Rogarshevsky’s apartment
We found our visit to the tenement museum at 97 Orchard Street in the Lower East Side fascinating. It was home to an estimated 7,000 peoplefrom over 20 nations between 1863 and 1935. The five-story tenement was built with 22 apartments, each consisting of just three rooms, and housing what was often a large family. We had a very good guide who showed us two different apartments, furnished as they would have been at the time. She told us about the lives of the two families:
A Russian Jewish family called the Rogarshevskys who lived in the building in the 1910s and an Italian family, the Baldizzis who lived there in the 1930s . The building was empty from the 1940s but in 1988 it was turned into a museum. The founders of museum advertised in the local press to find people who had lived in the building and managed to track down the daughter of the Baldizzi family and record her memories. We listened to some of the recording which was wonderful to hear.
Afterwards we wandered round the Lower East side and Harriet showed us the site of her father’s store there. She also showed us the famous Jewish knish shop, Yonah Shimmels and Valerie had her first knish.