Lower east Side Tenement Museum

The September 10th trip to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum has been my favorite first year seminar trip so far. I enjoyed that it wasn't the "average" museum. Instead, it was an authentic, untouched building with so much history to offer. Every item in the museum was what was left from the last tenents in the 1930's. Nothing was roped off and everything was in reach. All 22 layers of original wallpaper was still visible and air conditioning had never been installed. I was able to physically feel the environment the Tenement's residents lived in. The setup was brilliant and personally, I felt as though I learned more from this experience than from any other museum we've been to. Since the structure hadn't been modernized, I actually felt like I'd stepped back in time. An experience that power is hard to come by in a world where few people would prefer to maintain an old building over tearing it down and building something new. The Tenement Museum stands as a rarity and a mark in history. There's only so much to learn from documents and photographs. Experiences tend to thrive in peoples' memories while a reading is forgotten in time. The trip to the Tenement Museum is an experience I'm not likely to forget.