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Excavation
does not have to be done outside and underground. It can be done
in the house. That is what the curators have done at the Lower East
Side Tenement Museum. Tenements were large buildings constructed to house multiple immigrant families. "You read accounts of tenement life and you get the sense that there's nothing but filth and squalor," says the museum's curator Steve Long.
But
the discovery of 22 layers of wallpaper helped change that view.
Part of the museum is its preserved tenement building at 97 Orchard
St. Built in 1863, the five-story structure housed 20 families at
a time, usually immigrants from Ireland and Germany. Several years ago Reba Fishman, the museum's paper conservator, began peeling away the layers.
Using
a spatula, a small spray bottle with water and plenty of patience,
she discovered a wide variety of different colorful wallpapers. "It shows these immigrants really did care what their apartments looked like," says Long. (END OF STORY, NOW GO HOME) |
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