWikipedia
• Lower East Side Tenement MuseumPlace Matters
• Tales of a Tenement: Three Families Under One RoofThe Bowery Boys

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• Tenement Museum (97 Orchard Street)97 Orchard Street | 12 entries
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• 61 Delancey Street1 entry
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• Dirt Candy81 Orchard Street | 7 entries
• Woodward Gallery130 Eldridge Street | 1 entry

All 78 buildings with stories in Lower East Side