Planning the Interpretation of the Rear Yard of 97 Orchard Street

FAIN: MC-50075-07

Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Inc. (New York, NY 10002-3102)
Stephen H. Long (Project Director: September 2006 to July 2008)

Consultation to plan an exhibit about sanitation and the water system in the backyard of a 19th-century tenement building that would explore issues of urban sanitation, immigrant life, the state of medical knowledge about public health, and housing reform pressures in the period 1864 to 1905.

The Lower East Side Tenement Museum seeks $10,000 in funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities in order to cover part of the costs associated with hiring outside consultants needed to implement the planning of a new Rear Yard Exhibit, scheduled to open in 2008. The Rear Yard Exhibit will recreate the backyard and privies (the toilets used by tenement residents from 1864 until 1905) behind the Museum?s landmark tenement building at 97 Orchard Street, and interpret the history of urban sanitation during this period.