Road Trip: Tenement Museum

A failed attempt to visit Ellis Island last weekend turned into a serendipitous trip to the Tenement Museum at 97 Orchard Street. If you're visiting New York City this is a must-see.

The Tenement Museum web site alone is fascinating, but to actually stand in the dark, creaky building is very moving. The tenement was built in 1863. Rather than bring the building up to code in 1935 the landlord evicted the tenants and allowed the building to remain empty until it was purchased by the museum in the 1980's.

I still can't wrap my head around what daily life could have been like for the people who lived in this tenement.

• Each apartment was just 3 rooms totaling 275 square feet
  If you're in suburbia find the largest closet in your house, and then live there with your immediate family for a few years.
  
• Plumbing wasn't installed until 1901
  Until then, 22 families shared outhouses with a saloon on the first floor of the building.
  
• Residents of 97 Orchard St. tossed their garbage in boxes on the sidewalk
  And so did their neighbors. In 1863, the New York Tribune described garbage boxes as "one festering, rotting, loathsome, hellish mass of air poisoning, death-breeding filth".
  
  

Tenement life was not for sissies.



97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement
Jane Ziegelman

Tenement Stories: Immigrant Life (1835-1935) (Raintree Fusion: American History Through Primary Sources)
Sean Stewart

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith

Wedding Day

AUGUST 14, 1934
The beautiful bride is my grandmother Margaret, and the little flower girl is Mary, my grandfather's youngest sister.

Tracking down the county marriage record was no problem, but attempts to locate the church record have been unsuccessful. The church where my grandparents were married merged with another church and the records have been "archived". My plan was to wait a few years and then try again.

A few years has now turned in to 19. Time for me to get to work.

Tracing Your Catholic Ancestors
Used to be difficult, but now not so much

The next two links are PDFs (boo), but very interesting detail about how sacramental records are maintained:
Caring for Sacramental Records
Repair of Sacramental Records

I Love Lucy's Ancestors

AUGUST 6, 1911
The super-fantastic Google doodle celebrating Lucille Ball's 100th birthday was a great way to start my day. The doodle leads to a link in Wikipedia with some interesting tidbits about her family history and I lost about an hour of my day zipping around the interwebs, tracking down Lucy's New England ancestors. The most interesting article I found is from the Chautauqua County GenWeb site, Some Ancestral Remains of Lucille Ball by Lois Barris, and touches on 19th century "poor houses".

And that, not surprisingly, set me on a different course for the day.

The Poorhouse Story
Good resource for learning about the circumstances that brought our ancestors to these institutions, but unfortunately for hard core searchers the actual censuses have been removed.