Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
program—for educational thrill rides. Look for family-oriented
activities and events at least 1 Saturday a month.
Dress warmly for a winter visit—it's almost impossible to heat an
aircraft carrier.
Pier 86 (W. 46th St. at Twelfth Ave.).
&
212/245-0072.
www.intrepidmuseum.org.
At press time, rate and hours were not announced. Call or check the website for the
most up-to-date information, and to see if the museum reopening is still on sched-
ule. Subway: A, C, E to 42nd St./Port Authority. Bus: M42 Crosstown.
Lower East Side Tenement Museum
This museum is
the first-ever National Trust for Historic Preservation site that was
not the home of someone rich or famous. It's something quite dif-
ferent: a five-story tenement that 10,000 people from 25 countries
called home between 1863 and 1935—people who had come to the
United States looking for the American dream and made 97 Orchard
St. their first stop. The tenement museum tells the story of the great
immigration boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when
the Lower East Side was considered the “Gateway to America.” A
visit here makes a good follow-up to an Ellis Island trip.
The only way to see the museum is by guided tour. Two primary
tenement tours, held on all open days and lasting an hour, offer a sat-
isfying exploration of the museum:
Piecing It Together: Immi-
grants in the Garment Industry,
which focuses on the restored
apartment and the lives of its turn-of-the-20th-century tenants, an
immigrant Jewish family named Levine from Poland; and
Getting
By: Weathering the Great Depressions of 1873 and 1929,
featur-
ing the homes of the German-Jewish Gumpertz family and the Sicil-
ian-Catholic Baldizzi family, respectively. A knowledgeable guide
leads you into each urban time capsule, where several apartments
have been restored to their lived-in condition, and recounts the real
stories of the families who occupied them. You can pair the tours for
an in-depth look at the museum, since the apartments and stories are
so different; however, one tour serves as an excellent introduction.
These tours are not really for kids, who won't enjoy the serious tone
and “don't touch” policy. Much better for them is the 45-minute,
weekends-only
Confino Family Apartment
tour, a living-history pro-
gram geared to families, which allows kids to converse with an inter-
preter who plays teenage immigrant Victoria Confino (ca. 1916); kids
can also handle whatever they like and try on period clothes.
The hour-long
Streets Where We Lived
neighborhood heritage
walking tour is also offered on weekends from April through Decem-
ber. Small permanent and rotating exhibits, including photos,
Kids
