Tuesday 13 March 2007
Gangs of New York
74 degrees today in Chicago, what they call "unseasonably warm."
74 degrees today in Chicago, what they call "unseasonably warm." Our weekend in New York was fun. Plenty of culture and plenty of drinking. Went to the MoMA on Sunday and did the excellent Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side on Saturday morning. After Manhattan's land owners moved fashionably north in the 1840's and 50's immigrants mainly from Ireland and Germany converted row houses into tenement buildings which often housed 20 or more families in what were only 5 or 6 story buildings.
The museum walk tells the stories of the families that lived in these homes from the mid 1800's to when laws changed to make it financially unviable for owners to improve them sufficiently enough to rent them in 1935. If you were intrigued by Gangs of New York and are interested in the amazing flow of immigrants into America then next time you are in the big apple take a tour around this area.
¶ 10:34
