Daily Archives: January 31, 2017

Tenement Inspectors

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Samuel reports:

Today I was inspecting buildings when I got a letter from somebody who needed an inspection at 97 Orchard Street. Some  inspectors and I went to 97 Orchard Street. When we got to Orchard Street we saw the building and we met the landlady on the steps of the house and went in. the place was dirty. there were mice cockroaches pieces of news paper and cloth.

The landlady told us that all her tenants were just throwing their stuff on the floor and that attracted mice and cockroaches. We asked her if she had any toilets that worked. She said she had two toilets in the hallway but   only one worked. She showed us the toilet and she pulled the lever but the toilet didn’t flush. She told us that the person who works for the plumbing doesn’t do a very good job so that’s why the toilets weren’t working. We asked her if she had any animals in her tenement. She said that one of her tenants had a chicken but the tenant always said that she didn’t have one. The landlady said that we could talk to the tenant, so she led us to the tenant’s apartment.

When we went into the tenant’s apartment we saw cockroaches everywhere. I had to sit near a dead cockroach. I asked the tenant  if she had any livestock in her room. She said that she had no livestock in her room. A new tenement inspector said “What is the chicken feather doing here and you said you don’t have a chicken!”  One of our bosses told the new Inspector that we should be nice.

We said that she had many cloths that were dry near the stove. We told her that was a fire hazard and she had to move the cloth before her house caught on fire. The tenant said that the cloth was damp and there would be no fire.  We asked her a question which was, “Do you have any running water in your apartment?” The tenant said that she didn’t have any running water and she was very thirsty. The only way she could get water was to go up three flights of stairs  to her neighbor’s room to get it.

Then we finished up our inspection. We went back to headquarters to see if the building passed or not. We all agreed that 97 Orchard Street did not pass the inspection. We talked about the landlady and the tenant. We tried to find a way for both of them to get what they need. We talked about all the vermin ( Rats and cockroaches) we had seen. 

After our meeting a couple of us went to a place to get bialys. I got a garlic bialy and so did most of us but one got onion. After bialys we went to go get some pickles. I usually don’t like them but this time I did. That was my day.

                                                                                               

A Field Trip to the Tenement Museum to Meet Victoria Confino

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The Trying First Day in America for an Italian Family

By: Abraham Stron (Oliver) 

LOWER EAST SIDE-  It is 1916 January 12th and an Italian family that just immigrated from Venice has been found by a settlement house worker and has taken them to 97 Orchard Street to help them get settled in their new home.

An Italian family with eleven children and two grown-ups has just finished immigrating. They got off the boat and they were the very most dazed. They took one glance at Ellis Island and had to blink twice before the kids started running around in joy.

The parents did not. They stood there and stared in terror as if they knew what the evil secrets of the island held. “Come here children, I have something to tell you about this island.” “What is it mother?” asked the one who looked to be the youngest of them all. “You must look your very best from the moment you step in, to the moment you step out.” “Okay,” said all the children.

They stepped into main building at Ells Island and the children had followed their mother’s advice very well, they looked their very best. They walked up the stairs and they were in the Great Hall.

It was the first time in days that the family could be standing on hard surface with no wibble wobble. They were fed jello and bananas when they heard their last name called over for inspection.

They had made it through the first the second the third the fourth and now came the fifth and final inspection test. “Have you committed any crimes?” “No.” “Well I’m sorry to say but here it says that you stole someone’s shoes on the boat ride here.” “What!” “Oh! Wait that was someone else. Congratulations, welcome to America!”

They went down the Staircase of Separation to the boat and got on it with joy as they made their way to the Lower East Side.

When they got off the boat, they were confused as for where they were supposed to be. The mother decided that they were just going to walk around until they found something or someone that could help them.

The family had been walking around for awhile until a settlement house worker came over to them and asked them if they needed help “YES” said the entire family. The settlement worker told them to follow her. They did exactly that and they were led into this tiny apartment to this little room where lots of young immigrants were being taught how to be American.

