Accessibility at the Museum

The Tenement Museum welcomes all visitors. We recognize the diverse needs of our audience and offer accessible programs and services to enable all visitors to explore the stories we interpret at the Tenement Museum.

For questions about Museum accessibility and how we can accommodate your specific needs, contact our Call Center at (877) 975-3786 or e-mail us at [email protected].

Individuals with wheelchairs and other mobility devices

Guided tour experiences are the only ways to access our historic buildings. These often include small, narrow spaces. Please note that, depending on the size, motorized scooters may not be able to visit on tours inside our buildings. Additionally, the Museum has a limited amount of wheelchairs available to borrow for wheelchair-accessible programs free of charge. To reserve a wheelchair, please call or email us at least 24 hours in advance.

Wheelchair Accessible Tours

Plastic covered couch and television in a recreated 1960s tenement living room.
Tenement Apartment Tours

Finding Home

Step inside the tenement homes of the Epstein and Saez Velez families in the 1950s and 1960s. Explore what life was like for Jewish Holocaust survivors and Puerto Rican migrants in a NYC neighborhood becoming more racially and culturally diverse.

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John and Caroline Schneider’s basement lager beer saloon has been recreated for the Shop Life tour.
Tenement Apartment Tours

Family Owned

Explore the importance of tenement small businesses through the stories of Schneider’s saloon, opened by a married couple during the height of the Civil War, and an auction house, inherited by Max Marcus during the Great Depression.

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Historic photo of the Forward Building on the Lower East Side
Neighborhood Walking Tours

Outside the Home

Discover how Lower East Siders shaped and were shaped by their neighborhood over the 19th and early 20th Centuries. From stores to parks, movie theaters to schools, discover how these spaces became important cultural centers.

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Reclaiming Black Spaces Image
Neighborhood Walking Tours

Reclaiming Black Spaces

From the story of Sebastiaen de Britto, one of the first Black residents of the area in the 1640s, to Studio We, a musician’s collective in the 1970s, we’ll look through windows into the past that expand the history of today’s Lower East Side.

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The Grand Street Guild and Saint Marys Church
Neighborhood Walking Tours

Building on the Lower East Side

Every building on the Lower East Side tells its own story. On this tour, learn about the architects, artists and everyday people who influenced the design and use of the neighborhood’s buildings and shaped the streetscape of you see today.

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Food Experiences
Food Experiences

Foods of the Lower East Side

Explore over 150 years of Lower East Side history through the stories of immigrant and migrant communities and the unique food cultures that defined life in the neighborhood! Visit 10 unique stops and 5 small tastings from local LES vendors.

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Individuals who are Blind or have Low Vision

  • Handling objects are available for our 100 Years Apart, Finding Home, and Tenement Women: 1902 tours. Ask for these materials when you arrive at the Visitor Center.
  • Visitors can book a free tactile orientation to the Museum before their tour with 2 weeks’ advance notice. Call or email us to schedule.

Individuals who are Deaf or have Hearing Loss

Assistive listening devices are available on all tours. However, these devices are not compatible with most hearing aids. For questions, please call or email us.

The subway station to the Museum, the Delancey-Essex F/J/M/Z station, has no elevator. The uptown F platform has an escalator that exits to the street level. The nearest wheelchair-accessible subway station is the B/D/F/M/6 stop at Broadway-Lafayette Street.

The Museum Visitor Center is equipped with universally-designed elevators and elevator-accessible restrooms on the basement level.

Regardless of Museum membership status, all visitors with disabilities can obtain free entry for their care partners upon request.

Service dogs are welcome on all Museum tours. Pets and emotional support animals are not allowed inside our tenement buildings, but can be brought on outdoor neighborhood walking tours.

If you are looking for language translation for tours, please call or email us for options.

The Tenement Museum offers a special $65 membership for visitors with disabilities. For a discounted membership, please call our Membership Office at (646) 518-3007.

Meet Victoria

Virtual Experiences

The Tenement Museum offers a slate of digital programs – listed on our Upcoming Events – including virtual tours and scholarly discussions.

We are committed to increasing the accessibility of these virtual programs. To request accommodations, please email us with a minimum of 2 weeks’ notice.

Stay in the Know

We are also hosting a small number of accessibility-focused programs.

For more information and to be placed on our invite list for these programs, please contact us at [email protected].

FAQs

Didn’t find the information you needed? Check out our visitors’ most frequently asked questions.

See our FAQs