The Tenement Museum: A Q&A with Annie Polland
The Tenement Museum is a remarkable place that shares the stories of immigrant, migrant, and refugee families, building connections and fostering empathy between the past and the present. As President Annie Polland said, the site is “layered, immersive, and resonant.” The Tenement Museum is an affiliate site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Visitors to the museum explore the site through tenement apartment tours featuring the historically recreated homes of previous generations of immigrants and migrants, neighborhood walking tours of the iconic Lower East Side neighborhood, incredible food experiences offering a taste of the rich diversity of local immigrant cuisines, and a recently opened permanent apartment exhibit, “A Union of Hope: 1869,” which features the story of Joseph and Rachel Moore, Black New Yorkers who made their home in the Lower Manhattan tenements in the years after the Civil War.
photo by: The Tenement Museum
Annie Polland, executive director of The Tenement Museum.
For those visitors who can’t travel to New York City, the museum offers extensive virtual programs including Tenement Talks with leading scholars, authors and artists, and digital exhibits elaborating on themes explored in its historic buildings.
To learn more, we asked Annie Polland a few questions about her interest in historic sites, and what at the museum is currently bringing her joy and excitement.
photo by: The Tenement Museum
Exterior of the Tenement Museum in New York City.
What's your earliest memory of experiencing a historic site? What is Your Favorite Historic Site?
The Milwaukee Public Museum had an immersive “Streets of Old Milwaukee” exhibit. You’d walk over cobblestones, peek in turn-of-the-20th century shop windows, and imagine what it was like to live in the city a century ago. It was somewhat dark, lit by street lamps, and made history seem like a stage you could walk onto. Suddenly I had the ability to imagine what life was like for my immigrant great-grandparents, or the past politicians whom I had learned about in school. That inspired my love of history, and made it clear that history could be about ordinary people.
When people visit the Tenement Museum what you want them to see, do, and feel while they are there?
When people visit the Tenement Museum, I want them to feel like they’ve entered a time capsule, or series of time capsules, and while here, I want them to have the chance to see this time capsule through the lens of an ordinary family who lived in the building decades ago. I hope the stories connect them to the past, and also, through conversation with the educator and fellow visitors, to consider the story’s impact on the present and future. What does it mean for us to have shared and experienced this story, and what responsibilities do we have now as a result of this knowledge and experience?
photo by: The Tenement Museum
View of the parlor of Joseph and Rachel Moore as part of "A Union of Hope: 1869."
What are some of the ways people can experience the Tenement Museum virtually?
A silver lining of the pandemic was our ability to bring the Tenement Museum to places across the nation, whether through our public programs–-conversations, concerts, book talks— that we film and livestream from our historic buildings, and also through our virtual field trips in K-12 classrooms. Last year we reached 31 states, and there were lots of kids who had never been to NYC or had never seen an apartment building. Through photogrammetry, an innovative, tech-enabled teaching tool that makes all the textures and details of the tenement apartment come to life in 3-D images, we’ve been able to create an experience that is both immersive and accessible.
What is your favorite part of your site?
Within our National Historic Landmark at 97 Orchard Street, I love the hallway and the staircase. It always makes my heart skip a beat, and while I’ve been there many times, it’s always an invitation to look for something new, whether an architectural feature or another angle to a story. Just down the block, in 103 Orchard Street, I love the plastic-covered sofa in Ramonita Saez’s apartment. It is a testament to both her hard work, her pride in her furniture, and her desire to invite family and community to her home. Most of all, I love how visitors of all backgrounds connect to this sofa, recalling their own family members and creating connections across time and space.
photo by: The Tenement Museum
View of the staircase at 97 Orchard Street.
What project at the site is energizing you today?
We are working on a project for our visitor center that brings Your Story Our Story, our online collection of 14,000+ user-generated stories, to our on-site visitors through a new interactive display. Share your story today, yourstory.tenement.org, and come visit us to see your story on-site in the coming months!
