The New Tenement

The Tenement Museum noticed a discrepancy in their mission and programming. The original building maintained immigrant histories of a specific period. To expand the time frame of the narratives told the museum actively engaged the currently reality of their immediate community and catered to that specific demographic in order to create a renewed connection to the neighborhood.

After years of offering tours of tenements occupied from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a new exhibit, Under One Roof, tells the story of three immigrant families from the 1950s and 1960s. The inclusion of a Puerto Rican and Asian family were chosen specifically to reflect the current demographics of the neighborhood.

A mission of the Tenement Museum is to connect past immigrant experiences with contemporary issues. It was never meant to be a stagnant, stationary narrative. Keeping this tenant in mind, the museum strategically annexed a neighboring building and created a new exhibition that extended the tenement tale into a new century (some apartments were inhabited until 2011) with new narratives. The connection between the neighborhood and the exhibit is visceral. The actual families that occupied the building provided the museum with audio pieces, videos, and original artifacts to fill the rooms. The exhibit’s vibrant storytelling shares the not-so-distant history of the existing neighborhood demographic.