5th Grade Lower East Side Tour

While not strictly a ‘hidden’ gem, the Tenement Museum is still a fascinating insight into JewishNew Yorker lifestyles. The action takes place on the Lower East Side (you’re beginning to see a theme here, right?), or 97 Orchard Street... Read more

The Eldridge Street Synagogue opened its doors at 12 Eldridge Street on September 4, 1887, just in time for the Jewish High Holidays. Hundreds of newly arrived immigrants from Russia and Poland gathered here to pray, socialize and build a c... Read more

The Yiddish-language daily paper Forverts, meaning "forward," was founded in 1897 and moved into this ten-story building in 1912. There were many Yiddish papers in New York, but Forverts was the largest, with a circulation that reached 2... Read more

Educational Alliance has served Lower Manhattan since 1889. Originally a settlement house for East European Jews immigrating to New York City, the history of the Lower East Side and the history of Educational Alliance are deeply intertwined... Read more

This block of East Broadway was known as "Shteibl Row," and is one of the few stretches of the Lower East Side where Jewish life is still visible. Shteibl means "little room" in Yiddish and refers to the one- and two-room synagogues that ... Read more

The Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy is the only non-profit organization dedicated solely to the historic preservation of the Lower East Side’s sacred sites.  Founded in 1998​

Built in 1826, the Federal-style building originally housed a Methodist church and served as a stop on the Underground Railroad. A door along the balcony exposes a roughly 200-year-old ladder leading to an attic where Canada-bound slaves hi... Read more

The oldest synagogue building in the city had been shut down and systematically vandalized for over a decade when Spanish sculptor Angel Orensanz swooped in, purchasing the property in 1986 and converting it into an art studio. Now known as... Read more

A true New York institution, Katz's has been doling out its signature overstuffed pastrami and corned-beef sandwiches as well as hot dogs, egg-cream sodas, and kosher dill pickles since it opened its doors over 120 years ago, in 1888. Grab ... Read more

Morris "Moishe" Cohen opened Economy Shoes on a Lower East Side corner in 1937, near the end of the Great Depression. Even as the state of the union slowly improved, shoe sales waned, and Morris’s side candy business became the store’s ... Read more

About 1890, Yonah Schimmel, a Romanian immigrant, used a pushcart to start his knish bakery. As business grew, a small store on Houston Street was rented by Yonah and his cousin Joseph Berger. When Yonah left the business a few years late... Read more

TRIANGLE FIRE The deadliest disaster to strike New York until the 9/11 attacks 90 years later, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory disaster is important for many reasons. The Brown Building stands as a monument to the 146 Jewish and Italian imm... Read more