An expansion at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum will give a broader look at life in the city—beyond what immigrants faced in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Visitors will be able to see quality of life in the iconic neighborhood after World War II.
Currently, the museum's stories focus on the families who lived at 97 Orchard Street.
The building closed down as a place of residence in 1935.
Museum representatives say they felt it was important to tell the stories of people who moved to the neighborhood after that as well.
"Bella Epstein is the daughter of the Holocaust survivors. And she's been able to tell us about what it was like to grow up on the Lower East Side in the 1950s and she has amazing memories of her daily life—of the people who she met outside, her best friend Rosmarie DiBenedetto, an Italian girl who lived next door to her and in many ways the story of 103 Orchard," says Annie Polland, the senior vice president of programming and education for the museum.
In addition to the new building, the museum offers a new walking tour.
"Building on the Lower East Side," examines architecture in connection to resident's stories every Friday afternoon.
Also on the schedule, this Friday night, the museum will host "snapshot," a one-night-only event where the photography ban will be lifted and visitors will be able to snap photographs inside the tenement houses.
For more info, you can go to tenement.org.
If your family has a related story you want to share, send an e-mail to 103objects@tenement.org.