another cold morning,
so we jumped on a city bus
(with our handy-dandy seven-day
unlimited metro cards!)
to head South to the Lower East Side
& a scheduled tour at the Tenement Museum!
oh, what a museum!
we selected the Hard Times 1880s tour
& were not disappointed!
our tour took us to the original building
(97 Orchard Street)
acquired in 1988 for the museum.
the building had been uninhabited since the 1930's
when fire code changed & (to the owners)
it was not worth updating
(hard choices in the Depression).
we had a fabulous tour guide
who helped us see into the lives
of two building tenants from the 1880s:
a Jewish woman who became a seamstress
to support her young children
after her husband disappeared...
(the museum has finally tracked him down!
he popped up in records in the midwest
& appears to have started a new life for himself.
good news for the family he left behind -
he was declared dead, and the inheritance
from his father in Germany fell to
his wife and daughters back in NYC.)
...& the German couple who owned the bar
on the first floor (and lived in the rooms behind).
this area of NYC, at the time,
was called Kleindeutschland
(Little Germany, that is).
virtually everyone was from German-speaking lands.
about a third were Jewish, a third were Lutheran,
& a third were Catholic.
my Korte ancestors (Lutheran)
arrived in NYC in the late 1880's
& likely passed through the Lower East Side
(though relatives were, I hear, in Brooklyn already,
so the stay may have been brief).
after our amazing time at the Tenement Museum,
we walked a few long blocks further South
for a tour of Eldridge Street Synagogue!
it was built in 1887 by a Jewish congregation
that was primarily from Eastern Europe,
specifically the Russian Empire.
eventually, the Lower East Side
became the home for other waves of immigrants
(due in part to immigration quotas implemented in 1924)
& the synagogue fell into disuse & disrepair.
a massive renovation project
started in the late 1980's -
including, eventually, a new stained glass window
(which is beautiful!)
original congregants would have brought
family Torahs with them from Europe;
they would have been kept securely in this Ark,
which can hold an astounding number of them!
in this Orthodox synagogue, the men sat downstairs
& the women (& children) sat upstairs.
seats were 'purchased' by the family,
with more prime locations costing more.
in the back of the synagogue,
the old wooden floors are warped
from men who stood in the back praying
and rocking back & forth on their feet
(so we were told).
as seen through the upstairs "rose" window
which faces Eldridge Street.
the Lower East Side is now home to
many Chinese and East Asian immigrants.
after another great tour
that really helped us understand
the history of New York City,
(& made me wonder about my
great-grandparents, who both arrived here
as teenagers - all by themselves -
in the late 1880's!)
we had one thing to accomplish
before finding some food: COVID tests.
Omicron was starting to surge,
and full vaccination & masking was (now)
no longer sufficient for some of our events.
we needed negative tests, too....
we'd seen lots of "pop up" testing on the streets
& found one nearby that had a fairly short line.
this was my first time getting a test,
and it was very weird to have some stranger
twirl a Q-tip in my nostrils.
we were assured results in no more than
48 hours (hahahahahaha).
then we went & found some lunch/dinner!
on the way...
super authentic...& (we later discovered)
a very specific regional cuisine
that is not one i found i could appreciate...
we were the only non-Chinese,
& i should have simply said
"i'll have what she's having"
but...well,
i tried two different things
& hubby tried one.
he liked all three & i liked none :)
it was another bitterly cold day (and windy!),
so we scurried back up to our place
& i ate leftover halal from the food truck.
