Irish Emigrants Tale Told Through Tenement Museum of New York

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The museum features a reconstruction of the Moore family home from the late 1860s and shows the hardships encountered by poor Irish immigrants in Manhattan. 

The Moores lived in a cramped and dank apartment in the building at 97 Orchard Street which became the New York Tenement Museum. 

Dave Favalora, Director of the New York Tenement Museum, said that the Orchard Street building consisted of 22 apartments holding 22 large families. In total, as many as 80 people might have lived in the small building. 

Their story is not uncommon for Irish immigrants who sailed across the Atlantic in the late 1800s. 

Favalora said that Irish immigrants were unusual in the sense that they didn't come to America as family units. Instead, they often came as young individuals and started families with fellow Irish immigrants. 

That is how the Moores came to Orchard Street. 

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