A Jewish Tour of the Lower East Side
In its turn-of-the-century heyday, the Lower East Side was home to a flourishing Jewish community of Germans, Eastern Europeans, Russians and Greeks. They lived in cramped tenements and peddled pushcarts or toiled in the garment industry for a living—when they weren’t agitating for social reform, or establishing synagogues, community centers, Yiddish theaters and newspapers. These days, the neighborhood has a different flavor. New waves of Chinese or Latino immigrants have set up their own shops, bodegas and religious sites, converting defunct synagogues into churches and Buddhist temples. And though still an immigrant hub, the area is also decidedly hip, with pricey boutiques, swanky nightspots, rising rents, and even a celebrity-proprietor: the quirky, vegan musician Moby has set up his own tea shop here. But beneath the L.E.S.'s everchanging identity, remnants of a gritty, tumultuous, and Jewish past remain.

BY KATE APPLETON

Now wedged between Chinese restaurants, fish markets, and hair salons, the resilient Eldridge Street Synagogue was designed and built more than a century ago by Jewish Eastern European immigrants. The synagogue opened in 1887, becoming the spiritual home for the first Eastern European Orthodox Jewish congregation in America. After years of makeshift gatherings in tenements, bakeries and storefronts, New York City Jews flocked to Eldridge Street; crowds were so great that policeman patrolled the area on horseback during the high holy days when as many as 1,000 people might attend services. Today, the congregation is still active, celebrating the Sabbath and performing religious services in the basement bes midrash.

The façade and interior of the synagogue reflect an eclectic mix of Moorish, Romanesque, and Gothic influences: 70-foot vaulted ceilings, stained glass windows, intricate carvings, and trompe l’oeil murals. In accordance with the old European tradition, the bimah (a platform from which the Torah is read) sits in the center of the sanctuary. Docents provide informal tours to handfuls of visitors who are welcome to wander, snap photos, or scan the tiny selection of postcards and topical books.

• Eldridge Street Synagogue 12 Eldridge St, 212-219-0903, 212-219-0888

So, wondering what those teeming tenements actually looked like? A guided tour is your only way into the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, a five-floor landmark built in 1863 whose apartments have been furnished to interpret the lives of former residents. Tour groups cluster in the narrow, dim, crumbling, and yet surprisingly ornate tenement entryway before heading upstairs to visit the apartments. Each apartment tour relates the tale of a different family. On one tour, the lives of garment workers are played out—from the birth of a shop owner's son to a shiva call for a family mourning a garment presser felled by tuberculosis. On another, learn how the Gumpertz and Baldizzi families scraped by during the Great Depressions of 1873 and 1929. Hint: If you have kids, opt for the Confino Family tour where children are free to touch things, try on clothes, and pester the “costumed interpreter” who plays Victoria Confino, a teenage Sephardic-Jew from Greece. Tour tickets are sold at the gift shop, which also carries black-and-white historic postcards, journals, kids toys, hip souvenirs, and a slew of books on New York, cultural studies, urban studies, Judaica, travel, and cooking.

• Lower East Side Tenement Museum, 97 Orchard St., 212-431-0233, tenement.org. Purchase tickets at the Museum gift shop on 90 Orchard St.

The oldest synagogue building in the city had been shut down and systematically vandalized for over a decade when Spanish sculptor Angel Orensanz swooped in, purchasing the property in 1986 and converting it into an art studio. Now known as the Angel Orensanz Foundation, the synagogue was designed by Berlin-born architect Alexander Saelzer and intended to resemble Cologne Cathedral. The 54-foot ceilinged structure could hold up to 1500 worshippers and was the largest synagogue in the nation upon its 1849 opening. The Foundation continues to host shabbas services twice a month—in addition to its vast cultural programs—and is a popular spot for weddings and bar mitzvahs.

• Angel Orensanz Foundation, 172 Norfolk St., between Stanton and Houston Sts., 212-529-7194, orensanz.org

• 'inoteca
98 Rivington St., 212-614-0473.
Rustic wood tables, walls lined with wine bottles, and plenty to nibble—fried olives, mini-meatballs flecked with orange zest, and some of the city's best panini and tramezzini.