“In the 19th and 20th centuries, millions of immigrants from around the world arrived in the United States to begin a new life in a new world. Many landed at New York City’s Ellis Island and settled on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Moving into cramped tenement buildings, families shared a few small rooms that often served both as living and work space for as many as 10 family members and their boarders.

In 1988, New York’s Tenement Museum was founded to commemorate the American immigrant experience and the intertwined histories of New York City and the immigrants who shaped its evolution. “[1]

I had the pleasure of doing the “Building on the Lower East Side” tour at the Tenement Museum with Ali Smith. It was a phenomenal opportunity to get better aquatinted with some of the older and newer structures of the neighborhood and learn about the cultural groups that lived and live in the Lower East Side.

Amazing fun facts like:

Did you know that 80% of the women’s clothes in for the US were once all made in the LES? In fact in the 1960s/70s Orchard Street was known as Underwear Alley, as all lingerie wholesalers were based right here. The final blow to the fabrics and clothing industry to this neighborhood happened in 2001 following the 911 Attacks. Retail was getting less and less foot traffic, and during the security lockdown caused by the terrorist attacks, the neighborhoods industry in ready-to-wear suffered.

Today the Lower East Side is going through a renaissance, with the development of Essex Crossing, the revival of the famous Essex Street Market with an underground extension, plus an an aquaponic dream, the Lowline Park.