The National Herald - Stavros Niarchos Foundation

Tuesday, June 01, 2010 Last Update: 1:54 PM ET
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Niarchos Foundation Preserves Tenement
(video)
Angelike Contis
http://www.thenationalherald.com/article/45429 (1 of 7) [6/1/2010 1:54:57 PM]
NEW YORK – A group of
freshman from Dover High
School in New Jersey

The National Herald | Niarchos Foundation Preserves Tenement (video)
Costas Bej/TNH
97 Orchard Street houses the Tenement Museum's unique exhibits. The Niarchos
Foundation recently provided a $500,000 grant to the Tenement Museum to support
the Confino Family Living History tour.
enter a dark hallway at 97
Orchard Street, on
Manhattan’s Lower East
Side. Past ancient walls,
under a flaking tin roof,
they knock on the door of
one apartment. A young
woman with a kerchief
wrapped around her head
and an old-fashioned long
skirt and apron answers,
in an accent that’s hard to
place: “Yes” The teens
are introduced to her as a
family of Italian
immigrants who have just
arrived in the U.S. Can
they come in After an
initial hesitation, 14-yearold
Victoria Confino ushers
in the group to a modest
parlor in the family’s tworoom
apartment, which
includes some converted
crate furniture and baby
clothes hung out to dry.
There are photos of
Victoria’s family on the
wall, the Sephardic-Jewish
Confino family from
Kastoria. There is also a
1906 black-and-white
photo of their city on the
wall and pages from the
Judeo-Spanish Ladino
language newspaper that
Victoria’s father, Abraham,
reads daily.
It’s 1916 – or at least that’s the year Tenement Museum staffer Lily Paulina must act like it is,
as she plays Victoria Confino, an historic figure in New York’s rich immigration patchwork. On
this school tour, Paulina never drops the role, as she slips in Spanish words and tries to
engage the shy teenagers in a game where they are all immigrants within a tenement
apartment on the Lower East Side.
http://www.thenationalherald.com/article/45429 (2 of 7) [6/1/2010 1:54:57 PM]

The National Herald | Niarchos Foundation Preserves Tenement (video)
The Niarchos Foundation recently provided a $500,000 grant to the Tenement Museum to
support the Confino Family Living History tour. It is one of six such family tours that the
museum founded in 1988 hosts at its 97 Orchard Street location. Says Niarchos Foundation
public affairs co-chief Stelios Vasilakis: “It’s a very unique experience, because the building
itself is the exhibit.” He adds that the museum plays a vital role in relaying the message that
Ellis Island is just the beginning of a real understanding of immigration history. At the
Tenement Museum, other families featured are from Eastern Europe and Ireland – all of them
among the 7,000 people who inhabited 97 Orchard’s cramped quarters between 1863 and
1935. Of the Tenement Museum, which is a National Historic Landmark, Vasilakis says: “It’s
not glamorous, it’s not shiny. It’s just an old tenement building that has been maintained and
looks the exact same way (that) it looked 100 year ago.” (The Tenement Museum’s walking
tours also include a stop at the Kehila Kedosha Janina synagogue and museum on Broome
Street, which was founded by Ioannina’s Romaniote Jews.)
The Niarchos Foundation was driven to support the project, explains Vasilakis, because of the
unique Greek connection. He explains: “The history of Sephardic Jews is a very important part
of Greek history. So we thought that the museum tells something that is very, very important.”
Though she says “Kastoria” (pronounced with a Ladino accent) incessantly throughout the
tour, Confino doesn’t ever actually say the word “Greece.” This may be because the Confinos
arrived in the U.S. in October 1913, just as Greek control over the region in Northern Greece
was solidifying after the Balkan Wars. When asked by the youngsters, many of whom are
Spanish speakers, if she is from Spain, she says: “Do you know Ottoman Empire” When the
kids look a little blank, she adds: “We come from Turkey.”
THE QUESTIONS
When asked what happened to send the family away from their beloved Kastoria, she
mentions a fire that destroyed their shop and home, but also the wars of her era. “They
started to take Jewish boys,” she said. Though Victoria Confino told the “immigrants” about
local shops, factory jobs and the glories of the U.S. education system, there was also lighter
talk. The teenagers asked her what the orange fluffy sheepskin on the bed was. She replied
with a question. “Do you have one” One teen boy quickly piped in, “No. We are trying to buy
one,” with his classmates bursting into laughs.
http://www.thenationalherald.com/article/45429 (3 of 7) [6/1/2010 1:54:57 PM]
On a recent weekday, this
student tour was part of a nonstop
whirl of activity at 97
Orchard Street and the
Tenement Museum’s newlyadded
108 Orchard gift shop.
People of all ages, including
many senior citizens, chatted

The National Herald | Niarchos Foundation Preserves Tenement (video)
Costas Bej/TNH
Inside the Confino Family apartment at the Tenement Museum are the type of
objects believed to be owned by the Sephardic-Jewish family from Kastoria
after the immigrated to the U.S. in 1913.
and waited for their tours and
buying gifts from a huge
selection of New York history
souvenirs. “Can the tour group
from Syracuse gather in the
auditorium for an
announcement” one of the
team of employees announced.
According to the museum,
demand for tours is up by
20%, though charitable giving has dropped from $2.4 million in 2008 to $1.5 million in 2009.
The Niarchos grant will serve as a major boost, notes Tenement Museum President Morris
Vogel. He told TNH that the Niarchos funding may allow the tour to expand to seven days a
week. Vogel underlined that the Lower East Side was one of the first neighborhoods where
Greeks in New York settled. Today, he noted, one-third of those who visit are from Europe.
Costas Bej/TNH
Laundry is part of the Confino Family apartment exhibit at the Tenement
Museum. The museum shows the apartment through a tour, featuring a staffer
dressed up like a member of the Sephardic-Jewish family from Kastoria after
the immigrated to the U.S. in 1913.
Kate Stober, who manages the
museum’s public relations,
noted that among the visitors
to the exhibit are the relatives
of the original Confino family,
who were very helpful in
providing information about
the family’s history. On a rare
occasion, notes costume
interpreter Lily Paulina, people
visit who actually speak Ladino.
“It’s frustrating,” she notes,
because they are the ones who
are the most excited by the
history - yet of course, that’s
when she can only take the
game so far.
http://www.thenationalherald.com/article/45429 (4 of 7) [6/1/2010 1:54:57 PM]

The National Herald | Niarchos Foundation Preserves Tenement (video)
WSJ
Shipping tycoon Stauros Niarchos.
thenationalherald.com/video/343.
Since its founding in 1996, in
the name of Greek shipping
magnate Stavros Niarchos, the
Niarchos Foundation has
provided some $1.2 billion in
1,800 grants in 90 countries.
Among major recent grants
were aid for the Haitian
($500,000) and Chilean
($250,000) earthquake victims.
The US spring/summer grants
for 2010 include medical and
other scholarships.
Beneficiaries range from the
scholarship programs of the
Greek Orthodox Archdiocesan
Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in
New York, to the Medical
Institute of the University of
Notre Dame to a plan for
Brooklyn’s Waterfront
Greenway. In 2015, the
foundation aims to unveil $744
million Cultural Center in
Athens, which will include a
national library, opera and
culture park – all designed by
the Italian architect Renzo
Piano. To play the game
“Become an Immigrant,”
featuring Victoria Confino, on
the Internet, visit: www.
tenement.org/immigrate. For a
TNH video on the Confino
room of the Tenement
Museum, visit www.
Angelike.contis@ekirikas.
com
May 28, 2010
http://www.thenationalherald.com/article/45429 (5 of 7) [6/1/2010 1:54:57 PM]