Question C

[Jonetta]

There’s no way to put this delicately...were you surprised to learn that couples would engage in marital relations with other family members present in the room in crowded tenement apartments?

[Charlene]

I was not surprised. I guess I just imagined that couples would try to be quiet and to be sure the others in the room were asleep.

[Jonetta]

I must admit that this floored me at first but after thinking about it, what was the alternative?

[Robin]

I'm not surprised at all. I've visited the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side of NYC. Those apartments were incredibly small and it wasn't unusual to have 6 - 10 people in them. There was nowhere else to go unless they had sex in the hallway or outside on the streets.

[Jonetta]

Thanks for the info on the Tenement Museum, Robin. How did your visit to it come about?

[Robin]

I was researching things to do in NYC and saw the Tenement Museum. It's very highly rated.

The owners purchased two tenements side-by-side on Orchard Street in the Lower East Side. They've remodeled the apartments to look like they did at various periods in history. They have several different tours to choose from. We chose the "Hard Times" tour. They took us to three different apartments in the building. The first was renovated to what it would have looked like in 1880. Then they told us about a real family who had lived in that apartment at that time. The next apartment was designed to look like 1900, and the third around 1920. They had momentos and pictures from the families who had lived there and told their stories.

It was certainly a hard way to live. The apartments were hot and the only windows were at the end of one room. There were outhouses behind the tenement. Of course you had to walk up and down up to six floors to get to them. In the later years, there was one toilet installed on each floor.

If you ever have a chance, you should check this place out. Many people go back several times and take different tours each time. I definitely want to go back again sometime.

[Jonetta]

I lived there for two years and never heard of it. Definitely would have visited.

[Lauren]

Not surprised at all.
People were living on tip of each other but life goes on.