Lower East Side Walking Tour: Immigrant Life and Housing History from Five Points

A little over a century ago, the streets between Five Points and the Lower East Side were among the most crowded places on earth. Not long before that they had been farms and ponds. This two-hour walking tour follows how that happened, and how New York slowly, law by law, pushed landlords to put decent housing ahead of profit for the immigrant poor. It is an independent street walk and is not associated with the Tenement Museum. The route passes the back of the museum on Orchard Street, but the tour does not go inside it. The walk starts near the Triumph of the Human Spirit sculpture in Foley Square, close to where the Five Points slum and Mulberry Bend once stood. Your guide uses historic photographs, many of them from Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives, to show what has gone, and then points out what is still standing in the street walls today. The story follows the immigrant waves: the Italian and Jewish communities that filled these blocks, and the Chinatown that grew where the early slums had been. The core of the tour is housing. You learn to read the buildings: the disease-ridden cellar dwellings and shanties of the early years, then the pre-law, old-law and new-law tenements, each shaped by a new round of regulations. Stops include Columbus Park, the Eldridge Street Synagogue, the building of a Jewish community newspaper on East Broadway, one of the neighborhood's first parks, the former Allen Street bath house and Delancey Street, once the city's discount clothing strip. The walk ends high up in the Hotel Indigo at 171 Ludlow Street, looking down over the blocks you have just walked, which makes it easy to spot the different tenement types from above, with Midtown on the skyline. A professional local guide is included; gratuities are extra. Groups are small, with up to 5 travelers per booking. Wear comfortable shoes and bring water and a snack, since a moderate level of fitness is needed. Service animals are allowed, public transport is nearby, and the tour is in English.