An Apartment Tour at the Tenement Museum

The Tenement Museum can only be seen on a guided tour, and that is the point. Its educators lead small groups through recreated apartments in the museum's Lower East Side buildings, each one built around a documented family that actually lived there: the Moores, the Levines, the Schneiders, the Rogarshevskys and Baldizzis, the Wongs and Gumpertzes, the Epsteins and Saez Velezes. You stand in the same narrow rooms, hear what records and descendants have revealed, and leave with a far more human picture of how New York was built, one household at a time.

Choose a tour by family rather than hunting for a "general" one; the museum says there isn't one. Book online ahead, since popular time slots sell out, and leave at least 15 minutes between tours if you book two. Children under 5 aren't allowed on most apartment tours (6A: Confinos is the exception), large bags go in the Visitor Center lockers, and audio or video recording isn't permitted. Add a neighborhood walking tour if you want the streets as well as the rooms.