with the membership korrina, morgan and chanda gave me for my birthday, greg and i visited the tenement museum with korrina and josh. we attended a tour titled "one hundred years apart," to hear the stories of two women living a century apart and how they raised their families in similar ways within new york city's lower east side garment industry.
we began in a room set up as a 1980's chinatown garment shop. the guide introduced the wong family via background narrative, slide photographs, and video interviews with mrs. wong describing what it was like to come through immigration, settle in chinatown with her husband and work locally sewing clothes in a small factory shop. the room above was wired with interactive audio and visual elements. for example: when you tapped any of the sewing machines and placed a receiver to your ear, you could listen to a description of how the clothing was processed, or how the women protested for a union or how they balanced working and family care. a table at the back with a slow cooker and bowls told the story of how the factory owners cooked rice to go with the meals the women brought in (this way they didn't have to go out to eat and were able to get to work more quickly after a lunch break). in recorded interviews, mrs. wong shared how she and her fellow workers enjoyed arriving and chatting in the morning over their tea and coffee before starting up the machines. there were several stations in the room i missed listening to so i look forward to returning.
the museum owns two buildings now. above is the original building at 97 orchard street which is next door to the building with their offices and gift shop.
looking from the small bedroom into the kitchen . .
at the time natalie and julius gumpertz lived on orchard street in the 1870's and 80's, the area was known as little germany. they had three children, rosa, nancy and ulka who were all under the age of ten. there was no sink or refrigerator in the kitchen and the water had to be hauled upstairs from the building's yard, where the outhouses were. at this time in the early 1870's work was hard to find and the family didn't have enough money for rent and food. they requested help from the united hebrew charities in their neighborhood, and received a stipend of $5 (their name can be found on the charity's ledger for that year). unfortunately, in 1874 julius disappeared and natalie was left to raise the children on her own, probably with a lot of help from her neighbors and the community.
just like mrs. wong, natalie went into garment making and managed to set up a successful dressmaker's shop in her small home, making garments for clients who hired her.
the family lived here for many years before moving uptown to the yorkville neighborhood in 1886.
afterwards, we walked to soho for dinner and waited for chanda to join us.
admiring korrina's latest knitting project . .
we ate at the burger place we had been to with chanda a few weeks ago . .
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the moon was full this evening, and shone into the living room.
