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May 2006    |   Join the Museum In 1993, the Museum found this amazing artifact in one of the bedrooms in 97 Orchard Street. Perhaps used as a skateboard, this handmade item evokes springs past when kids sought to escape their tenements and explore the streets of the Lower East Side. The artifact was made from roller skates. The creator removed the adjustable-length plates from the skates and carefully nailed them to a 3" tongue and groove beadboard. The result is a testimony to the creator's creativity and ingenuity. Hopefully he or she enjoyed many sunny afternoons rolling around the neighborhood. What role do you think the American school system should play in educating immigrants? This is a difficult question that has been debated for nearly as long as immigrants have come to America. Learn more about this debate at Seward Park High School, one of the stops on the Museum's Walking Tour. The Lower East Side's first high school, Seward Park High was built in 1929 to educate the neighborhood's immigrant and first-generation teenagers. At the time, public schools were thought to be uniquely responsible for the Americanization and assimilation of young immigrants. Instruction at Seward Park was only in English, while the curriculum illuminated the virtues of democratic government. Today, the Seward Park School building houses five small high schools, including the Dual Language and Asian Studies High School which trains mono-lingual students to gain proficiency in both Mandarin and English. Though there are similar programs in schools across the country, there is hardly consensus on how immigrant students should be educated in America’s school system. Now that spring is here, the Walking Tour is being offered again on the weekends. Please join us. If you can't make it on the Walking Tour, check out City: Walks New York, a handsomely designed guide to 50 different strolls through the city. For much of the 19th century, May 1st was moving day for thousands of New Yorkers. Yearly leases expired on May 1, sending tenants all over the city in search of cheaper rents and more commodious dwellings. Business came to a halt as legions of New Yorkers emptied into the streets with carts jammed full of their worldly possessions. In what contemporary observers remarked was an unrivaled scene of chaos and disorder, liquor flowed freely, streets and sidewalks became impassible, and tensions rose to the point of an occasional brawl. As an incentive, many landlords offered the first month free of charge. But the annual practice of moving on May 1st also allowed landlords to set rents at whatever price the market could bear. New York's immigrant residents likewise took the opportunity May 1st offered to look for better accommodations. When the Irish immigrant Moore family moved into 97 Orchard Street in 1869, it was their third home in four years. But they weren't there for long: the Moores were on the move again in 1870, this time to 224 Elizabeth Street. This Fall, the Museum will open the Moore Family's restored apartment in 97 Orchard Street. More details to come this summer! Jonathan Mahler's Ladies and Gentleman the Bronx is Burning is page-turning history that's perfect company for a spring day in the park. And what history! Mahler looks at New York during the summer of 1977, when the city saw enough action for a few years: Reggie Jackson (above) and the Yankees' tumultuous championship run, the Son of Sam's killing spree, a violent blackout and a vicious mayoral race. Mahler vividly captures New York as it teetered between disaster and profound change. Join Jonathan Mahler this Wednesday for a panel discussion about the Summer of '77. The event begins at 6pm at the Visitors Center at 108 Orchard. Please RSVP if you'd like to join us. "New York still has so much pizzazz, because people make it new every day...People looking for a date on Third Avenue make it into a place full of hope and expectation, and this has nothing to do with architecture. Those are the emotions that draw us to cities, and they depend on things being a bit messy. The most perfectly designed place can’t compete." --Jane Jacobs, urban writer and activist. Ms. Jacobs passed away on April 25, 2006.