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