Innovative exhibit puts you in a Black family’s home in 1869 

LOWER EAST SIDE, Manhattan (PIX11) -- It was a time in which enslavement had only ended a few years earlier, and indoor plumbing was non-existent.  

That time was Friday afternoon on the Lower East Side. That is where a newly opened exhibit re-creates life for a Black family in 1869 in Lower Manhattan.  

The exhibit, called A Union of Hope, is an immersive experience that has never been done in New York with the level of depth and accuracy that the Tenement Museum has been able to undertake. 

From the walls painted a salmon-colored orangish-red to the realistic turkey and ham displays in the larder box, to the book on the nightstand explaining how to be a housekeeper or butler in white families' homes. 

The main feature of the exhibit is the re-creation of the home of Joseph and Rachel Moore. It was highly realistic and based on extensive research.  

"We learned who was in the household from a census record," said Kat Lloyd, the vice president of programs and interpretation at the Tenement Museum. "But the most important source," Lloyd continued, "was actually an essay that described a Black woman's apartment, that was written by another Black New Yorker in the 19th century." 

The items in the re-created apartment are based on that century-and-a-half-year-old description.  

The Moores lived in a two-room tenement apartment in the neighborhood that's now SoHo.  

The Tenement Museum said that re-creating it one-third of a mile east, on the fifth floor of one of its buildings is vital in documenting African American history.  

The apartment’s floor space totals 225 square feet and is re-created with intense attention to detail, according to the person who directs curations of this type.  

"There's two rooms,” Lloyd said. “This was typical in rear tenements.”  

“Five people would live in this space,” she continued. “Maybe everyone's not home at the same time, right?” A recent tour with about a dozen visitors only allowed half of them at any given time to fit in the larger of the two rooms — standing up. It is that small of a space.  

The exhibit also provides a look at the other people who lived in space with the Moores.   

That analysis shows how ethnically diverse some New York City neighborhoods were at that time.  

“What's particularly interesting is this was a shared Black and Irish household,” said Lloyd. “Joseph and Rachel's Irish roommate had married a Black man, named Lot Monday, 

and they had two children together.”  

The new Black History exhibit is one of 11 immersive exhibits at the Tenement Museum.  

Even though it opened during Black History Month, the museum says that it is an integral part of a greater historical mission.  

“Although we want to recognize Black history in February,” Lloyd said, “it is important to recognize Black History throughout the entire year. It is a permanent exhibit.”  

A Union of Hope, as well as all the Tenement Museum’s exhibits, are open seven days per week.