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For centuries rats have cohabited with New Yorkers and subsisted on their refuse. Rats thrive in what is almost an alternate New York, in alleys, tunnels and dank basements beyond the gaze of the city's residents.

There, deep beneath the city, rats wreak havoc: 26% of all electric cable breaks and 18% of all phone cable disruptions are caused by rats; 25% of all fires of unknown origin are rat-caused; and rats destroy an estimated one-third of the world's food supply each year.

Due in part to incredible density, the Lower East Side and its thousands of tenements have long provided homes to rats. Although rats can carry deadly diseases and represent a significant threat to public health, New Yorkers have at times exploited rats for their own enjoyment. During the mid-19th century, in the saloons and sporting man's clubs of lower Manhattan that served as a stage for much working-class culture, men would occupy themselves by watching and betting on organized rat fights.

Almost 100 years later, tenant activists on the Lower East Side exploited the rat as a symbol of neighborhood decay to agitate for needed repairs to their buildings.

The Bialystoker Synagogue recently celebrated its 125th anniversary. Organized in 1865 by Jewish immigrants from Bialystok, Poland, the congregation bounced from home to home on the Lower East Side before settling in its current location in 1905. Built in 1826 to house a Methodist Church, the landmark Bialystoker building is one of the Lower East Side's true gems.

Did tenement dwellers care about cosmetics? This artifact suggests that they did. A cosmetic case produced by A. Bourjois & Cie. of Paris, France, this artifact was found in one of the apartments in 97 Orchard Street.

A. Bourjois & Cie. began importing its popular cosmetic powders to New York after 1900; by 1920 they had opened a retail store on 34th Street. The prevalence and popularity of their wares and other cosmetic brands in the tenement wards suggest that many immigrant women purchased cosmetics in an effort to conform to American standards of beauty.

>> See more tenement artifacts in the Research Center

Behold the rat: an awe-inspiring feat of biological engineering, impermeable to a dizzying array of hostile external forces and always in search of better New York real estate and proximity to fine local restaurants. Get a glimpse into the life of New York City's most reviled immigrant population with Robert Sullivan’s Rats. It may inspire your respect, but is guaranteed to both repulse and fascinate.

-- Alexandra Mann | Director of PR & Marketing

...that during the mid-to-late 19th century, one-quarter of children born to Irish immigrant parents died before the age of five.

The Irish residents of 97 Orchard Street were not spared this awful experience. On April 20, 1869, Bridget and Joseph Moore lost their infant daughter Agnes to marasmus, a form of malnutrition, which she likely contracted through contaminated food. Sadly, the Moores would lose many children to illness and disease.

The high mortality rate was all too typical in New York's immigrant wards. In areas like the Lower East Side, an inadequate sewer system, polluted water supply, filthy streets, and overcrowded, often ramshackle tenements contributed vastly to the spread of deadly diseases such as cholera and dysentery, which tended to afflict the vulnerable young first.

-- Dave Favaloro | Research Assistant

On Mar. 18, Wal-Mart Stores announced it would pay an $11 million fine (worth an estimated 20 minutes of Wal-Mart's income) in a settlement ending a federal probe into the use of undocumented immigrants to clean its stores. The settlement requires Wal-Mart to create an internal program to ensure that the company and its contractors comply with immigration laws in the future.

-- Siskind's Immigration Bulletin, 3-23-05.

"We recently visited the Museum. The post-tour Kitchen Conversation was truly extraordinary. People visit museums and often leave with little reflection about the experience. The Kitchen Conversation cultivated conversation and reflection and made the topic of immigration immediate."

-- Bruce R.

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