Wednesday Tenement Museum.

I got off to a slow start and caught a subway to Bryant Park and bought a sandwich at 11.30 before the main lunch rush. Delicious – very grainy bread with goats cheese, avocado, walnut pesto and greens. I sat in an area where they have juggling every lunch hour. It was enjoyable reading in the sun.   There was a group of young people – late teens- who were obviously waiting and they jumped up as soon as one of the jugglers asked if anyone wanted to try. I was half thinking of it but chickened out. It seemed like a suitable frivolous thing to do. I went to watch the carousel . That would definitely be frivolous. There was a whole group of school kids waiting to get on. The nearest horse to me was  called ‘Granny’s Folly’.  But I chickened out again and went to explore the bathroom. In this public place there was a building with Ladies and Gents. In the Ladies there was a huge vase of flowers at the entrance. ‘They’re real ‘ I  accidently said out loud to noone in particular. ‘Er, yes’ i.e. so what , several locals said in an off hand manner.   In the cubicle, there was an automatic seat cover dispenser. I have never seen one of these before.

I got a subway south to the southern part of Soho / northern part of Chinatown. I was looking for an art installation called the Broken Kilometre at 393 Broadway. This is in my Peaceful book. There was certainly nothing like it at that address. Ah well. When I got home I looked up their website and found it was at 393 W Broadway. I did not know there was a west Broadway. The place was only 800m away. 

I walked east through Chinatown ( same shops and smells as Chinatown anywhere)  to the Lower East Side to a café called Café Grumpy. I had read about this in the CT. I had a nice flat white and muffin. I sat for quite a while watching the passing parade. Quite varied on the LES!

I walked north into the main part of the LES to the tenement museum. I was early so did a few circuits of a few blocks. The LES has been the first port of call for many immigrants – mainly European initially. In the 50’s, 60’s it was the main garment district.  There are a few shop fronts that have not changed. There are a few fancy new clothing shops, some new galleries and cafes but in between the new places there many be e.g.  an old plumbing fixtures shop .

According to our guide, currently 40% of the people living in the LES were born outside USA and 60%  speak a language other than English at home. The median wage is $40,000.

The tenement building we saw was built in 1863 by a German entrepreneur. It was very similar to many others. The Tenement Museum mob bought it 20 years ago as a derelict building. They had restored some of the apartments to  be like a particular family’s place at a particular time. There are 5 stories with 4 apartments on each floor. Each apartment has 3 small rooms.   If we say 5people per apartment that is 100 people . There were 4 outside dunnies and 1  outside water tap.  The first apartment was  lived in by a German couple and their 4 kids in 1890 for  quite a few years. There were only 2 windows in 1 room – the only source of light other than candles and lanterns.  In 1905 there was a Tenement Act which said there had to be 1 inside WC  for 2 families and every room had to have a window. Trouble is, they did not say the window had to be towards  the outside. We looked at an apartment lived in by an Italian family from 1930 and listened to  description by the daughter of the family about what sort of things they did.

In 1935 the government brought in legislation that said that tenement owners had to make all sorts of fireproofing changes. Many owners said ‘too hard’ and lots more people were on the streets that year.

I have just come back from having dinner at a nice place (cross  1 street). I remembered that last year I had had scallops several times. They are relatively cheaper than in Australia. I had some tonight and they were delicious. The crème brulee I had was just because I felt a need to boost my calcium and needed  some milk. My bag will not be the only thing that comes home heavier.