The settlement worker said, “I’m a little busy right now as you can see so I will take you to this other young immigrant who has been here a while and might help you settle in a lot more then you are.” The family agreed and they followed her into this very tiny apartment where they were introduced to this young woman by the name of Victoria Confino.

“Come in, come in,” said Victoria with a little nervous laugh. “The chairs and the bed are open for sitting. Ok. Do you have any questions?” said Victoria with another nervous laugh.

“I do!” said Wyeth in the back. “

What is it,” said Victoria.

“How did you find a place to live because are looking for one?”

“Well…”, said Victoria with another nervous laugh. “I did the same that you are doing, our settlement house worker pulled my family and I over to come stay here and we have been living in this tenement ever since!”

“Thank you Victoria”

“Any more questions?”

“Yes,” said everyone in the family. Victoria answered question after question after question after question until there were no more questions. They had figured out everything they needed to know. Where they lived, where the baker and fishmonger were and everything else.

“Thank you so much Victoria” said everyone. They were on their way out to their new tenement and they knew that they had a very long first day in the Lower East Side.

Fourth Grade Class Looks At Primary Sources

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By Freya Sutter

LREI- On January 11th, a fourth grade class looked at Victoria Confino’s primary sources. Victoria Confino was a Turkish immigrant.

The fourth grade class looked at Victoria’s ship manifest, naturalization certificate, her second grade report card, and a postcard from her village in Turkey. When the class looked at the manifest they noticed that where it said that the country that Victoria came from, Greece, was crossed out and Turkey was written in. We guessed that Greece and Turkey were fighting over land at that time so that is why it was like this. 

Next we looked at a naturalization certificate. The certificate was made in 1921, eight years after the Confinos came to America. On the manifest, Victoria´s youngest brother, Isaac was 11 months old. When we looked at the naturalization certificate we noticed Isaac wasn’t on the certificate. Instead, there was a nine year old boy named Jacob. We speculated that Isaac and Jacob are the same person and that Isaac changed his name.

After, we looked at Victoria’s second grade report card. Victoria was 10 when she was in second grade. Usually people in second grade are seven, but since Victoria had never been to school before and she couldn’t speak english the school put her in a lower grade. At school,  Victoria did well for someone who didn’t speak english.

The next day Dan and Tara’s class went to the tenement museum where they saw the Meet Victoria program. They got to ask an actress playing Victoria questions about life in America.

Trunks Unlocked

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By Cecilia Cunningham-dePedro

 LREI- These past few weeks, DT4’s class has been studying Immigration from the early 1900’s.  Sometimes, we were acting as the immigrants. One of the things we learned was that every immigrant had a chance to bring something to America from their home country. That could be photographs, clothing, soap and more. But the immigrants had to carry those objects by a trunk. So in shop we made trunks.

First we had to pick the size of our trunks. Some people, depending on what they wanted to bring, made big trunks. I made a small trunk because I am bringing my needle and thread from Ireland. The first thing we did was measure. Our pieces of wood had to be smaller than 15 inches.

After that we took what we had made so far and nailed the pieces of wood together. Some of us sanded the wood to make it look old- fashioned/older. Sanding the wood also makes it smoother and less likely to get splinters.

We then attached locks and handles to make the trunk easy to carry. Handle examples would be using leather and nailing mini nails into the top of the wood, using brass handles already made, or making your own handle. Some examples of locks would be, a small latch, an inch iron brass lock, or personalizing a latch.

We also were allowed to use ‘stain’ which makes the trunks look like oak wood or maple. The common trees that grow where your home country is, you might want to make your wood look like the tree.

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A Way to Solve Multiplication and Division

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By Dash

In fourth grade we have been doing multiplication and division. We use arrays to help us while doing our work. We show our work on the board.  Problems like 6 x 5 are easy and fun. We have studied our combinations up through 12 x 12. When we get a harder problem we are learning new ways to solve them.

In the picture below, Tara wrote down my work in red. I didn’t know this by heart at the time so I did 13 x 4 which is 52 and then I did 52 x 2 which is 104. I knew I needed to double 52 to get to 104 because 4 is half 8.