New York Tenement Museum- Irish Outsiders

The Tenement Museum, Orchard St, New York

A few years ago, I moved into a brand new condo on a sweltering August 1st. When I arrived with all my stuff, my landlord told me that the A/C wouldn't be ready for another month. Surprise! I lost my mind. You would think I was being told I'd be without running water for a month. I naturally started crying. That night, I combed the city in search of cheap fans. I yelled at my landlord to knock some money off my rent. It was a tiny condo with not too many opening windows, and that place was humid bordering on fetid for the month. It was a nightmare. Well, compared to my usual environment of perfectly comfortable. In retrospect, I am aware that I did overreact. Yes, I was sweatier than I cared to be for the hottest month of the year, but come on. This was a prime example of what the nauseating but sort-of-right-on hashtag First World Problems describes.

I visited the Tenement Museum in New York this winter- it was the most affecting museum visit I have ever made. We did the Irish Outsiders tour, and by the end, I was choking back tears. The tour made it easy to imagine life for the people who lived in the squalid building- there was very little comfort to be had.

The guides did a great job setting the scene; this particular tenement was mostly German immigrants, but an Irish family moved in (hence outsiders,) because this horrible place was a step up from Five Points. We learned about the discrimination the Irish faced when they came to America... funny how that seems to be a never-ending theme for whichever group is new.

The part of the tour that had me crying was when we learned the fates of the ancestors of this particular family. They are still living in the area. Imagine the gift of being able to see so much of what your forebears went through to ensure you had a better life!

In this tenement, temperature, smell, workload, food- things I rarely if ever worry about- what passed for "good enough" was whatever they could get. I think of those tenement dwellers, or the first settlers in Canada, when I'm getting ready to complain about needing a cardigan in the office because the A/C is blasting. I know two things for sure- I am lucky to have the comfort I do, and good God, I would have made an awful pioneer.

Comments

Writing at Night

This is how I do it. My brain turns on at the weirdest times. I first saw a pen like this when I was in my 20s, in a TV report about a movie reviewer, who used one to take his notes in a dark theatre. I searched everywhere, and finally found one. Before I had it, I tried a few other tactics to help me save for posterity the incredibly deep, meaningful thoughts I felt I was having at night. I tried just writing with a pencil in the dark, but that didn't work out too well. My writing, on a good day, looks like someone suffering from the DTs sprayed Silly String on paper during an earthquake. What I mean to say is, it's really, really bad. So, the pencil thing was a bust. Next, I bought a mini-tape recorder, but my middle-of-the-night mumbling was almost worse than my writing. It seemed like my Shakespearean musings would be lost to humanity. How tragic! The pen. Then, I got my flashlight pen. It was a revela...

Girls Who Wear Glasses

Image- Pinterest I had braces for 3 years. That may give you some idea of how out of whack my teeth were as an adolescent. My dad used to say I could eat corn on the cob through a picket fence. Even with good insurance, he still referred to my braces as "the trip to Hawaii." I had them removed just a few weeks into high school. I was perfect, for about a month. Then, one day in math class, my teacher asked me to do the problem written on the blackboard. "There's something written on the blackboard?" I said, which was both smart-ass and true. I couldn't see a damn thing on it. So, off I went for an eye exam, and, sure enough, I needed glasses. I was not pleased. Hipsters hadn't yet been spawned by the devil, and the only people who wore glasses were nerds and old people.

Now or Never Books

As I mentioned in a previous post , and as it's the season, I am in a purging and organizing mood. No, I'm not following Marie Kondo's advice as closely as I should be, mostly because it's SO HARD with books, and I have more books than anything else. I've gone over and over my bookshelves, but I just can't seem to part with any more titles. The vast majority of my books do spark joy, even if it's just the memory of having read it; I know I'm supposed to get rid of them anyway. Not sure I can. I have started making piles that I am calling "now or never" books. One of the bits of advice in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is essentially: if you haven't read it yet, you're never going to. I just can't face that. In the pile pictured above are some books that I know will be amazing, but for some reason I haven't found the time. I have to read these in the next, let's say, 2 months, or they get donated. It...

Blue Velvet Sectional

Search This Blog