A National Treasure

The Empire State Development Corporation has proposed to acquire by eminent domain 99 Orchard Street, a sister tenement to 97 Orchard Street, the National Landmark owned and operated by the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and to sell it to the Museum to insure the safety of its landmark building, to provide for its expansion, and to benefit the public interest. The Museum supports this plan.

What is the significance of 97 Orchard Street?
Built in l863, 97 Orchard Street is the first tenement and thus the first homestead of urban, working class, poor and immigrant people to be preserved in the United States. This humble abode is the only remaining example of the type of housing millions knew as their first place of settlement in America and New York City. It was the first building of its kind listed on the National Register of Historic Properties and to be designated a National Historic Landmark.

In 1998 this humble homestead joined the ranks of the homes of Woodrow Wilson, James Madison, Frank Lloyd Wright and many other famous Americans to become the 20th featured property of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In 1999 the building was named an official project of Save America's Treasures, a program launched by (then First Lady) Senator Hillary Clinton's White House Millennium Council. These designations elevate the status of 97 Orchard Street to the same plane as other sites the nation has saved including George Washington's Mount Vernon, the Statue of Liberty, and the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

The Museum is at capacity
Attendance at the Museum reached 90,000 this past year. That represents a 100 percent increase in the last four years alone. Our public tours are at capacity. Every week, every weekend, the Museum has to turn away visitors. Since September 11th, while visitorship to other museums is reported down, people are beating down our doors to touch the historic men, women and children who reside within our tenement who have faced difficult, even dreadful circumstances before … and made it through. It is comforting. It is necessary. The resilience, so evident in the lives of the families interpreted in our tenement, is contagious; and lots of people want to catch it.

Over a dozen community organizations serving immigrant residents have collaborated with us on programming that uses history to orient and inspire new arrivals. But we have not been able to answer their constant requests for meeting space, programs that teach residents about the history of their neighborhood, or free ESOL classes, for which immigrants wait up to three years. School children wait up to three months to participate in programs that promote tolerance and teach citizenship skills. Scores of immigrant artists searching for places to express their experiences have been turned away.

The Tenement Museum has become an Affiliated Area of the National Park Service, twinned with Ellis Island, Statue of Liberty and Castle Clinton. At those great l9th century immigrant processing stations, visitors learn: Who came? Why did they come? What happened to them during their hours or days of processing? The Tenement Museum has been asked to respond to the unanswered question: What happened when they left the boat and settled in the City? Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty received 5 million visitors last year.

The acquisition of 99 Orchard Street will enable the Museum to serve over 200,000 people, including local school children and residents, as well as clients and staff of area organizations. Those 200,000 plus people will come with money in their pockets. As has always been true of the Museum's visitors, they will shop at the small stores and eat at the restaurants that dot the Lower East Side, Chinatown, and Little Italy - so many of them owned by immigrants.

Obtaining 99 Orchard Street is vital to the Museum's future.
The Museum needs 99 Orchard Street because it is a sister building and shares a party wall. 99 Orchard Street is a sister building to 97 Orchard Street. Built at the same time, the two buildings shared a party wall and party wall balconies, and their floors are at the same level. This configuration makes it possible for the Museum to achieve important goals that would not be possible in any other building. These include:

Install an elevator at 99 Orchard that will provide:

		Wheelchair access to all of 99 Orchard Street (97 Orchard Street's doors and hallways are too narrow to accommodate wheelchairs. Widening them would destroy the historic configuration and fabric of the building, the very reason for its preservation);
		Connections between 99 & 97 Orchard at the ground and top floors will allow access to 97 Orchard, making exhibits and programs in both 97 and 99 fully accessible to seniors and others with limited mobility to enjoy the Museum's exhibits.