Loved this article and related video from the NY Times this week! 88 year old Rita Ascione lived at 97 Orchard during the 1930’s. If that address doesn’t sound familiar to you, it’s one of my favorite museums in NYC, the Tenement Museum. Here, she goes back to visit and kina hora, she makes it up those steps!

I have a soft spot for that intact historic structure and the Lower East Side in general because that area is where my great grandparents settled with my grandparents and my own parents for a bit before moving out to the boroughs. Just like most New Yorkers with immigrant ancestors.

The thing is….ugh….I’m old enough to remember these tenement buildings myself. I lived in a couple of them during my “flee Brooklyn to the city” phase. Bathtubs in kitchens. The real deal. Do they still exist? There must be some seniors living in rent controlled apartments that haven’t been touched in years.

It’s nice to see a bit of NYC history every now and then. It’s disappearing so rapidly.