Built on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 1863, this tenement apartment building was home to nearly 7,000 working class immigrants. They faced challenges many of us face today: making a new life, working for a better future and starting a family with limited means. Inside 97 Orchard, visitors take guided tours of apartments that recreate immigrant life in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this Sunday Arts segment, Curator Dave Favaloro offers a glimpse of what life was like on the Lower East Side for Rosa and Rodolfo Baldizzi and their two young children, John and Josephine. As part of the Museum’s “Getting By” tour, their struggle to survive the Great Depression is revealed through records, family artifacts, photos and recordings of Josephine Baldizzi’s oral history.