Rugs Installed in Gumpertz and Rogarshevsky Apartments

Have you ever wondered if the residents at 97 Orchard would have had bare floors or rugs? We've found evidence that suggests residents may have had rugs (in, for example, the front room of apartment 8, the Rogarshevksy residence). With that information in mind, rugs were recently installed in the front rooms of the Gumpertz and Rogarshevsky apartments. They are both reproduction carpets that are true to the period, made in the same way they would have been made at the time. In addition to making the recreated apartments look more authentic, the rugs also provide valuable protection for the wood floor against wear and tear from foot traffic.

The rug in the Rogarshevsky apartment is a rag rug, woven of scrap fabrics, perhaps by another tenement dweller in the area who made them as part of a "cottage industry"-style business. It is woven of three pieces, each three feet wide and hand stitched together.

The rug in the Gumpertz apartment is an ingrain carpet, made of two pieces, each four feet wide.

Special thanks to Dave Favaloro and Bayard N. for their help with the installation.

-posted by Derya

Family Photos

Did you visit the Tenement Museum this summer and leave wanting to know even more about the families of 97 Orchard Street? Our online photo database contains images of some of 7,000 people who lived in the tenement building from 1863 to 1935, including the Baldizzi family (whose apartment you can explore virtually or visit on the “Getting By” tour). Adolfo Baldizzi, who immigrated to the United States from Italy in 1923, lived at 97 Orchard Street from 1928 to 1935 with his wife Rosaria, and children Josephine and Johnny. While Adolfo worked odd jobs and Rosaria found employment lining coats in a garment factory, the family struggled to survive the depression. You can learn more about the Baldizzis by browsing through their family photos below.

Rosaria Baldizzi stands on the roof of a building. She is holding a purse in her right hand, ca. 1925-40. When Josephine’s job at the garment factory threatened her family’s Home Relief benefits, she quit.


Adolfo Baldizzi poses beside a wood inlay of the New York City skyline “home bar” he made, ca. 1930-50. Adolfo had formally trained as a fine woodworker in Italy, but after immigrating, was forced to work odd jobs.


Johnny Baldizzi and Josephine Baldizzi stand on the roof of 97 Orchard Street, ca.1935. Josephine remembered the anxiety people felt during the depression and recalled that as a child she felt more like a “little old lady.”


Josephine Baldizzi Esposito and family attended the MetLife/Tenement Museum Family Reunion in 1992. Pictured here are Roger Esposito, Maria Esposito Capio, Josephine’s husband George Esposito, Josephine Baldizzi Esposito, Gina Grzelak, and James Grzelak. Josephine was very involved in the restoration of her family’s apartment in 97 Orchard Street.


-posted by Amita

Tenement: Apartment or Workspace?

By the turn of the 20th century, New York City's garment industry had rapidly expanded, employing mostly young, female, immigrant laborers. While factories were often the sites for garment production, tenement apartments also doubled as work spaces. You can read more about the garment industry here. Check out these photographs from the museum's online database that reveal the conditions the workers endured.

Three women sew garments by hand in a tenement apartment. A cast-iron stove is pictured to the left and a fold-up bed is pictured to the right. c. 1890-1920


This illustration, which appeared on the front page of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper on March 15 1894, depicts a well-dressed lady and gentleman from the University Settlement, a reform organization, entering a tenement sweatshop. A bearded man is pictured seated at a sewing machine and several bundles of finished garments appear in the lower right corner of the frame. The caption reads, "WORK OF THE UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENT IN NEW YORK CITY."


Former 97 Orchard Street resident and garment factory-owner Isaac J. Elias (standing left) is pictured beside a long table, at which fifteen women are seated and working at individual sewing machines. Fabric scraps litter the floor. c. 1910-1930


Inside a midtown Manhattan coat manufacturing shop, former 97 Orchard Street resident Rosaria Mutolo Baldizzi is pictured second from the right. Rosaria is the mother of Josephine (Baldizzi) Esposito. c. 1940-1950


-posted by Amita

Here's something interesting for those of you who are interested in labor history. We talk a lot about the garment industry and unions on the Piecing it Together tour.

This is pulled from the NY Times City Room blog, where historian Joshua Freeman (author of Working-Class New York: Life and Labor Since World War II) is answering questions.

Q: In your opinion, what were the primary causes and repercussions of the early 20th-century conflicts between the various leftist unions in the New York City’s garment center?

For example, in his landmark book “World of Our Fathers,” Irving Howe wrote: “If anything, the Jewish Communists were more ferocious than their gentile comrades, for when Joseph Boruchowitz, the Communist leader of the cloak union started debating a Forvetsnik (a Forward supporter), what erupted was not just a difference of opinion but a seething hatred between men who only yesterday had known one another intimately.” (Page 333) — Posted by Miles T. Wood

A. The battles among leftists in the New York garment unions were part of a worldwide fight between communists and socialists, which broke out in the wake of the Russian Revolution. New York leftists had disagreements about union strategy and national politics, but the heart of their conflict lay in loyalties to contending international movements. As Irving Howe suggested, the social and political proximity of the factionalists added to the bitterness between them. In few places in America besides the world of radical New York labor were socialists called “the right wing.” During the mid-1920s, leftist factionalism crippled several unions, including the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. The inability of communists and socialists to work together, except during brief periods, diminished their influence on the larger labor movement, (though it nonetheless was considerable, especially in New York).


Anyone have a different perspective?

- Posted by Kate

Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags

Tonight HBO will be broadcasting a new documentary called "Schmatta: Rags To Riches To Rags." While the film tells the story of the rise of New York's Garment District, it will also be focusing on its decline. The garment industry, which had once been a microcosm of economic and social forces, is now on the verge of disappearing. For instance, in 1965 the U.S. manufactured 95% of America's clothing. Today that number is down to 5%.

In case you would like to read more or watch the preview, see:
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/schmatta/index.html

- Posted by Rachel

A Tale of Two Garment Districts

Long before New York's Garment District became synonymous with the square-mile section of Midtown West between 34th and 42nd streets, clothing was produced by hundreds of immigrants in the Lower East Side. 97 Orchard’s own Harris Levine ran a garment shop out of his apartment after arriving with his wife from Poland in the 1890s, paying two unmarried Jewish women $8 -$9 a week to put the finishing touches on items and an old man about $12 a week to iron them. (Learn more on our Piecing It Together Tour.) There were at least 23 such makeshift factories on the stretch of Orchard Street between Broome and Delancey. 180 still operate in the entire Lower East Side today (you can recognize them by the steam coming out of pipes near windows) and though demographics have shifted over the years, the shops continue to rely on immigrant labor.



During the Great Depression, Rosaria Baldizzi, an Italian immigrant living in 97 Orchard, was forced to find work in a factory (photographed above) in the city's "official" midtown Garment District. To see how the neighborhood was depicted in movies, books, and plays at the peak of its fame, check out this 50-minute lecture by historian Warren Shaw, courtesy of the Gotham Center.

-posted by Liana Grey