The Tenement Museum is facing backlash for scrubbing the history of the white immigrants who inhabited the building on Manhattan’s Lower East Side with stories about black and other races that never stepped foot in its now-hallowed hallways.
Chief among the complaints is the museum replacing the story of an Irish family who resided at the building at 103 Orchard Street in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with that of a black man – who worked near the building and lived in New Jersey for much of his life.
When the museum opened in 1988, it was devoted to re-creating the immigrant experience of the more than 7,000 people who inhabited the 22 apartments in the five-story building during the 19th and 20th centuries.
